# The Kiss.

A turquoise blue sky with soft whiteness of a few wind blown clouds when she looked up and soft sunlight, soft air. At eighteen one is alone and part of a beautiful day. It is a setting for ones very reason for existing; an possession of one's very own. There are other persons walking on the streets but they do not know it is a beautiful day. They are inconsequential figures going from place to place. So thought the girl in her pink summery dress of soft material, long, and touching her ankles. A large butter colored straw hat drooped over brown eyes, brown hair and a pale skin. She was like a cala lilly someone had said.

On her way to the Public Library and a drop-in visit to an old couple who were childless, she was thinking that this visit was an unnecessary one. The getting of some interesting books that Prince

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Charming had told her of more than compensated for the routine of a call on these relatives of one of her mother's friends, and the day was so lovely. What should it be another book by William Morris or could she find another Aucassin and Nicollette?

These were dream days. Carried along she was in an enchanted forest where Birdalone lived. Prince Charming had said"never read a book unless it calls you". What did he mean? Some day she would see him again perhaps; letters were now very engrossing and his influence had settled upon her fancy like a rosy cloak, coloring and giving her a shadowy goal that was too far away and too delightful to inspect closely. As she walked along, the heavy books balancing on her hip accentuated the slimness of her waist. Should she ask for Swdedenborg again? The last time, the librarian had said those books were only given to certain people. Well, she would say her

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father was a professor. Why should she not be
allowed to have them? The librarian was
unconvinced but relented and the mysterious
religion of Swedenborg was picked from its
dusty back shelf to consort with The Sundering
Flood of the romantic William Morris.

How sweet the air and how lightly she
walked. What was the reason of the visit,
oh yes, to get one of Allie's dresses to cut
over..

Inside the living rooms of the old
couple the sun seemed to have gone down. A
little brown-faced woman with round black eyes
and an eager yet timid manner welcomed her.
The old husband sat with his back to her at
a table reading. It was only a dream, a casual
visit, irksome but she'd soon be out
in the green, green world again. The dress?
Oh just a minute, it's here in the closet,
do sit down. She did not notice the
slow turning of the old man, yet knew he was

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there. A whispered question from him and
the little old wife so like someone who
lived in the forest on one side of the
Sundering Flood bent toward him. A pause.
then she came to the young girl. In
faltering tones and a merry yet embarrassed
manner she told of the request of her
husband. Would she give him a kiss? He
was old and-- it took no further explanation
The readiness of youth is its safe-guard

in many unpleasant situations. Over and
forgotten. Surprised and a little amused,
the girl nodded with a quick smile. The ol'
old man was watching. Slowly he rose; a
tall man, lean of frame. One hand long and
shapely for an instant balanced him as he
leaned against the table., Shw saw him
cross the room still wondering and faintly
disturbed. Gread grand father Scott had
been the only old man she had kissed and
that was long, long ago it seemed. How his

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beard had pricked. This old man's bearded-beard was soft and white. Something in his embarrassed manner gave her courage and she rose quickly with the rushing step of youth toward him. He had reached the wall and stood slightly swaying against it. A moment and in that moment a world of contact, meaning less than nothing to her. A touch of a too soft lip, a feeling of a childish duty done. And yet there was a flash of something just before the kiss. A sad knowledge from his old eyes that perhaps she did not know it wasn't her innocence he hoped for. Had he remembered the kiss of youth is so quick? Was that why he purposely drew back to make her reach nearer? After all, it was just like the kiss at a childhood party, for she brought to it light amusement. And yet did a flood of slow moving old blood surge thru his spare frame

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and make right, nullify desire that
spares not age but becomes too knowing?
She had fulfilled his wish and stood
smiling. But the old man turned and
walked slowly away. His books would
give him longer, more estatic kisses,
the kisses of memory.

Fini
enfin and the-end. -

My dearest Ez

This is my second effort
to become a Mrs. Chekov and I think its a
flor, but I may just possibly get there
some time. Not that I really want to.

Think of the criticisms the picture in the
paper-a the baring of one's past life and
the lies. The having to keen it UP, the
tumor on the brain a la Steveneson. ZAh
no, I'm only sending this to you, just for
fun, you understand. just for fun. I hone

against hope that it will be fun
to you. I don't suppose you have
recovered from the shock of my other
"stories". Well don't lose any sleep
over them. I have lots of little episodes
in the back of my mind and I will, will,
do you hear? write them out if I possible
can, and I WON'T WON'T, re-write them
do you hear?

Spring is in the air today
and I've got to go to the dentist this P.M.
and I had a flat yesterday. The biggest
nail I ever saw in a tire was waiting for
me alone neath the snow and someone's ashes.
And "when the windy white of March was
late"...... Farewell for now,
lots of love.

Vic.

P.S. The question is, shall I get a five cent
stamp for this letter or a package of
chipso- burning question.

Now that I have given you a letter that you
can show to the authorities if they charge some
disproportionate sum for my little homemade token
I had better not delay getting it to you in time.

Perhaps as I only wanted you to see the thing
you had better take it over to the light look at
it good and refuse it if they are too stubborn.

With best love any way

Gwen.

64 West 109th St.
New York City N.Y.

Dear Ezra,-

Your book was the thermoscopic clap of thunder showing how my thoughts of you had been gathering. Thanks so much for it, although it is my second copy, the first being thumbed and marked as to pithy passages, as well as favorite, and agreed with. I was amused at Viola recently saying, "Let me take it, you know I have never read Pound very much" and I thought of the constant controversies she had had with you, apparently *upon* what she had read of yours. You see it is horoscopically a failing of hers not to ATTEND to or hear what she is told. She always comes to a different corner of by a different route than that anybody tells her, because she was not really listening. I have recently acquired a new friend born in the same month who has the same trick of closing her mind in the middle of a conversation.

I have just come home from the movie of Grace Moore, "One night of Love" with Carminati, and I am still spinning at that tempo and her voice is ringing around me. Whereas if Carminati were to appear to me in the flesh with those ravishingly tailored suits and that face and those eyes, as in the first act, and should design to look my way I fear to think of the ruses I would stoop to to keep him interested! He thinks only of the happiness of love - I think the pains are TERRIBLE probably knowing only those. I am so grateful when a man is beautiful! I think in the middle of the picture, the night of Carmen, when he rises from the chair where he has been awaiting her return and draws himself up before the door- each step graceful, charged with emotion, and beautifully timed- is one of the longed for spots of the piece & very nearly what I pay my 40¢ for. But of course the music is great especially if you get at just the right nearness to the screen.

Oh Ezra! why can we not be beautiful to one another! I have never tried to be beautiful but s'help me I am going to from now on! I have only tried to be intelligent, efficient, honest and what not and been careless of the rest, taking it for granted, but now I am so grateful for the beauty of this man's performance that I am going to try for it. I have spent $1.10 on this movie already and seen it four times. I suppose you will be amazed that I can still be illus-ified by the illusions of the drama, but I can, like any novice and go away in a trance as complete as any fact and more so. I'd better stop raving but I shall not stop seeing it as it comes out into the cheaper theatres. Yes sir I am going to be beautiful! Of course I won't steal the pennies off the newsstands for it but there are ways! Besides I mean grace, care in grooming(not the Belasco-tiger kind) and serenity. It is grace mostly isn't it? You, I remember, have that, now don't blush because its true and you still have.

I went to a lecture this Friday by a Francis J. Reilly on composition, "The elements of, 9 values, 36 possible contrasts of these values in the abstract and the use of pattern, attitude, emphasis, balance rhythm, and harmony. Today I go to the second and last lecture- on Color.

ic passions and as for the music it is simply overwhelming. I think
the Nishikigi is the most melodic & rhythmically beautiful thing I
have ever read. And how you have rescued it ! With all due respect
to Fenollosa, his explanations are wholly dry beside yours & the text,
as you give it.

I took it out to lunch with me a couple of days last week and
each time lost myself completely in that beautiful halting rhythm,
till I almost wore the sleeves and lived their dream of beauty and
could not come back to sq. ft. & requisitions for nearly an hour after
the other hour- very bad for business.

What a beautiful use they and you make of tangle, woven weft,
grass, meet & meeting! And it is not that trick of introducing an action
with a graphic QUICK description, ahead of it, delightful- "the very
old cave all glittering bright within like the flicker of fire" comes
so suddenly as to be like a flash of passionate thought-taking the
breath away. And the sudden introduction of "sleeves" in the midst of
thought and feeling brings one back to earth again like the lower dip
of a vast pendulum-swing out over the universe. "Until I and my sleeves
are faded."

And Suma Genji is beautiful too! The suddenness of the words,
"How beautiful this sea is" is thrilling and all the descriptions of the
sea are exquisite besides the idea of building a play just on so simple
a thing as a common love of the sea'.

I am afraid to talk about my own painting for I fear you will
think I have not a proper modesty and respect for the medium. You know
we have quite a few good pastels in the Met. a portrait of Geo. Moore &
by Manet, several things by Degas besides the oils by Monet, Pissaro &
Corot that feel like pastel. I started it in preference to oils because

I intended to go soon into Water color, then continued because I was charmed, it was quick, and I thought I needed to learn to see *color* (through having been so long thinking in black and white) *better* before branching off. Of course as Winter drew on, the speed of work in a bitter cold wind was so small in its favor(and I have not enough invention to do indoor studio stuff) that it was intriguing and a salvation to me as above.

Sticking along the Hudson *all by myself* in ALL weathers was fascinating and doing anything I pleased in the way of composition, more so and here I am around to summer again! I frame them quickly in rather cheap frames for sale & because I can do it myself. And have so far worked on the less expensive papers & boards but have started on/velvet & sand a little. I have found an embossed-glassine-featherbone paper/that serves to protect them for carrying them unframed and have never even tried to look at a fixatif.

The portraits by Manet & Monet mentioned above are on the THIRD LINE *UP* in the Met. SO 0 0 0 EASY to STUDY - & the Degas on the lower line - NICE!.

As Huxley recommends I try! Not to fall into excesses of nature worship"&"to simplify"but yet I have so little gotten my fill of it all - having only the CLEAR SAT. & SUNDAYS & a few evenings between 6-8 PM - that I do not want to be too exalted in selection, I AM HAVING FUN STILL right now be! .Legree

Well, forgive my impatience & forwardness and remember that I put vaseline on my eyelashes on purpose to make them LONG & SEDUCTIVE and beware

With love

Gwen.

want you to read without
repeating in this.

Thank you so much dear Ezra for your
kindness. May I say you misjudge me
when you think 'I'm proud. I'm trying to
learn the difference between pride and
false pride, but it beats me. It says in
my horoscope that I know the gross from the
merely bad. I will, will, send you Eszangeline
Adams book and you will, will read it and
marvel some day.

I want to say so much more but
you hope I'm written out don't you?

When my mother sees fit to call for me
to help her pack or tell me that I have
done nothing to help her I shall glue my
lips if I can, which I can't and let her
do just what she wants to as I always have
and if she catches cold because she is
snorting around after her pension and writing
thank you letters and sweating and gets
pneumonia, it will be eventually landed on me
but Gwen and I understand. My mother is young
looking for &- 70 but only in looks.
She does not eat right, she is careless about
perspiring, but she is happy doing the
unessential so why make her unhappy?

Lots and lots of love dear Ezra. Will all
this hurt you or come out in your words which you
are continually writing. I know nothing of your
real life but I'm watchin' yuh and always have.
Ever yours

Vio.

Economy at the Brown's.

"Now my dears," said Mom Brown one Friday morning, "your father's check didn't come and Monday is a holiday, but we'll have some fun seeing how we can economize. Let's try and emulate the economy of foreign nations we hear so much about." The young Brown's were a bit daunted at this, but Mom continued. "Here, Barbara, you turn to the chapter on edible weeds in Mrs. Ballen's book-cook, ha ha, fun already, I meant cook-book, while I go out and look at the rose-bush. I read somewhere that the Swedish people make a lovely soup out of those red things, hips I think they call them. Fortunately I have some sour cream which is the other ingredient. Conrad, you go out back and see if you can find some nice weeds that Barbara will tell you about."

Sue, who had been to New York and knew a

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thing or two about what peddlers sold,
spoke up and told Mom about eating sun-
flower seeds, much prized by the
Russians. "Well, yes," said Mom, "but
it does seem a pity to take candy from a
baby, I mean the birds, poor things."
"That reminds me," said Conrad, "I'll take
out my .22 and get a robin. Current
events in school mentioned that they eat
a great many down south." Barbara who
was diligently reading about the edible
weeds now looked up with inspiration
aglow. "I saw three plants out where
Mr. Snek parks his car", she cried, and ran
out to get them.

Mom gathered a handful of the red
rose hips, and then took a turn in the
garden, having remembered that the
Japanese were very fond of boiled radish.
She found some forgotten ones now grown
to the size of turnips and was very pleased

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with herself.

Conrad's search for robins in Jersey
in October having proved futile, he
gathered some dandelion plants as he had
seen the Italians do so often. As he came
toward the house, he joined Barbara with
some car-oil soaked plants in one
hand and Danish toadstools in the other.
Then Sue appeared with her contribution,
three sun-flower seeds, all the birds had
left. But they could hardly get in the
kitchen door for the stench of boiling
radish which greeted their nostrils, and
Mom was sitting holding on to her cheeks as
the acidity of the Swedish soup had
baralyzed her neck glands and she thought
she was "coming down" with mumps.

As they burnt a rag to counteract
the smell of the radish and fed Mom sodium
bicarbonate, the young Brown's consoled
her with the thought that foreign nations

Whoever could make the man in the
show-window laugh was to get a new
automobile.

There he sat day by day and the
people looking in at him had tried
everything they could think of, but
nary a ghost of a smile appeared on
his sad face.

Suddenly a woman stood in front
of him, and catching his glance she
lifted her lower plate of false teeth
and stuck out her tongue underneath it.

The man fell over backwards and it
wasn't fair because they took him to the
hospital, and nobody knew where the woman
went.

V. Baxter, 195 Jefferson Ave. Tenafly
N.J.

Surrender.

"Am I never to have anything to eat
in this house but pea soup on Monday, rice on
Tuesday, and beans on Wednesday year in and
year out?" stormed Mr. Brown. "But dear,"
began his wife. "I know what your'e going
to say," sputtered Mr. Brown, "peas, rice and
beans were 3 lbs. for 10¢ and so you spent
the weeks' budget on them. I passed a shop
yesterday where celery was 5¢ a bunch." He
was bellowing now, so Mrs. Brown sat listen-
ing with folded hands. "Gosh, do we have to
eat what the store-man tells us to? You go
into a store and see 4 cans of tomato soup
for 15¢ and stale vanilla wafers at 12¢ a lb.
You come home with 8 cans of the former and
5 lbs. of the latter and we eat that for weeks
I'll show you how to buy", and jamming on his
hat, Mrs. Brown was off to the Food Shoppe.

The clerk beamed upon Mr. Brown as with
arms outspread, hands grasping the counter
he leaned forward the better to

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hear orders. "I want some of those cranberries I saw in the window last week, 2 lbs. for 29¢", said Mr. Brown in a calm and, he felt, authoritative tone. "Sorry sir, they're 19¢ a lb. today, but we have 4 cans of Starbright cleanser for 9¢ today, a great bargain and very fresh sir."

A withering glance was Mr. Brown's answer but he spoke again. "How about that celery at 5¢ a bunch I saw?" "Oh that," said the clerk, "all gone sir, but this broom, you'll never see such a broom again for 28¢ sir." Turning his back upon the man Mr. Brown now accosted the butcher. "Where is that chopped meat for 21¢ a lb. my wife gets?" said he. "Yes sir, but it's 27¢ today, how many pounds did you say?" "Do you mean to sav, sir," snapped Mr. Brown, "that in order to get chopped meat at 21¢ which is more than it's worth anywav, I would have had to

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buy 16 lbs. of it on that particular day
in order to, " but the strain of thinking
along this line proving too much for Mr.
Brown's irascible mood by now, he turned
and dashed madly out of the store. On his
way to the train, Mr. Brown had to pass his
friend Smith's house. I'll just peak
in his dining-room window and see what he's
eating, thought Mr. Brown. He's probably
having toast and honey, bacon, eggs,
everything good. But alas, a sorry sight
presented itself to the prying gaze of Mr.
Brown. There sat Smith helping himself
to heaping tablespoonsfull of some white
powdery stuff. "Starbright cleanser",
groaned Mr. Brown, and his eyes glazed with
horror as he watched little Willy Smith
pour karo syrup on some chopped broom
straws. Making a peculiar mumbling sound
Mr. Brown staggered away while the Smith's
radio was heard playing "I Surrender Dear."

Aunt Lally's Cigar-smoker.

My Aunt Lally who lives up-state, wrote me that she was coming to the big city for some Christmas shopping. Of course I met her at Grand Central and was very glad to see that she was the same gentle person of twenty years ago. The same soft-spoken, non-assertive auntie, and I anticipated a pleasant visit talking over old days and her last visit before there were Safety Zones in the streets. The "do you remembers" included that old joke of how the conductor, on being hailed by Auntie from the curb, had said, as he stopped the car for her, from some obscure motive in his Irish make-up, "Faith and was ye waitin' fer me to carry ye across?" This episode had remained in the family for years and never failed to put the Grange ladies at home in good humor whenever Aunt Bally told them of her first visit to

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New York.

We came home by subway and I noticed Aunt Lally observing everything in her quiet way. Opposite to us sat an old man with a book wrapped in brown paper and wearing glasses. There was nothing more unusual in his appearance except that he had a cigar in his mouth but as no smoke issued from it I concluded that he was but waiting to light it on the street. I saw that Auntie was watching the old fellow intently so that I too, became interested. We both saw the woman sitting next him get up and take an unoccupied seat across from him suddenly but from the old man's expression one would have thought she did this the better to see the station numbers, as he glanced across at her now and then in the most understanding manner; in fact we thought almost lovingly. He began to

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make nervous gestures however, such as
taking off his glasses, wiping them
deliberately and folding the case over
them with a snap. He undid the
wrapper on his book and wrapped it on
again, ever and anon giving a deep
gaze at his erstwhile seat companion.
At last there appeared a red light at
the end of his half-consumed cigar, and
to my intense surprise Auntie's finger
was pointing at the man and I heard her
say aloud to the car full of people,
"Look, that man is smoking in the
subway." No commotion was noticeable,
no one turned his head, every face was
as expressionless as before and the
old man seemed to look pleased as his
lips drew away from his yellowed teeth
for just a second. He got up now, as
we neared 96th street and we saw that
the woman remained seated. She was

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not, then, his loving companion,
With just a hint of a backward glance
the cigar-smoker walked to the door,
followed by Auntie's mild gaze. The
car window at her back was open. The
old man continued walking until he was
just outside, within speaking distance,
and there he stood puffing away and
looking straight in Auntie's eyes for
she had now risen and faced him.

Before I could recover my wits I heard
Auntie say, "Don't you know it's against
the rules to smoke in the subway?"

The train now began to move but above
the noise I heard the old curmudgeon
say with no doubt his most polite
accents, through teeth still clenched
on his stogy, "Go to Hell."

Did my gentle Aunt faint or collapse
on the seat? Not a bit of it. To my
everlasting horror she reached through

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that window and, slapping the offensive
weed from the old devil's mouth, she
said calmly, "Maybe you'll get there
before I do." It was I who collapsed
and only revived in time for our exit
with the help of smelling salts which
is always carried by such meek and yet
efficient women as my Aunt Lally.

V. Baxter

195 Jefferson Avenue
Tenafly, N.J.

Breakfast at the Brown's.

Mom Brown had bought one of those cute
breakfast sets which just fit in the kitchen
between the stove and the windows. She had
also indulged her yearning for a tea-kettle
that blows off steam in a shrill whistling
sound at the moment water boils. The table
seating four was already set with an en-
ticing breakfast and Mom was waiting happily
for the family's appearance. One by one
they entered showing pleased surprise. First
Sue with a cheery "good-morning Mom", then
Barbara and Conrad, then father with his paper.

"Seat yourselves my dears," beamed
Mom. The cat jumped on to Barbara's chair,
her tail hanging gracefully in the plate.
Barbara, not wishing to spoil the festive
atmosphere controlled her voice well as she
said playfully, "Gouge eyes out, kitty."
But kitty refused to vacate. Conrad
seated himself after father whose paper got

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him" in the corner of his eye, but he smiled bravely although Sue was pushing his feet out of her lap as he tried vainly to extricate them from the vicinity of father's legs. Barbara was still gently remonstrating with the cat in even tones that seemed to hiss, "twist nose off kitty, knock tail in,"

Finally kitty jumped down for her saucer of milk and Barbara could be seated. She was the first to question Mom as to her place. "Oh, my dears, I quite forgot there were five of us. Who'll sit next to brother?" said Mom hopefully. "I won't" said Sue, he'll breathe in my food."

At this moment the cat's claws caught Barbara in the thigh and giving a howl she pushed the cat, showing the table into Suaan's stomach and she in revenge landed a neat kick at Conrad's

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Shin's. Conrad kicked back but the blow hit father on the knee-pan and upset the hot coffee against his breast. Father, jumping up quickly, hoisted the bird-cage exactly above his head a few feet and the seed poured down his neck. The tea-kettle now blew its whistle and the cat leaped in front of Mom who tripped and fell across the table, her left elbow fitting neatly in the cream-jug and her right hand clenched in the butter. Father got the hammer and pounded the cream-jug off Mom's elbow and scraped the butter from her hand.

Mom never could understand what happened. The breakfast set looked so nice in the pictures.

Tenafly, N.J.

Apr. 17,1936

Hello darling old Ezzie:

Sooo I come under the category of
tennis and nothings- well I wish I could play
tennis backwards because the bulge with me is
around tother side.
My my I was so surprise
to see your special envelope in the box, the
top with little tears as usual cause it w on't
fit the box--well here we go, whoops, answering
it right away because its spring and when Aries i
is in the sky there is lots of high powered
imagination and chatter going on, and that
goes twice with me who am Mercury Mars and
venus Aries ridden, didst look me up? You
didn't say you had looked anybody up- now you
can't make me believe that. I don't care
whether you are working your brains to a pulp
you've got to write letters to me cause
I'm your little know-nothing you know. If
someone turns out to have a beard I take a
horrid dislike to him right away and nothing
noooothing can make me like beards. *Well
I'm going to gallop on writing the first thing
that eye pops into me 'ead. At last
Hauptman is kilt and there's a horrible
tub murder in Greenwich village a lady
blue-stocking found in bath tub garrotted
aannndd a pervert suspect almost cornered.
I'll bet if a pervert walked into my kitchen
I'd scare the life out o him and he jump into
my bath tub and choke himself. How's that.
Oh,I must tell you about the Russian dancers.
I took the girls the other night - expected
to see Scheherazade but neglected to find
out beforehand- however the Toy Shop more
than made up for it and I think we're going
again to see S. If you have seen the
Toy Toy shop there's no use telling you
how enchanting it was. I could hardly con-
tain myself, pounding the girls on the arm
and squealing loudly with squeaks of enjoy-
ment. It was like a dream, a delightful
breath-taking dream(P.S.I never had one, but
imagination you know, I shall never
forget the little old toyman with round red

sheeks and white hair trembling and bending
so that his large straw hat bounced off his
back as he went to his desk and the happy
young apprentice and the two ladies in
1856 costumes who came in gliding with
lorgnettes raised to see the dolls, nor the
American and English families with the naughty
children- the bad boy with the cane- and Ezra
can you imagine, the American audience
simply howled when the tall slim white
poodle jumps, and what jumps over, and lifts
his leg on the bad boy's hand which lay on
his knee and the rising suddenly and the
gesture of embarrassment. Honestly I was
simply tickled to the marrow. It was all so
merry and ooooh so delightful. I'll simply
never forget it. The doll in a tan suit
with high hat who seemed to float
around, I guess he was the thief, who bought
a piece of watermelon from the barrow vender
and then fell under it. Oh it was so
charming. The Swan Princess was rather
homely and not quite like Pavlova and the
last was Union-Pacific a very very realistic
building of the R.R out in Utah in 1856
with indians and chinese coolies and a bar-
room and a beyewtiful male indian dancer
in a white suit with fringe. Well, I hope
we can go again next week at 85c. way up where
we used to go and hear Caruso. We are in
a very ridiculous muddle in the house
here. The little teacher who has our
apartment thinks the laundry man came in
while we were all out and stole $10.
from a Manilla envelope, leaving some one
dollar bills which was under her mattress.
Can you imagine how we all feel: She, of
all our tenants never locked her door and
I can't imagine why unless she doesn't want
to appear as stingy as her nature really is.
I hope to God she finds out what is her
own absent-mindedness as the laundrymans
brown eyes are very honest although he is a
bohemian- but if I were to go detective
I'd say it was her own husband who took
it as she practically supports him, makes

him wash the dishes and has him under
her eye every minute. She is a very in
teresting case. I've looked up her horoscope
she is a bad loser, must have something bigger
than anybody else's happenings, jewelry,
occurrences of any kind. With it all a charming
little lady of about 29. But goes to an old
german physician in Bergenfield for pituitary
gland injections- is mortally afraid of having
a baby- got hysterical once- in fact she is
Scorpio and Sagittarius mixed with venus
I mean venus in Sag. which is like you only
with a woman if means they can't make the
supreme sacrifice of child bearing, etc. One
can't blame her as she is afraid of a breech-
first birth as that's the way she came. Well,
can't tell you everything as I would like
to, I mean all the circumstances connected
with this queer but tragic theft. as she
naturally has to keep expenses down and
that was her money for food. Her husband

mind you, tells her to take the envelope and
have finger prints taken off and send to
the bonding company of the laundryman.

Can you beat it? I don't care what she
does, she is slightly silly and it serves
her right for squeezing money so hard it
won't allow itself to be found. Its going
to be terribly interesting to see develop-
ments. I have lost pocketbooks with
money as high as $20 and $18. and always
found them- lost on the street, fancy that.
One pocketbook, old and dirty looked just

found them- lost on the street, fancy that.
One pocketbook, old and dirty looked just
like the pavement and lay under the feet of
a policeman who was stationed in front of
a school with children crossing continually.

The other lay in the gutter, in front of
people getting on and off the surface car.

Perhaps its just luck and then again—

Well-

I must tell you something funny about
my two girls who being home from school
now are so restless and think there are
no nice young men in the world- there are
of course and then again there aren't
whichever way you're feeling at the moment.

Well Susan and Barbara and two girls,

Mary and Marian decided to dress up in their Easter finery and go in Easter Sunday to see a picture and then to a restaurant. This generation kills me Ezra, They started out in a slightly slightly dubious look of weather and it did rain before they got home at mid-night. Well, they saw the picture but had to stand so long in the foyer of the Paramount that Marian got slightly sick so that when they reached the Cafe Loyale on Fifth Ave. and 43rd St. Marian threw up on the table a little but it did not feaze the others. When the hard-boiled waiters saw the four girls Barbara in a coral suit and large rhinestone earrings and a beauty mark under one eye and Sue with her peculiar colored yellow hair dressed in dark brown and cute hat they all gathered around four or five of them and Barbara was a match for them. They cleaned up the table, (the waiter) but made Marian order her dinner altho she told them she couldn't eat it- and of course they didn't the girls didn't dare decline so Sue ate Marian's chicken- and well- the waiter took away the hors d'ouevre only to be beckoned back by Barbara at Mary's request as they hadn't eaten enough of it- this kills me to write about. A baggy-eyed waiter told Barbara the other one was his son and when they passed each other they'd day "hey, wake- up". When Barbara was kidding the waiters, one of them said "oh, this is going to be fun". Well they didn't dare get up and dance as it was rather a classy place, megaphones around to carry music of the band. Well then on the way home they were followed by three youths from 42nd St. and when they got out of Sub. at 125th Marian poor child went home on the ferry but the other three decided to go to Harlem to see the colored vaude ville, Cab Calloway, etc and the youths overtook them and paid their way in. I don't need to tell you the revue was slightly gorilla like but the girls love to see the colored folk dance. Well the youths escorted them back over 125th St. and at the ferry said "can we see you again" but the girls put their nickels in

the box and said "some time" over their shoulders.

Can you tie that? Imagine me doing such
things when young? You know I envy their
poise and insouci- can't spell it. I
could have had so much fun if I'd only been
born a little later.

Sue hasn't been to Student's League for
a month as V. keeps forgetting to send the
money regularly and is going to "talk with
her when the weather clears up about going to
another art school, where she can get a

DIPLOMA to earn her living." Here is
Sue straining at the leash between Art and
wanting to go in a chorus or pose for a
photographer to earn money and what to do
with her I don't know. She is such a silent
 creature I fear she won't mix on the stage
 keeps her feelings to herself so tightly
 she never will be able to ballyhoo the
gallery and doesn't want to use her eyes
with painting. Ah me. Here is Barbara
who is almost the opposite but who is
stubborn and won't expand when I know she can.

I'm giving Sue singing lessons with
Dutzman who is a german and whose method does
not fit Sue's voice but rather fits Barbara's
but Barbara won't get enthusiastic about
music except to play cont inually on her

Uke and has yearnings to go on some
amateur program but can't get started.

Con the dear boy came home for Easter
vacation having grown a foot taller, with
no hat and went over to Yonkers to stay two
days w ith a boy of 14 who has butlers and
things and they dined at a swell place on
Park Avenue and Con wouldn't wear his
overcoat but went in white shoes not quite
clean- and a sweater out at elbows under a
jacket and no hat. Whew. wrote me lately
that v. told him to order a Gabardine suit

but the fellows at the Jigger Shop always
are hanging around his neck making remarks and
its going to be embarrassing. Adolescence--

that word is adolescence. And so
here am I waiting to be made administrator
and when all is said and done I probably

will have about 500 to buy an electric
refrigerator with. What to do, what to do.
Shall I send Sue over to study in Italy
under your eye for two or three months?
have no fear, I'd love to and I know you'd
love to have her but lawsy me, I can't decide.
No, no, no. You know Mother didn't want me
to have her two diamond rings and a diamond
brooch and two gold bracelets and what not.
Gave them to a dear friend to keep and told
her she'd get two doctors to sign a paper
saying Marj(the friend) could have them but
didn't do it. So Marj. gave them to me like
a good girl so I'll give her the diamond
brooch and I'll give the girls each a ring and
Con I'll give a piece of stock, 50 share in
Nat. City Bank I guess- that is if the dam
lawyer ever comes to life. I hate lawyers
with my whole soul- but this one is all right
I guess and law takes such a long time to
act. It will be hot weather before I get
my refrigerator, o dear. perhaps June.
I will look up the names you gave and read
their stuff. The last I read of yours
was the Esquire with a halo round your head-
muggin you hey? I don't dare let myself
go about Claudius Tiberius Mussoline- the
ea crazy fool or the more foolish League.

Oh I have a small Philco radio here in the
kitchen, the one I gave Mother and we have
our own in the parlor. I can take this little
one from room to room and hear places all ar
around the globe while sweeping and making
beds, etc. Oh by the way that Italy
program to Gwen still comes to me. It really
is of no use as our radios can't bring in
foreign stuff except when the different stations
get it thru short wave. Have heard some very
interesting stuff tho- and very clear-

So dear Ezra- write again soon- like Lewis
Carroll who wrote books to relieve his mind of
the strain of math. So glad you're well and happy
give my best to your lovely wife. Will send
snap shots later of us all. Lots and lots of
love dear from

V.

Well, even I am tired of myself now so I
will stop but not before I tell you that
each time I get a letter from you I make up
my mind never to write you again. Would you
really like to know what I wisn you to write
me about or don't you?

1. What do you make of the astrology book?

2. Have you found any old trick to it?

3. Is it a trick mathematically like the law of averages?

4. Do you not actually think it is a grand mixture of everything human, spiritually above the heavens and below the earth, and great food for the human race?

That's all I'll ask this time, but unless you actually write me a dam insulting letter and even tho you do I will still try to count you as one of the people behind the veil and still try to whisper to you because well because I really have down in my innermost soul a belief that I am of some use to anybody I care to address.

If you would think a little deeper about why I have written you at this length perhaps it might throw a new light on the different ways you can approach and present what you have to say to the overlords of the poor workers who are working too much.

Do you find that you make a sentence too comprehensive as to the future-- too bitter for the present or too contemptuous for the past for the people whom you wish to reach? Remember it is only Scorpio ridden by Mercury that naughty fellow speaking. Only Sagittarius striking swiftly and dryly but with the colors of the rainbow and use more of the Leo on the Mercury.

Farewell, but I shall write again because I dare you to shut me up forever.

Viola

TRIPS is the new luxury travel magazine, in case you don't remember.
Looks exactly like Fortune except that we use colored photographs
for covers. It's enormous, though . . beautiful layout and
composition. I should be happy to bring a copy to Mr. Pound in
our hypothetical interview.

Until the coming issue - March - on the stands the 25th of February,
we have been a quarterly publication selling for a dollar... per
copy. With the advent of our new issue though, we've gone on a
monthly basis and have reduced the price to half, namely fifty
cents per copy. We rather suspect that this will jack up our
present circulation -- now too, too limited to the very moneyed
classes.

It will remain a strictly "Class" magazine . . . and Johnson, when
he saw it, actually intimated that he was honored to be asked to
be featured in such a "stunning" publication.

Can you help me then, Aunt Viola . . in getting an interview with
Mr. Pound. . . Of course, if you don't know him really, please just
file this ms in your nearest manuscript and attribute this burst
to another "false impression of ye gullible scion of the worthy
Wanks".

Please, please, please give me the lowdown on this info. just as
soon as possible . . . and I'll send out our new issue to you just
as soon as it comes off the presses.

Love to you all,

I should have typed this out on our
snooty TRIPS letterheads, but I'm
writing it from home because I'm in
a goshawful hurry. My deadline on
the whole story is a week from to-
morrow.

nr

(1) Sunday Mar. 14-37
Tenafly, N.J.

Dearest Ez:

Sitting in my kitchen sewing
strips for another of my curious rag rugs
this dull cold day I am hearing much moosic.
Just heard Michel Piastrogorgeously playing

Tchaikowsky' D minor thingumabob- (I can ne
never remember whether it is a sonate or
what. The conductor is Artur Rodzinski, a
pole. Deems Taylor is now telling all about
him but I'm trying to write and listen too.

A little while ago they had the three singers
who can confidently expect a contract at the
öt. having been picked out from 57- a
test or one of many that have been going on
for many years. They were quite wonderful.

A Maxine Stellman(sounded like that) from
Vermont who sang the part of the unrequited
wicked rprincess in Aida- she did it with
much feeling, imagination and a voice fully
adequate for opera. Then a man from
Connecticut, name of Shanley, I think sang
something from Fedora and a girl from Texas
forgot her name sang "As thru the street"
from Boheme. I made Sue listen to it because
I have tried to get her to sing it and she
didn't like it very well. This girl sang it
like a student- perhaps when she gets more
familiar and has a "let down" she will sing
it with the coquetry it should have. This
Piastro I've never heard before-- its a
piece of money in Italy isn't it- spelled
piastro eh- spelling slips my mind. Going
back to Sue. I don't kid myself that she
will ever get into the Met. but old Dutzman
gives her the Dew Man and the Sand Man to sing
I don't think her voice is for the gemman
method but I went to Carnegie and looked at
the addressed in the lobby and picked on
this N.Y.School of Music and he- fell into
his hands as I sat on the lounge his voice
as he gave lessons to someone sounded
very lovely. He is an old man now - and so
is she.

2

used to sing in some capacity at the Met
before Fremstad's time or in it I think.
Fremstad by the way lost her mind- don't
know where she is now.- excuse me now
Rodzinski is going to play the 6th Symphony
in E flat minor by Nicholas Moieskowsky
(name sounds like that, I never bother to
look in the newspaper)

This Dutzman is a good teacher but knows
nothing about the female voice I imagine- at
least he has only got slim Sue to work on and
should have a robust german. However he has
brought out her voice and hasn't spoiled it.
It takes 10 years to be anything of course and
I'm just continuing with Sue because I think
it may come in handy some time in her life-
if she doesn't succeed as an artist. Oh well
you know what I mean.

The Saturday presentations of Opera on
the radio now that Americans have taken over
the running of the Met. are very good except
that the Claquers clap after every aria which
would not have been tolerated in the days past.
They gave Mignon Sat. and an American-
Italian Josephine Antoine from out west, whose
father is a barber, sang almost as good as Bori
(My idol) The Mignon was Gladys Swartout
whose voice is something like Farrar's I
mean a little better but unreliable like this,
if she felt like singing beautifully Farrar
could but she had to have an inspiration.
Swartout's voice is better in sad news, not
much innigkeit that Bori had, of course they
are not to be compared. The part of Filene
which Antoine sang was more pleasureable
Beautiful and fresh. This Symphony by
Mieskowsky is not so hot just at present- it may
pick up later. oh yes it is beautiful
in spots but seems to be scattered, and
restless. The music is trying to be wild
sinister and somewhat like the Apprentice
and the Broom you know that? Well I'll
keep this open and tell you what happens
next.

3

This moosic is too fevered and not
easy to listen to so I think I'll tune
it off- as I get older I find that I can't
stand "noise in music" I call it just noise
it lasts too long- now comes a silent place
but it appears to me to be trying to be like
"The Faun" and can't- now comes a rush of
wind and the cymbals are on etc. don't like it.
but I'm thankful it isn't Beethoven.

Just tuned it off and turned to the orchestra
at Tuckahoe N.Y.- ah what a relief, rhythm
at last flowing and tuneful. Oh I must mention
a wonderful guitar ist the other night-
a spaniard of course than whom there are none
better as of course the spaniard very often
makes his own guitar and is a master at it
this one's guitar was 60 years old and he
played, well like no other could- a spanish
dance we'ev heard often never could remember
what it was but never mind it was masterly.
gorgeous. wish I could remember his name.
we americans are so casual about these things
but of course I'm not a very good example as
I'm very lackadaisical about many things.

Dear me its snowing right now and a girl is
singing the popular song "I can't lose that
longing for you" I just turned to the Magic
Key which is playing the aforesaid Symphony
and my heavens they're still playing it.

It doesn't pay to listen to something you
don't like and I have very severe likes and
dislikes. Well, dear me I must buy me some
moosic paper and get some music written in
my peculiar way- here I have a good piano
cloads of time. Ah, here is Professor
Figsbottle talking on the operation of an
automobile- a funny man, aha he says that
if you're going at 75 miles and the car ahead
shows a hand at the window if it is a man's
hand go slow or a woman's hand, it means

STOP aha very funny- I've noticed that
myself having escaped many times from
women drivers as they will hold their hands

out if they intend to go right instead
of left.

4

Personally I don't come in that category
and I've had cars from New York pass me
on a hill and also come at me from the right
just when I'm tyting turning into the
curb. so its six to one and half dozen
the other. My my the snow is fine and
looks like the beginning of a blizzard
but I don't think it will last long even
tho it does pile up. the little birds of
spring have been piping for some time-
even that blackbird with the rusty hinge
noise that I love. The bluejays too have
been all around. Now listening to
a fella singing"Are you a dream here in the
moonlight, you're' mine tonight, my sweet.
etc. I sent you a page of radio programs
some time back so that you might see what's
doing in this line over here but you never
mentioned it. By the way that Italian

list that comes for Gwen you might stop as
it does me practically no good, not having
a radio that picks up foreign stations
unless as I've told you before it comes
thru a particular program. We heard some
great Hawaiian music the other day. Now a
fella is singing the same song the girl sang
before "I can't lose that longing for you,
I long to hold you believe me, I do, I'd
forget you if I could, I've tried but what's
the good, etc. very pretty. Gwen never
liked to listen to the many orchestras. I
know she was prejudiced by mother- they were
both so foolish- ah me, I musn't think of it.

Now its Mr. Ghost goes to town, very
descriptive. Well tomorrow is pay day and
Sat. CONRAD comes home, goody goody.
Just think, I'll be 50 jahr alt tomorrow.

The only thing I can see that makes me feel
different from 28 is that I am stuffed out
with flesh in places where I never in the
world thought I ever would be. I also have
lumbago at times when I eat white of egg
so I never never eat it. I suppose it is
the beginning of one of those degenerative
diseases that will take me off like the rest

5

of the family. Cheerio. Here is Tom
Powers talking about his playing with
Katherine Hepburn in Jane Ayres. He
talks well, but I've turned him off for
the program called "We the people Speak."
They get all the peculiar people they
can to give their opinions or tell about
themselves.

Well, it's after supper and just heard
Lakewood orchestra among which "Who's afraid
of Love" a song of "One in a Million" with
that marvel of the ice Sonia Henje- a darling
did I tell you about it. Now the news is
an- my, I'm sick of that fighting in Spain
those hotheads who can't understand each
other's dialect 100 miles apart. Just
thinking, haven't had a bread and butter
letter from Bill- I don't care how old
fashioned it is, I think we ought to write
'em, I always do. Tell me truthfully what
he wrote to you about his visit if any. I'll
bet he never wrote you about it. Pretty soon
Jack Benny will be "on", a funny man who is
now getting $15,000 a week- but think of the
money he has to pay for the orchestra and
his "stooges"- and his income tax, pe-u
I don't envy him. Mussili won cheers from
the populace when he donated can't remember
lira to the people. My goodness the news
gets spouted so much I don't half listen to
it. I really did get mad the other night an
wrote a short pithy note to a lawyer named
Beer who talked about Frankie's proposal
anent the judiciary. I hate a talker who
talks generalities, that's nothing but pro-
paganda. I told him a few things hot off
the griddle among others, the thing we need
most is to keep swine out of the lawyer
profession. Ah--- there is a speaker on who
is putting Frankie in his place, or rather
stripping his words bare so that we see
all Frankie wants is to use the Supreme
Court who will not veto his "new deals"
He can't get away with it. We're all on
to his "double words" now.

I didn't send that letter to the man Beer.
It really isn't worth it.

Ah, I was missing Jack, its now 7:15.

He's having a funny spat with Fred Allen about playing the Bee.

It seems that Jack plays the violin but not especially well and Fred said he couldn't play Schubert's Bee which has been played by every

instrument to death on the radio within the past year soooo

Jack had a tough time evading

the issue and got one or two small precocious kids to play it on violin and piano, etc. to shame-Jack- shame Jack so tonight after many weeks of merry jokes insulting one another, Fred appeared on Jack's program and they had a battle of words of course written by the Scrip man whom I think is a jew but ---

I suppose you are bored- but Everyone is making jokes tonight about trying to evade the income tax- some very funny stooge said to Phil Baker would you call the slot machine and pool tables dependants? Phil said let's see where is your pink slip stooge says "I don't wear any". Well so it goes.

I suppose you wish I would stop chattering. It has stopped snowing. I could of course go on and on and will wish tomorrow that I had not closed this nonsense. Oh I think I'll tell you one thing. Girl across the street lost her mother shortly after I did so as she's only 24 I went over to do what I could for her yesterday as she has tonsilitis.

They are a queer family-- I mean one would think they were not up to par(wes set fire to our barn that time) that's one of the lots.

Well the father is quite a character, a trifle more brains, used to be a boy soprano in N.Y. is about 58 now I guess, drinks a lot of home brew and stutters. musical but is an old fool. asked me to play and sing on his player piano. We all try and keep away whenever we can as he collars you and bores you to death. well he tried to kiss me, imagine, I don't know if you can picture the unspeakable incongruity of it-me taking over jelly and my 4711

coloigne

7

for Edie who asked me to rub her with
Sloan's liniment- and me ironing actually
ironing hdkfs and bath towels up in her room
and cooking the supper helped by a neighbor
girl and I lit out before father came home
again. He is nothing but a mover and
has had a position with the West End Storage
House for years and moved mother's things out
here. I haven't explained any of it I fear-
the ridiculous, impossible situation of me
being in the embrace of such a person.

I do not know why people dare to take such
liberties with me. They are the most ignor-
ant people but I am very democratic and of
course it is my own fault because I always
gave people the credit of having brains.

Well, Sue is in the front room before her
easel, the one Gwen had, a very heavy one
with iron legs and adjustable- she is sitting
on the pretty day couch mother bought during
her last days and the lamp is on the window
sill, those deep sills that go with this old
house and is working on her designs, painting
with tempera-. Barbara is taking a bath and
has just cleaned up her room at 8 P.M.

imagine- we couldn't do such things if we
had men folk around- oh how happy these days
are- do just what we want to any time of the
day.

Well I really must shut up Beatrice

Lilly is singing- really a pretty voice but
she makes fun with it-- what a peculiar
personality she is- and I don't see how she
bame popular but she seems to be or has lots
of pull or "the breaks" or something in her
make up that won't give up. She is however
a relief from many commediennes. Well
good night Ezrakins. Hilda owes me a letter.
Did I tell you she writes that someone gave
her a U.S. dollar bill which made her home-
sick just to see it and tell me did her
daughter Perdita come over here? Its not
quite clear until I hear from her again.

Lots of love dear

Viola

"No medieval soul emerging from purgatorio
could have been happier than we two, speeding
down a long delightful hill toward Rapallo with
a free little "Nicolette"(the name they called
their small 5-horse power car) doing gay things
under us and the free winds from the sea
blowing over us. An artist had once raved
to us about Rapallo as a charming place to
paint in, hence a shade of disappointment
crept over me as we drove down its very neat
streets; streets that were so freshly pink-and-
flowery washed, so faggot-broomed and scrubbed...
All the little towns along here are desperately
neat. But the great thing about Rapallo is
that it is nearly in the water. Deep, green
sea-water was swashing it everywhere; deep,
right off the rocks, deep down from a small
stone jetty, or under old houses that jutted
(sketchably) over it, especially deep and
swashing, round Rapallo's rocky islet
covered with an old brown castle, only a few
rods off shore. A lovely islet, walled, cliffy
and romantic. Rapallo's little roadway ran
around the water-front, which was well-decked
with inns, horse-cabs, pleasure-boats, and
flowers, across the green water of the little
bay rose the Punta, wild and purplish; alto-
gether the scene was an enthralling one-
mountainous, pink-villaged and blossoming, yet
with everywhere this lively swash of active
unusually active Mediterranean.

Rain was now dancing hard on Rapallo's
pavements and we bolted into a prosperous-
looking restaurant with steam on its windows.
Here were pleasant waiters, and fresh little
tables with flowers; also mounds of most
superior spaghetti smoking hot.... It was good
to see a fat pink plateful of something decent;
and the nice Italians, eating near by at little

2

tables beamed at us and looked benevolent and a

(do excuse the tear, can't copy
it over again, mercy)

and appreciative- of what, we had no idea,
but after Ruta it was heavenly to be looked
benevolently at- and when we dashed out to
Nicolette again, behold she was standing in a
pool of yellow water......... And then I
discovered from a chance sign-our map said
nothing about it- that this same little r
d would lead us to the village of Portofino.
A ray of sun arrived like a gleam of approval
on our undertaking just as wer- we were
meditating what to do, and tho we should not
have we took that wonderful drive along the
twisting shore. It seemed to us with out
convenient penchant for the present, quite the
loveliest yet. the most concentrated little
drive, excitingly narrow, wooded and wild and
right beside the water. Through our Santa
Marguerita again... close by its little
walled molo, cram full of storm-bound fishing-
boats, then along more wooded shore, up and
down the sharpest hills, hills that landed
you almost into the deep, splashing water at
the very scariest of their down-dipping corners
But we met nothing and soon turned down a lane
of old houses to the little square ended
harbor that is Portofino. At a corner rises
Portofino(s church its twin belfries sociably
against the wooded cliff.. for except for a
small gap outward to the light and infinity
of the sea, the walls of the promontory leap
straight from the little harbor, towering
above it like the "mountainsides of dreams ".
Stay? This was the place to stay in; what
was Rapallo to this, said we, abandoning

N

3

Nicolette on the first inch of the quai and
leaping down on the beach... Here were actually
awnings and orange trees in tubs... etc etc

Tenafly, N.J.

March 25-37

Dear Child:

Having changed libraries, from
Englewood to town, all I could get were two
books that looked half way interesting and
well were just so-so, the one quoted from
above" sunshine and Dust by Anne Bosworth Greene
and another by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

"Being little in Cambridge when everyone else
was big". Ah me- Englewood had better books
but I couldn't stand feeling obliged to Miss
Maxwell for letting me take from there without
paying $2. a year which I did for a few years
and then she said "forget it" did you follow
me? Never mind.

My five foot nine of boy joined
us last week one evening in the pouring rain.
Large suitcase and inside suitcase was a lovely
mackintosh but there he was dripping having
walked up from station and, when he removed his
very intriguing color blue chapeau behold his
hat was cut a la Boris Karloff or a german or
well, make what you can of it- he says it will
save on hair cuts and calls himself Joey Prep.
He covers his nude dome with a white wool
hat with a red G for Griswold House on it, only
worn by those who have distinguished themselves
at some game, that's it, named for all-house
selection for football. My my. As 16 is too
old for camp this year he is wondering what

6

give Parsifaal tomorrow Good Friday- hope
it will be on radio but guess not as
Sat. they give Lohengrun. When I was at the
Met. i used to be up in the flies singing
with the choir boys the high C for 21

12 measures( we took a breath of course) but
Morganstern told us not to let him catch us
doing it. Don't be misled into thinking that
my voice was anything wonderful. But I will
say if I had had the ambition that one has
to have I might have amounted to something.

We were in all of the german operas and
Tosca, Mona, Boris Godonoff and Cavaleria
Rusticana- oh just for a page or two.
Great experience- always remember it.

I've just made some lemonade and sherry for
the kids and now fill the little tray with
water and put back in the frigidaire and
this is for more ice cubes. Have you seen
the frigidaires? they're quite wonderful.
No fuss with the iceman not coming on a hot
day and you can make mousse and icecream
any time you feel like it. I paid $146. for
ours. Its a beautiful thing stands over four
feet, pure white, runs by electricity you
know so Virgil pays for the "ice", slick eh?
Oh ciel, after waiting thru this program
the scene of the play Ethel B. appears in
is The Kingdom of God by some Italian I
think. Ethel is Spaniard.
making her voice low and sounding like an
old woman of 71 and she's most that now
I guess. Anyway on her other programs she
makes her voice soundnlike , well, 42.

Her voice this eve. sounds like a man's almost
but I can't listen to the thing it bores me.
So I turn to, heavens a diplomat from Austria
no, no. Well guess I'll go in the front room
and practice on Rosenthal's Butterfly.

7

Good Friday P.M.

Listening to the Bach St. Matthew Passion
from Boston, Kousevitski conductor and
Janet Vreeland and Katherine Meisle
and

with the Harvard Glee Club helping, fancy
that// I never listen to Bach if I can
help it but the soloists today are great//.
no exclamation point on this machine.
Well I suppose you are surrounded by
catholicism. Have you a radio? only one of
the many questions I ask you which remain
unanswered. Well I took rattlebrained Sue
to the ferry today and I too never thought that
the Art School might be closed and it was and
she came back and sat in the waiting room all
morning rather than go about in N.Y. looking
at exhibitions and the animals in the park
etc.,//// excuse me, dead silence on radio
for so long I began to wonder when it was
explained they were waiting for late comers
to get seated// fancy that- We had just
heard before this music the play "The Terrible
Meek" I had never heard it before. I liked it.
I also love the Passing of the 3rd floor back.
I remember riding up in the elevator with Chas.
Tom Kennedy one time at the Oxford Univ. Press.
I'd rather hear Passifael but I guess they're
not going to broadcast it. I shall skip
around and write about everything that occurs
to me- last evening the 16 yr. old opera singer
Betty Janes sang from Boehme- truly
astonishing. The doctors say she has a
larger vocal organ that's all. There is another
13 yr. old singer in Hollywood too with a
phenomenal voice. What is the world coming to

then my dear once you have some of this
MONEY you will be better able to judge it
and what it buys and its worth than the silly
and ignorant communists etc who are so busy
envying those who have money, no matter how
they got it, its to be had and is held from
no man who works, no matter what the work,
fett for it. See?

To paraphrase Shakespeare

Present money is really less than
vain imaginings about it and maybe
MORE.

It will be hard work to find a loop hole in
the Hollywood game- yet there is a key.

It would be hard work for you to write about
vacations and trips, yet it gives money.

Money is nothing if it doesn't make one
happy. By keeping money, like France, one
is unhappy. By pretending not to like money
like England, one is also unhappy. By killing
and raping for money like Italy, one is also
unhappy. By working hard for money and not
being appreciated, like Germany, one is also
unhappy. But by working for money and throwing
it away, whoopee, like America, we are always
either happy or bilious and need many advertisements for constipation which nobody takes
we all eat lots of fruit these days, and who
cares for a gangster or two, tra la la.

So farewell dear old nut and I
love you for many spots of good old-
fashioned vulnerable male traits that are well
young and foolish.
V.

P.S. Now this is a common sense addenda.

I have been wondering all along and
wanting to suggest, but waited for the right
time, which I think is NOW that you haul in
your horns and use your talents as a "writer"
and write something(under another name if you
can bring yourself to, its easy) that would
make MONEY. It is a quaint reproach that
to the United States of America contains fatheads
who just live for MONEY. That they are MONEY-MAD.
We Americans really laugh up our sleeves at
all such criticisms. The nation who hasn't
the knack of making money always envies the one
that can. It is all in having the MONEY-and
being FAMILIAR with its making and having lots
of it around that makes the United States of
AMERICA laugh at such talk. Believe me it is
just the other way. Other nations are MONEY
MAD because they haven't got any. It is well
known that people who have a lot of anything
are careless of it and don't value it and
vice versa. My goodness how France and
Italy and Germany would rend the U.S of
America if they could once get a foothold
on this same MONEY which they claim is the
ruination of us.

Well, Ezra darling, times are such
that while money making is ugly and has to be
controlled or so communists and gangsters think
forgetting that they didn't make it-there is
no good reason why anyone who can find a field
for their wares of any kind should not sell them
for there will always be buyers. You could
make scads of money writing for the movies-
tut, tut, ah, ah, why not? its all in fun-
America will pay anything to be amused and

don't dare really insult me) would think
that writing a description of the many many
places beautiful to those who never can have
that opportunity, that you have seen, is
worth your slightest consideration. You
even use the word "dam" to express your shame
that you are incapable of being unselfish
enough to let others see this lovely world
O welt, mann sieht dich vor bluthen kaum."

I shall give your note to Norma. Its
value to her will be marked on the "loss"
side of the ledger. She will only be one
more of the human race who will be astounded
in this day of education, that it is a truth
that we are known to others as we would wish
to be known.

I thought when I sent you her letter my
precious, that you could see outside of it-
that here was your chance to show the poetry
which you profess to have in your soul, in
describing in prose the warmth and beauty of
southern provence perhaps. It has been done
you say. Yes. But everything has been done
and everything will be done over and over again
while there is life on this planet.

You forgot to sign your name to the
card you wish me to give Norma. Ashamed?
or do you think your name is so BIG that she
ought to know who it is. Do you glory in the
idea that perhaps you are the only disagreeable
person Norma has ever known? or do you relie on
her knowledge of the values of life which you
dany her to keep and cherish it as coming from
a great man or only a peevish one.

If you will permit me, I wish to say
that the meaning of "rent" and "credit" in
your pithy verse atop your letterhead is the
most mixed up bosh I ever allowed to trickle
into my understanding. If a nation has enough
money to pay rent for its own credit(cash), you
may rest assured, it will do so, as that is what
makes the wheels go round, but if you mean
credit as "honor", that also makes the wheels
go round and in both cases the nation so
abused in your estimation will lose nothing.

Bur dearest Ezra, I have scolded you
enough- it is quite tiresome. It would
give your nerves a "let-down" too if you would
only get down off your high horse and draw
on the other juices in your body, but bile,
and show by "doing something for someone" that
you can write such beautiful words about
nature, trips, vacations, landscapes etc that
it would not detract from your reputation as
a cantankerous poet and mad-hatter finance
expert and old-fashioned Marxian, communist,
fighter for causes that should be lost and
show yourself as a champion and worshipper of
something bigger than words.

How I wish that I might soothe or
guide that naughty side of you so that you
know that peace of mind which comes from not
mixing money in the abstract and money we don't
have and money we have or somebody else has or
has not and why with the art of living.

Thus speaks the oracle Viola

Tenafly, N.J.

Mar. 9-37

Dearest Son:

Tish tish, mother'll have to kiss those little

I wonder if you know the values of anything as well as you might. It looks to me as though you have got yourself entangled with spiritual and physical and material values so hopelessly (I hope not) that you annoy yourself unduly about people who are not so omnipotent as yourself. Even so, omnipotence to a great many of your fellowbeings means something entirely out of your ken, strange as it may appear.

I do not wish to cause you about biting your nose off to spite your face. Surely you don't wish to confess to the human race or well, perhaps, I say perhaps, to posterity, or perhaps to literati for a few short, I say short years after you have become an open secret, I say, a secret which you think you are now, that you had any particular motive for foaming at the mouth because you do not care to use in a constructive way, the diction, rhetoric, observation, knowledge, grammar, desire to give joy to those less concerned with agitation than you, and show that you are peevish and wish to scold and put away from yourself, like a whimsical girl, the chance for a larger, more harmonious share in life as others have to live it while on this earth.

I don't know whom you think you are hurting by your Scorpian vitriolic words. Stick and stones will break our bones, but words will never hurt us.

Thus speaks the oracle Viola

Sue is trying hard to like her study of posters etc. Nicolaides is her teacher. He told her today

today that she had nerve when he saw the page of ideas she had drawn from her own imagination about, Calmness, Comedy, Beauty, Health, vanity, etc. He said you like to draw. Well that struck me very queer, but Sue says he is very gentle and kind and interesting tho he as drawn some of those horrible one-eyed, all out of proportion faces that seem to be the fashion of the moment or I should say the disease of artists for the moment. She went to the N.Y. Lib. and told me of the change that prevails how the guardians of the books and art stuff watch with hawk eyes everything every move that is made and how she had to have two N.Y. peoples names as sponsors for her integrity before allowed to see anything. I look upon my day as sort of a Latin Quarter day whenanything was permissible and free, but communists, socialists and such unscrupulous people now make the library their hang out and need watching.

Sue is impatient of such criticisms as, "that must have a value to that," etc she of course would like to feel that she is free to use her own personality in choosing values, unconsciously. She said "I'd like to make things likeGWEN- PICTURES that the more you look at them the more you see and you can feel nature thru them. Well, everything comes slowly thru hard work.

Conrad is coming home the 20th. He uses such words as "goonish kraperoo, etc and is developing a desire to "write"- has sent a story around and waits in "static repose" for rejection slips. Some kid, eh?

Barbara annoys me beyond measure and I have treated her shamefully because I did not realize that she is Aquarius and a procrastinator and I am the direct opposite. I am now secretly living up to an oath that I will give her every cent that comes my way to repay the harm I have already done in unconsciously influencing her. Both girls entered "amateur night" at a local movie and wore brown crepe paper costumes and leis, hair down etc as Hawaiians. B. played her like and they sang "South Sea Island Magic." At the chorus Barbara sang some Hawaiian syllables of her own, and Sue did a little hula but they only got 3rd prize because the microphone broke at the last moment and the audience up in Bergenfield is made up of the most ignorant of humans who would rather hear a boy of 12 shout"Pennies from Heaven" in no singing voice at all. Well I'm glad they tried.

Did Bill write you of his visit to us? I hope you are both friends to that extent but perhaps not. It was good to see them both but rather sad to see Bill. He did rally to his old vivacity at table by illustrating a funny incident, but as usual I monopolized the conversation, a heinous sin which I can't get over. (Deems Taylor is now talking about Stravinsky funny, I just read his autobiog.) He certainly is a tortured nut, and according to Deems we can high-hat him a little as he's almost old-fashioned now. Bill wished he had brought his mother and said he would bring over the boys some time. Florence has mellowed considerably and gray hair is becoming. As for me I am absolutely retrograde. I have a doll sitting on my desk which I kiss every night and put to bed in my sewing table depths. Ma foi. I try to

5

practice on mother's good piano, chopin
my beloved, impromptu's etc. and at stray
moments drag Sue to the piano and scream wit
with laffter at the hard work she makes of
trying to play with highly manicured and
painted fingernails, the simplest duets.

I'm still giving her singing lessons with
old Dutzman who is trying to make a loud
german voice out of a naturally high light
one but I know that he is right as he is
"bringing it out" and she can make it obey
her later when she gets some sense or feeling

Mercury in Libra means inability to make
quick decisions and "jack of all trades and
master of none" which incidentally appears
in Bill's horoscope and isn't it true?

He can play the violin, paint, make verse
and be a doctor but can he do any one
thing perfectly.

Oh I am waiting impatiently for
spring and to dig in my garden and get hen's
manure and grow pumpkins and cabbages and
lovely flowers and strawberries, etc.

So, did I tell you this P.M. a perfect
snow storm began at 1 P.M. and snowed
for an hour covering all trees and shrubs
with puffy snow and now its almost gone this
evening.

Do write me how you are and what you
eat and how is your son and your wife and
talk more about my Spanish eyes, alas I
need glasses, but won't, won't get them.
I just lower my eyelid and can read all
right so far. How would you like to shovel
20 tons of coal of a winter. Saw Camille
the other night. Garbo is anaemic the fool.
A great actress as far as VENUS in SCORPIO
will let her, that means natural love scenes
and also death scenes. not interesting to
me I adore MERLE Oberon. ROBERT TAYLOR
the latest girl craze is a darling and
proved a perfect ARMAND as far as
innocent VIRILE youth goes with a HARLOT.

(2)

he also is a Pisces person- well this oven
is made with huge stones that were under the
barn, and Mr. Jones is having a lovely
time planning it. He has the oven all made
but the stones around it are too far apart
to suit me because what is he going to burn
in it? Says he, logs. Butt where is he going
to get the logs. He has asked if he can
shinny up the pine trees and get the branches.
Sure sez I. Then he wants to throw a lasso up
sure, sez I, but I laugh in my sleeve because
it will take more than his puny strength to
yank em down.. Well we all sat out there the
other night and toasted marshmallows and sang
everything from Old Black Joe to the very latest,
Barbara with her uke and Tubby Jones who is the
funniest kid you can imagine. Honestly he is
a scream, a Mercury in Scorpio person and you
know I understand those. His name Tubby was
perhaps appropriate when he was small but now
he is 17 and is a great big fellow and is very
rough with the girls and yet naive- a scream.
He mauls Barbara and then says "what is this
power I have over women". Whenever there was a
lull he would lift his very large long face and
with a beatific smile and closed eyes would
sing "Daisy, Daisy give me your answer do,
do you remember that song? I told him I bet his
father taught him that. He bought an old
Studebaker for $8. the craziest looking thing
where you sit up about 5 feet from the ground-
it looks like a hay wagon and it costs him too
much to run it. Well we sang "I'm an old cow
hand" and of course I had to Yippy i yo kay a.
in the approved manner oh we had a lovely time.

Well, Mr. Jones is also making a garden
with the big stones around a pine tree and on

April 22 1937

Tenafly, N.J.

Dearest little red-beard:

Your letter this noon( I slept til
noon because I washed the family wash,
finished and hung out at 11 P.M. in the moonlight) was
handed me by darter Sue and so we read it at
the Brunch table under electric light as it is
raining.

My very dear little brother you
musn't think that Sue's-venture into this nude
photog. has anything to do with "Nudism". -It is
used for **ADVERTISING** purposes. Have you not seen
the Palm Olive soap Ads? etc. I know nothing
about nudism- it doesn't interest me in the
least. Is it possible that you bother to fill
your head with such trash as the stuff in THE
OPEN ROAD, heavens, all about the little
chicadees and bobolinks? my my.

With your letter there arrived a
copy of "Trips" magazine, remember? Did
Norma send you a copy? If she didn't, and after
I have decided whether I like it or not, if I
don't, I will send it to you but won't if you
have a copy, savez?

Now that spring is actually here-
with the sun shining thru the many bushes of
forsythia, we all are digging madly around here.
The Old Griffin shouts cheery words to me as I
labor with a hatchet at a horrible bush with
roots as big as a tree and Mr. Jones is making
an oven, according to some original plan that
looks screwy to me of course but HE takes
criticism and inuendos from me cheerfully because

(3)

the tree he has rigged a fountain placque with
a goat head. He used to sell these things in
N.Y. and when the man went out of business he
brought over the placque and some bird baths
and a crystal and so they are dotted around
and personally I don't like so many but well-
lets all be merry about it.

About this nude photog. the reason I
asked you was the "dangers" connected with it
like, will this hurt Sue's reputation later in
life? will the man she might marry like it if
he knew it? if she ever has any trouble and
lawyers get wind of it, will it enganger her
chances? dost thou see? we may know it is all
right but things get twisted you know by skunks.
If Virgil flew up in the air about the night
club what will he do, burst, if he ever hears
about this? these are the questions. I am asking
different people whose opinion I respect and they
all sort of pass it over and say, how about her
art? Sue likes it for the money of course.
She got #35 and bought herself a nice suit and
a lovely coat. When you understand the ad-
vertising end of it you will understand how so
much money is given. N.Y isn't like Paris
you know where nudes are at a premium. I have
not really seen Sue's figure myself- it isn't
anything wonderful as to her legs and feet.
She has a very slender waist and is not half
so skinny and undernourished as I was when I
was first married- no hollows in her neck etc.
I fear I will not be able to get a photo as
what the photog. does with it is none of my
business, or she signed a contract saying such
was the understanding. So-- I'm enclosing
a snap of the girls at Asbury- sent the best
ones to Hilda last year but we'll get some

(4)

more if we can find the negatives.

Barbara has a very good figure, a
little heavy but nicely formed. Yes Ez do
get it out of your head that it has anything
to do with NUDISM. At first I told Sue
I didn't want her to continue but sometimes in
-a different mood, when I feel STRONG, or
what is the word anyway, I tell her she can do
it so she has already told the office that she
has changed her mind and will continue to pose
but I have these ups and downs about it. I know
that if any trouble should come there would al-
ways be a way to meet it and trust myself that
far, but supposing I shouldn't be here to defend
her- it is questions like these that disturb
me. Reading about this Gedeon murder where
somebody murdered Ronnie, a nude model and her
nother and a boarder and they haven't found the
murderer yet, and just yesterday a young
violinist from Bridgeport Conn. was murdered in
a studio with a hammer hole in the forehead.
There are all sorts of sex criminals at large.

In an interlude just now I took the girls
and Marian up to the Bergenfield movies where
they will each get a dish by paying 10 cents
more given to them by the girls across the
street. Every week they go religiously for this
girl who is trying to get a set of dishes.
The magnolia trees pink and white are lovely
also the daffodils. I'm trying to see if I can't
make it 80 pages this time.

About my not wanting to "learn" anything.
my dear egg plant, thou knowst nothing of the
devious ways in which women "learn" things.
They positively do not learn anything from one

10

(9)

I am relieved about Conrad for this summer. It seems that a Professor Taylor whom of Princeton will take him on a geological trip out West. I had visions of Conrad chopping trees in some logging camp and also his foot-or going off on a tramp steamer at the mercy of wharf creatures and perverted passengers and all the queer personalities that prey on the novice, altho I have great faith in Conrads composition. I now have to worry for fear he will like the west so that he will return and perhaps marry far away where I cannot get to him quickly. But contrary to your belief and also Virgils, I do not want to hinder or own him. In fact I am a paragon of a mother but just let me catch anyone harming any of them and I'll follow them to the ends of the earth.

I'm reading a very entertaining book by an englishman Cecil Roberts, "Gone Sunwards". He has written several with the word "Gone" in it- not "Gone with the wind" however. I seem to have no urge to read that book or see it in pictures.

Well I really must stop and think about some kind of eats for supper. My washing is flapping away on the line and it has now stopped raining but is quite cold, regular april weather. for Jersey. I must tell you about the Old Gold contest. Here is a chance for you to win part or all of $100,000. A fellow we know was in the library last night looking in the ency. industriously with this hopeless mass of cryptograms etc in front of him. He figured out 60 of them so they gave him 90 more and still he goes hopefully on.

impossible. It is, however, an angle, I will admit but misleading. I hear "by radio" that F.D.R. at last is facing or trying to, balancing the budget and to his amazement finds that we are a few billions "out". BUT, instead of taking it out of the people's taxes openly like they do in England, he is going to "try" and cut down expenses". My, my that sounds so lovely. But when the common people like me go to the store to buy food we can see that our dollar is only worth 35c. Of course this is the fault of the clever purloiners of food. Cans get smaller, bread gets more indigible, meat gets water soaked, rice from Texas is all starch and no kernel cheese is mixed with thousands of other things and put into small glasses which only fools buy, etc. but I'm so glad I'm an American when I look at Europe.

We have three of the cutest things on earth, kittens again. There is one tiny blackish tiger with tiny black cushions to her little paws, round blue eyes with light gray rings around them- and the mother cat has done all this at her advanced age of 10 years on cat food in cans.

Marvellous- oh I give them milk and once in a great while liver.. On second thought I'll enclose a picture of me and one of her sons, the leaping one who brings in snakes and moles and alas birds, I must get a new kind of bell that makes more noise to put on his collar this year. This was taken when Con came home Easter and I wish I could enclose one of him but the girls set up a hullabaloo when I give pictures away.

(11)

The contest would be "nuts" for you. It goes
thisaway. They give you a picture with

letters or sentences in it and a list of
about 14 names of people in the literary
world or even a Jenny Lind etc and you have
to pick out the name which represents some-
thing in the picture. Here is a sample.
A picture of two people in riding habits and
one leans down picking a flower saying "I will
pick an ox-eye daisy for you. A list of
names including William Blake, John Volta,
Joseph Smith, John Locke, etc etc. Here is
one that was easy. A picture of J and a cow
and the words "We brand only the female."

Well the answer was "John Noble". Like
this "J on no bull". Isn't that silly?

This fellow Sylvie Weeks lives with his
mother who is a lovely, I mean well I can't
describe her, she is a little old lady now but
17 years ago she was so kind to me and his
father is about 86, a character who used to
pick up stones on the Palisades and polish
them and he, having artistic leanings cannot
earn any money but finally obtained an office
job and has grown so thin that I was

shocked. I told him to take a maltine and
cod liver oil tonic. You understand they are
of good old american stock- intellectual all
of them. I told him in my impetuous way
that I was going to take over a loaf of my
graham bread and when I got there Mrs. Weeks
said "what kind of a hat have you got on, it
looks like a soldier hat." Well it was the only

one I could find that fitted over my hair
and does look like a G.A.R. hat but I like
it- anyway she said so you think Sylvie doesn't
get anough

to eat. Alack, that is what I did think,
but I have sinced changed my mind and have
realized that Sylvie is doing something he
doesn't want to do and has never married-
probably can't-and maybe it is unrequited

love, oh dear me- but anyway I know he
should eat more anyway and of course I

have known for years that he felt he never
could marry because he never seemed able to
get a job or find his place to earn money.

He is a Taurus person, doesn't develop
sexually until long after average and
his horoscope describes him perfectly.

One of these quiet, modest, patient,
intellectual people. But altho he studied
at the League, his mother said he got dis-
couraged at the pupils of that time were not
serious-I remember Gwen said they had that
reputation- it costs too much to go there
etc well Sue did very well there and I wish
she had stayed but Virgil thought different.

And so I really must stop as I could
chatter til doomsday. So farewell, but
only until you write me again dear child.

Lots of love to you and your
wife and your son of whom you give me
no news whatever, horrid person- still
I love you just the same.

Viola.

P.S. Do I understand that?

P.S. Do I understand that you have become an actor in the Non plays that you did with Fenollosa or that you of course are credited with having made the plays available to english speaking actors. I know that television is being speedily perfected in England.

No my dear no one could compare your physique with Mr. Shaw as little as I know of his or yours. But of course you were very graceful and pretty when I knew you without the reddish shade to your hair and NO BEARD. In fact you appeared to both Gwen and I like an angel gabriel or as Gwen said a young Apollo-remember I didn't say that, because Apollo seems to me to be effeminate looking. But your eyes used to shoot forth blue gleams of lightning. I'm old enough now to tell you so.

There is in the parlor at this minute a young irish feller or something Hughes is his name whom the girls encountered backstage at the Bergenfield movie house where they were contesting with amateurs. They also saw him again at the Park Lane movie house last week. He sang or tried to sing "Boo Hoo" a popular song and did not hang on to the second note thereby leaving an embarrassing and dreadfully dull pause between it and the next measure or two and his voice is nothing to speak of. However he took the girls out and got them a soda and then they came in again and saw the rest of the show. I just fixed up some ginger ale and crackers which moved him to jump in his

flivver, rush down to the village and bring back some ice-cream. Generous but childish. I hear sounds from B's uke and staccato notes but no voices to speak of issuing from the parlor and yet B. comes out here to tell me they intend to sing AS A TRIO in Jersey City. Well, the smell of the footlights seems to be getting in its deadly work. I sat thru the amateur contest in Palisades Park last week just to please them. They looked very blooming and sweet, Barbara in a pretty orange dress and Sue in hunter green silk and they sang "My Baby just cares for me" with a chorus of

"Bid I remember to tell you I adore you" The five piece orchestra elected to come in on the chorus but didn't know they meant to "truck off" and so it was rather duddy. But their voices sounded very sweet. Of course they didn't get either of the prizes. The first prize was given to a skinny old irishman of 65 who played "When Irish eyes are smiling" on an ocherino and who had the gall to dance the rhumba with his fat slob of a daughter????? and not content with that he had to pull her around in an apache affair and still worse the fools tried an acrobatic stunt of pulling each other over their prone bodies and I thought each time the old fellow wouldn't make it. He told B. backstage that "he knocked em col' in Jersey city and kept sticking his neck in and out while waiting for the award. The rest of the amateur contest consisted of little children whose mothers pushed them on to play violin, tap and sing. The other prize was given to a fool who tried to do the old

acrobatic clown stunts bouncing on his
head between handsprings with chairs etc.
Simply awful. The audience acted up to par
that is, sympathizing with "effort" instead
of the germ of beauty. One can't blame them.
Any little boy shouting and screaming with
gesticulations a popular song will always
appeal to the crowd. But it was an experience
for the girls.

Do you ever get the "Book Digest or
any of these now popular digests? If you don't
I'll send them on if you'll tell me- of course
I don't want to load you with literature you
are in the habit of getting. Wrote to Norma
tonight to ask if she had sent you a copy of
Trips. If not I will send you the copy she
sent me. It is quite informative but as I
read many books of travel it is only novel
in telling little up-to- date incidents that
the traveller is liable to encounter, such as
one about the ash-tray its owner was showing
to a Serbian as one he "picked up" abroad"
but couldn't read the inscription. The
Serbian translated it to the confusion of the
man " this ashtray was stolen from the Hotel
so and so, by an American, or englishman as
the case might be. But the contents of
the magazine as a whole are rather interesting
to very rich people who are contemplating
a way to spend their money. and this copy
has an article about the different "Lonely
Hearts" advertisements in several countries-
very depressing reading to me but worded
in a properly sophisticated manner. The paper
and size of the magazine very nice.

V.

I get to Tenafly you come up on Sub. get out at
168th St. at the Medical Center and take Tenafly bus.
Or you can take any bus there and get out at the Bridge
and telephone to me Eng. 3-6325M- that is Englewood
3-6325M and it will only take me 20 min. to come
over to the bridge and pick you up. V-

We live in a very old stone house on the corner of Columbus
Drive and Jefferson Ave. There is about an acre of ground and
we live very quietly and have practically no society- I just
hoe my garden and Sue goes to Business School and Barbara is at
home and Conrad is in his last year at Lawrenceville Prep. He's
going to Dartmouth. We have a tenant Mr. and Mrs. Jones, very
nice people, like us, I mean Mrs. J! is a school teacher and
Mr. Jones is a Mass. man and they are very congenial. You will
not find any excitement of people coming or going as I say
we like to be quiet.

It is beautiful here in the summer- just now we're
having quite cool weather for April.

hasta la luego

V.

have the coffee you get from the Cine Roma
roasted over there.

Perhaps you knew this, but anyway
I'm writing because I think $5.
duty on 5 1-2 lbs. coffee is awful.

The duty on the package I had fixed up
to send you would be $1.84 I think he
said or $1.25 I forget which at the moment.

Hope I'm doing the right thing.

V.

P.S.I can use the coffee I got for you
if you don't want it and will return
the amount you sent.

195 Jefferson Avenue, Tenafly, N.J.

Dec. 26-39

Dearest Ez:

Dec. 11

Your letter just reached us today.

I do hope the coffee arrives and you like it. If you will tell me whether your espresso machine uses percolator or drip (silly of me not to find out when you were here) I would have sent coffee ground for percolator- one is finer ground than the other. If you haven't a little hand grinder I think, just think I have one in the cellar which

mother used to use and I'll get it out and send it to you but when all coffee nowadays comes in both grinds its too easy to grind it ones self. Everything is made so easy nowadays that we're gradually losing the use of our limbs, feet and even brains, eh? Hope you had a lovely Xmas, we did. The girls gave me lots of things, five dresses, my my. Conrad took the girls in to see "Gone with the Wind" last night- it is four hours long and they couldn't get bus 84 so walked quite a bit and got in at

slas! tea is constipating to some people-

2:30. It snowed a little Xmas day and there is skating on the comm on but we generally get lots of snow in Feb.

Suppose you heard about the 500 germans we had on Ellis Island. I en-
close picture of them looking at the
SaStatue of Liberty. I will ask
my educated son about the Wash'n Merry
go-round and send you the paper it's
in which is what I think you mean.
Con came down from Hanover
in an old Ford and blaw in the 21st.
As it took them 8 hours and they

covered about 320 miles he was pretty
cold tho they stopped in Danbury and got
hamburgers etc. When he goes back the
same way( it only cost him $4.30) he will
have on some wollen socks and a muffler
and some grey suede gloves lined with
flannel or my name isn't Fatool, Benny
Goodman's drummer's name as far as I can
make out. Anyway he doesn't dress warm
enough and I can't do anything about it
it seems as he's satisfied. He had with
him two enormous suitcases, one that his
father used which is colossal and how

Jan. 15-40 Tenafly, N.J. 195 Jefferson
Ave.

Dearest Ez my love:

Yours of Dec. 20! just
arrived and was I glad to hear the
coffee arrived and with no customs.
Butttt, has nobody every told you
that Geo. Wash'n coffee should be
made with only hot water? You put
a teaspoonful in cup and add hot
water. Boiling water I understand
spoils the taste. Mercy me!!!!!

The Geo. Wash'n people would hold their
hands up in honor the way you cooked
it. It is very concentrated I understand.
I used to get the "aces"
three of which I sent you lately in a
letter., but it seemed to taste of the
tinfoil so I stopped getting it.

There is a new pulverized coffee out
now made by the Nestle Company and I
will send you some- competition aha!

I am so glad you all are so glad!!!!
Halleyoolah!! Amen.

Of course should have know Vivaldi

was either poetry or music. Haven't
heard of him yet—no doubt he'll be
on the Ford Sunday hour soon.

They always fall for American dollars.

All prosper, what a funny word, for
your music and M.S. I never never
studied harmony in or out of school and
wish I had but have no patience. Sue
had a touch of laryingitis but is
better now and has been going out with
"goons". Now I am over a sore throat
also. No snow, windy and rainy.
Today sunshiny and windy like spring.

Con writes today that "Its neat to have
snow pouring down outside and be snug and
warm in a closet, I mean room, with my
neat little radio going full blast."

He says for me not to worry as he knows
when to study and when to listen. But I
wonder.

Would you believe it, a little
while ago B. and I heard children's
voices and looking out we saw a teacher
with a large class of kids looking at
the well and they knocked on the door

(5)

and said Mrs. Jones said they could
look at the Dutch door, etc. Its a
good thing it is muddy or they would
have all piled in to have a look see.
What next!

We had a lovely Xmas, Con stayed
almost 3 weeks. The girls gave me
five dresses! and a blue chenille
robe and a plaid bag (scotch, which I'll
have to remember when spending money)

Yes we had a fine Xmas. The tree was
somewhat scraggly looking but Barbara
was overcome by the black beard worn

(6)

by young Pendergast who sold her the
tree and she paid $1.25 for it. Perhaps
she was thinking of your beard also.

Funny how you always see Virgil's
stuff and we never do. Neighbors are
always telling us about articles etc.
Virgil took the girls to see Hamlet or
did I tell you? Maurice Evans. They
had a grand feed at Schrafts, 42nd St.
Barbara distinguished herself as usual.

She asked "Gertrude" how many Hamlets
she had seen and said, "Did you see

John Barrymore in 1922 and Gertrude said yes. And Guy Forbes Robertson the English Hamlet? and Gertrude said yes. And, persisted Barbara, Booth? Virgil, who is getting used to B's wisecracks by now interpolated, "Oh yes, Gertrude, don't you remember, you took your daughter along." But alas it wasn't a wise-crack from Barbara, just a slip of the tongue.

Virgil wrote Barbara recently a very long fatherly letter about her "poetry" which she sent him at his request. It was a darn good letter but B. still

likes her poetry. She is going to let him see her mystery novel. Alas poor Barbara doesn't want to work or polish.

Well, here's hoping you don't become a real coffee addict like so many famous folk in history, but I guess you won't do that. A cup or two in the morning certainly does make the day look bright, viva la coffee.

So, with a light heart I say adieu and will send more coffee after a reasonable time.

Lots of love from all to you all

Vi

01' 195 Jefferson Avenida
Tenafly, N.J

April 1 15-40

Bon jour dear Child:

I wonder if you are out of coffee
by now? I also wonder if you'll get this
letter. Just now I was drinking some coffee and
eating a piece of my graham bread, and reading
Robert Benchley. I hope you have read him but
perhaps not as your sense of humor is sometimes
hidden- well I've been choking and squeaking thru
the mouthfuls, waiting for Sue to get up and go
buying the week's groceries with me. Well I

read about the candy we used to get in our generation, i.e. the wine cup. Did you ever get some? I did. Benchley tells about the cone filled with some villainous fluid which broke and ran down the chin and necktie. Then I read a chapter beginning "One day in August, a peasant named Karl Klatsch was walking home from the village of Ober-Irgen-flaschungenden to the silo in which he lived,----- and here I had to stop. Memories of the other night at supper when we listened to reports from across the seas and heard that Hitler had a plane named "Eidelweiss" came over me. We could hardly finish our supper from laughing. Barbara was the first to choke on the news.

I haven't been sending newspapers
so I did have an article on your favorite gal
Miss Hutton and perhaps I can find it this A.M.
I see that President Roosevelt has impounded her
40 millions so that the germans can't get hold of
it in Denmark. Thank God!

Have I told you that Sue has been
to Florida? I think I did. But Conrad has also
been to Sarasota Fla., went by bus with a sort
of rich boy from Yonkers who goes to Williams
College and who had friends in Sarasota with whom
they stayed. Conrad had a beyootiful time,
waffles every morning for breakfast and got
very tanned and wrote me from Dartmouth that he

-3-

"Ladies and gentlemen" (here he cricks his back as if a flea had suddenly taken a bite on his shoulder) when I was a little boy (here he hops a bit on one foot, the other foot out ahead) my grandfather had a picture on the wall of a man with a sort of Napoleon hat on that went this way (here he draws his hand across the top of his head sort of loosely scratching, but not), no it went this way (and he draws his hand from forehead to back of head the same way) (in between he has been jerking a little and hopping with legs close together) and he goes on," he had epaulettes on the shoulders, Sam Brown belt, stripes down each trouser leg, and all the while he runs his hands over these places sort of loosely scratching. Well finally he sits down and the other scotchman says "Sandy, you double-crossed me." So when he gets up to speak his speech, he goes thru the same motions, says eht same things, but says "No, epaulettes on the shoulders, no Sam Brown belt, no stripes down each trouser leg, and finishes with "but he had on kilts! and puts both hands on his stomach and rubs gently up and down. Well my dear Ezra by this time I was screeching and my stomach fairly ached with laughing. I do hope you can see the possibilities of the story to make a room full of people laugh their heads off.

Barbara got a sweet little letter in her polyglot quaint speech from little Maria. I forgot to mention that there were two fairly nice fellows there, about 30 years old and they both came over to see the girls Sunday before last. As usual I had nothing to give them, as they stayed way past supper time til 11 P.M. but biscuits and coffee and above all things, chocolate pudding with whipped cream! One of them has taken Sue out Saturday night to see "Dr. Cyclops" which you should really see if it- it ever comes you way and last night he took her to the circus. Sue says it certainly is the "greatest show on earth" this year. She reported that the horses were so

--2

"

has gotten back into the run of things "you
reluctantly" up here.

It seems that a young child of 17 named
Bortz from Ohio is going to ask Sue up there for
the Green Key doings May 2nd or 3rd. Barbara
sent her picture but I guess Con only has young
freshies around him as yet and none of them has
been attracted by Barbara and they don't know
what fun she is and how really beautiful she is
with her hair up. Well perhaps she will go to
the Fall houseparties and Cornell game which
rivals the Green Key stuff.

Last week we went over to Yonkers to see
my old friend Jean Hord who has the daughter in
night clubs, etc and the two boys which are new
unfortunately suffering from either lack of or
too much thyroid so that they appear to be
imbell- imbecillic. The oldest one Gordon is so
near sighted that he is almost blind and has a
"crush" on Barbara and wants to take her to the
movies! God forgive us but we have horrid laughs
mimicing him, the way he says "Barbara" and holds
his hands up like paws. Jean had about 12 there
and gave us a dandy feed and there was a fellow
and his wife there- he played the piano quite
beautifully and he also told us a scotch story
which I shall never forget and some day I will
perhaps be able to act it out for you. But since
I don't know when that may be and I am bursting
to tell you the story I will try here.

It seems two scotchmen, vice-presidents
of respective companies were to attend a meeting
to make speeches etc. They travelled to the city
where it was to take place and stayed at a hotel
where there were fleas. Next day one said to
the other (not the fleas) "now Sandy if you
scratch yourself at the meeting tonight, I'll
make you pay me fifty dollars! Well at the
meeting one Scotchman got up to make a speech
and here you'll have to use your imagination to
see how funny it was. He got up and began,

-4-

beautiful they fairly made tears come to her
eyes. A polar bear in with the lions was
something new- the poor beast kept moving his
head back and forth and they put a screen between
him and the lions. She didn't however see
Gargantua, the horrible chimpanzee that is so
ugly now that no one dares to enter his cage
without carrying a snake which he is afraid of.
They got there too late to see the breaks but
the clowns were side-splitting- one of them
went around as if on a bicycle, walking of course
but his bicycle had stick-like legs that pumped
the pedals. This fellow Tom Harkness is now
employed at the world's fair giving out information
and he says the girls ought to go over and try
their luck. But we expect to go up to Syracuse
to see my half-sister Lora and her numerous
family and perhaps to Lake Ontario, and Lora says
she might come back with us. We don't know when
we'll go if we do. I do so want Sue to study with
Grace Moore and I'm going to try with all my might
to have it happen. Sue was very discouraged
the other day. Went to a concert given by a girl
across the street who has studied with a Prof. Hand
who is connected with the Manhattan Opera Co. or
some such company. This girl is swedish descent
and sang one song in swedish which her father taught
her- the whole family is peculiarly dumb, the boy
about 20 keeps coming over here and boring us
until I had to tell him not to come so often as
the girls wouldn't go to the door. Well the girl
has a rather nice voice but high notes flat and
like a blown-egg- she had the nerve to sing
Un bel Di, and me chiamano Mimi. Sue feels
aggravied aggrieved that she didn't study with
someone who could give her a chance to have a
concert also. But Sue has the better voice.

Well one day last week I went out and
planted a lot of geranium slips and the next day
it snowed! It has all gone now and the sun is
shining nicely.

-5-

I wonder if Anna Hellyer in Belgium is werrri worried about the war. I do not see how Germany can last long with supplies cut off and her ships going one by one thank God! I see il duce is biding his time and if Germany looks as tho winning he will step in ha ha of course! It would be foolish for Germany to cast eyes on Greenland or Iceland for then it just might happen that Uncle Sam would get quite mad- we are now trying to invoke the Monroe Doctrine about it. will end on a joyful note- a neighbor says that Hitler, should he come over here would not get past the Bronx!!!

Well I must go and call up Sue as the bank closes at 2 P.M. these days don't know why, instead of three you know. Remember you have $7. in my strong box whenever you want more coffee or what not.

Farewell for now, with lots of love from us all to you all, and hopes that you are all in good health.

Viola

01' 195 Jefferson Ave

Tenafly, N.J.

May 24-40

Well Ezra!!!!

Been thinking of you off and on
all spring, and what a coolish spring it is.
The sun is darn hot when it appears but the
weather while it has been fine for planting
just now is making me sit in the kitchen with
a blanket round me knees.- age I guess hey?

Well I have oodles to write you
about, but first we must deny that Maria has
been peppering us with air mail, the little
Yankee eh? she has only written Barbara one
or two short letters, but you know these kids
in college. Conrad borrowed $15. from Sue
for some undisclosed purpose and also took a
fling down to Florida with a fellow from
Williams College who had friends or something
visiting his father there and what a time Con
had. Would you believe it he sent us some
pictures of a buxom blond girl, that type that
is always among the rich, a-sitting on his
knee in a very puritan and strained attitude
to be sure but sitting. He is being invited
for a house party at Williams and I hope he
will be able to dance as we took him in hand
Easter and showed him some steps. I sent him
a nice tan lounge jacket with large pockets
something that he doesn't buy for himself up
Dartmouth way and a pair of curtains for his
one window. Sue reported his window curtainless
condition and his chair coverless situation:
He wrote saying he "detested curtains" and
not to send him any but I already had and
on the outside of his envelope a P.S. said
everything arrived and was "grand".

the notice of gentlemen. We are not interested in our
limbs. We are only interested in this new residence to
which you have transported us, and we are at the moment
deciding whether it is the sort of residence to which
we can give our approval."

I have found an author about whom I'm slightly
crazy and have actually bought one of his books
called "Down the Garden Path" and now I'm
reading his "Green Grows the City" it too
about gardens but sooooo charming. His
name is Beverly Nichols.

Here is a charming paragraph which perhaps
amuses me so because its so like myself.

"There are two ways of planting the bulbs.

One is to get an old pencil or a skewer or some-
thing like that and to dig it into the turf for about
an inch and a half, dropping a bulb into each hold and
covering it up again. This method is not to be re-
commended. After you have dug the pencil in for about
a hundred and ninety-seven times you feel the whole
thing is a crashing bore. Also you forget where you
put some of the bulbs and you spear the pencil thru
those which you have already planted and bang goes
sixpence."

Perhaps you have guessed the author is English.

He is the most witty, delightful one I have read
so far. In my life. He was writing in the verse above
about tiny narcissi, about 2 inches high. He also
writes of ferns that have gold and silver linings and
his love of cats is exactly my own and I did not
think there was another in the world who had it.

Here is some about a basket containing two or more
kittens someone sent him. On opening the basket:
"were two of the strangest little bundles of fur...
...They stayed quite still, their eyes slowly ro-
tating round the room. As the eyes moved you could see
the black pupils narrow in the sunlight.
Neither of us moved. We stood like statues, watching
the kittens. The kittens remained seated, imperially in
their basket. Although they were trembling, they were
masters of the situation. They were aristocrats and they
knew it. There was nothing craven in their demeanor.
"Our limbs may be afflicted with a nervous flutter," they
seemed to say, "but that is a matter which should be beneath

-3-

occurred and laying her head on the chair for
a rest every five minutes- she was just about
"all in".

Well I got out the "juggernaut", to cut the grass and found it wouldn't go and have had a heck of a time with it until just today and the grass is a foot high but finally it is fixed and Sue ran it for an hour today while I flourished the sickle around on the edges and watwred the ground with drops of sweat you bet.

My garden is all planted except a place waiting for more corn. Barbara couldn't wait for the thing to be fixed and lost about three pounds pushing the lawn mower around.

Elliot play about murder in the cathedral hasn't appeared over here, hope it is good as I love murders.

Today B. got her copy of "Life" which Con gave her for Xmas but nothing resembling you sipping lemonade in Rapallo is in it, nothing but scenes of war etc. In a little while I expect to listen to King George the VI re-broadcast, part of which I heard earlier in the day. Gabriel Heater gave us some inklings from authentic sources of the condition now prevailing in Germany- women going to jail because they want to eat. If the Allies can hold out another siz month of weeks there will be quite a different face on things.

The name of German will go down in history as something to spit upon.

Well I won't get started on the war, suffice it to say that fascism will never win.

Glad you can get coffee and don't forget your seven simoleans over here.

I'm wondering about Anna Hellyer in Brussels- must find out if she came home don't know. When the Rex came over lately we wondered if you would be on it, but I see this time the Rex is not coming and whether this means that Mussolini will reinforce Hitler is a question.

-4-

I just want to let you know that the minute Mussolini begins to march I'm going out and kick Pacio the garbage man a good one in the pants. I wish some parachutists would land in my back yard- my scythe is all sharpened and ready.

Well, this goes for Fifth column activities too- we hear rumors of this down in Mexico and there is a particular german delicatessen woman who is going to get a swift kick from me also. You can see by this that I am quite roiled. The other night I started up to bed after listening to news, with my car key and my pocket-book! Barbara had a lot of fun out of this. Quite funny the situation in Ireland, I won't say Eire. They don't want to be slaves of the Germans and so they have to be good.

"Close your ranks and make the cadence ring with your inexorable something or other" this, the message of Mussy to his rat terriers. Are you going to stay in Italy if Mus. goes in? And so I have a lovely garden, I hope. Have planted mignonette and nastirtuims and sweet peas and have quite a few darling pansies. Will enclose one of some plants that my old friend Mr. Griffin makes a specialty of and one of mine and a lilly of the valley. I could go on and on chattering about my little doings- going up to Syracuse the end of June and bring back Lora, my half-sister and take her to the fair and Asbury Park etc. She is a very fat lady so we'll have to go slow. Sue has been sending her cartoons around and receiving them again but we have hopes- they're really funny and good of course I think so. We practice your french and italian songs daily and yet no hope yet of her studying with Grace Moore but in the fall she is going to try to get a job somewhere. Virgil sent her $30 to go to Dartmouth with but said she was too old to be asking for money etc. well, well

We're going to Yonkers on Memorial evening to hear some woman a Mrs. Imdsen or some such name sing at the house of our friends the Hords and receive

-2-

Well Sue had a wonderful time at the Green Key Dance. Her dress was white tulle I mean net, reaching the ground with black lace insertions and black lace waist and puffed sleeves. The boy Bortz, 17 from Ohio, there on a scholarship, gave her gardenias and took her everywhere, to the yacht club for lunch, to the Bonnie Oakes in Vermont, and she stayed at a darling little inn and they danced til 4 A.M. on coco-colas and ice-cream and went 100 miles out of their way trying to find the Bonnie Oakes and poor Sue was shivering like a alley cat when they arrived and could eat no breakfast. The couple with them found a hot water bag and she perked up. Lot of drinking going on up there and some fellows peeked in Con's room and asked Sue to have a high ball, but she said that was too much for her to the great delight of Con. Her dress was torn and bedraggled on the bottom because it rained and was too long anyway but can be just cut off up three inches to wear again. My my, shades of the Freshman Frolic at Hamilton! they had two bands, Glen Miller and Red Norton. Signs up said not to use electric iron for hair curling as the current was different but Sue tried it and burned her hair. Luckily she had taken along a black net snood and she said she was the only one there with one on and looked very unusual with two bracelets of brilliants and also ear rings and she wore mother's diamond ring and silver slippers. She wouldn't take a long black velvet wrap she had and took her little chubby fur coat and of course got chided. All the girls immediately got into sport clothes and so Sue had to buy some sneakers as Monsieur Bortz took her walking and up the ski drive and along the pine needle paths. Bortz was a dandy dancer but not much on looks. Very tall and a nice boy. Conrad is hoping that Barbara will get a chance to go for the fall dances . Well when Sue got home at 11 P. M. Sunday she insisted on staying up until 3 telling us every little thing that

-5-

some more of Electa's spiffy clothes, she of the
night club and vaudeville affairs and also she
is officially engaged to her partner Mr. Gaby

Sue has been "rushed" by a fellow we met there. He is about 28 but talks all the time- he is a typical Sagittarius. An aviator for four or two or three years in Panama and now is giving out information at the Fair. I don't like it as he has "no job" and doesn't seem to be good at anything but av aviation. Took Sue to a flying field, Dobbs Ferry but I told her not to go up and she didn't. Planes are being changed in many ways continually so I didn't think safe. He went up on a sea plane however. He is good-looking and lives in Yonkers with his mother and sister but I don't want Sue to throw herself away on such a fellow.

King George is about to have his broadcast "transcripted" I love to listen to his halting words- wonderful how he overcomes his stuttering isn't it?

Well, I must stop chattering now and do my crossword puzzles which I have heaps of and which I do continually when I'm not reading. Crossword puzzles are more darn fun. I'm going out now in the night and pick a huge pensy and a small one and a lily of the valley and also enclose some crossword puzzles for you too. Awfully glad the italians like what you write, but of course, they like fascism, we don't you know.

Bless you my dear and keep well and give my love to everybody even though they don't know me. Lots of love and write again soon.

Yea, uncontrolled Viola
Love from us all.

the adolescent boy brother of 21 came over
and I thought Sue was in the front room but
so I disregarded talk of "how have you been" and
pointed to the parlor but Sue had gone to bed-
to the mystery of Stephen and ushering him out
the front door. Sue has a date with "Tom"
tomorrow at 2. The fellow has dingy teeth and
a long nose and black curly hair and talks continually.
However he is a nice fellow strange as it seems
but, but, but, I don't want him in the family.
God knows if he was well off or had brains I
wouldn't mind. Saw a picture of his father
and mother and sister. Mother all right, sis
all right, but father looks like humpky dumpty
with a tumor oh me.

So, good-night. Shall I go to a rummage
store in Englewood where they do really have spiffy
evening clothes and get a evening wrap for ME?
How awful. Heretofore I have always taken pleasure
in going places in any old thing, but don't you
think I'd look nice in a wine-color perishable
velvet dress, slight train and white tulle at
neck with gold ribbon around neck? buttoned up
front. I'm just talking and would really not want
such a dress at all. I never have need for anything
like that but just for once I'd like to. But dear
me accessories would have to be gotten. However
if I see a evenink wrap I may get it. What's the
use of spending lots of money (if I could) on a
thing I could get at a rummage shop to be used
only once or twice a year. Dear me how I chat.
When I wrote Con that Sue "Would remember the
one time she had at Dartmouth all her life" Con wrote
back saying that I shouldn't look at it that way-
that it was something the girls _should have_ He
entirely missed my point. I meant it's always the
first time that counts- more of it makes one sur-
feited and wanting more and more hey? So, again
good-night. Much love

Vio.

I suppose there's no use of my being ashamed if
your writings for the "dark-eyed" public in Italy
contains wood for the fire against England and France.

Do you know about Alfred Rosenberg and Von Bola ? We know.

Sunday Eve

P.S. Couldn't mail this, no stamps til tomorrow
Just whipped down to the village as me cigarettes
were out and just have to have some for Monday
which is pay day and check doesn't come til noon
sometimes. Tis heavy fogging I mean misting, no
fog but not so cold. I suppose by the time this
reaches you Mussy will be at war, altho something
tells me he is a great bluffer. Being Gemini he is
a good diplomat. How about that vill-on-Pala
villa on Palatine Hill for Elene Petaci or some
such name and family???? hey? oh you kid Mussy.
Got to pretend he's still a young fella.

I pay pray every day if not pray I summon
all my inner forces and put them against the heels
of the germans I mean those "heels" the germans
and retard them in every way known to me alone
secretly. If they do win this war the world will
punish them. It is the egotistical nature of the
german that makes him continue. They are poor
losers. This trait is what makes them good
scientists but not so good as the English.

The English people are the cream of the world
and have the best brains and culture. I regard
every other nation as "not white". As to vice
that is in every nation, but as to living under
"fascism" don't fool yourself Ezra, the world
will not stomach it. I am amazed at your
slavish attitude. The women of Germany have
been slaves. Have had children for Hitler and
that fanatical runt Goebbels and that dope fiend
Goering to use to further their fat bellies.

There is quite a bit of war talk over here
and wondering what we should do if England should
move into Canada. Great deal of talk of
airplanes and bombers which we perfected for the
germans to use,!! It is interesting to note that
Evangeline Adams predicted war for "us" in 1941 or
1942.

Well no more for tonight. Con will be home
the 13th I think. What to do with the little old
Lizzie which is propped up on logs of wood on the
porch. Dear me. Family across the street, part
swedish, going to move thank heaven, have been pests
Sue has made paper dolls for the little girl,
who comes over continually, and tonight Stephen

195 Jefferson Ave

Tenafly, N.J.

June 22-40 Saturday

Dearest Ez:

Delighted and amazed to get your letter this noon. I suppose you are getting restless with all the changing events in history etc. We were wondering and thinking about you when we heard Genoa was bombed. That is near you, at least on the map it looks near and we thought perhaps you all would go Switzerland. I enclose a few clippings from papers of the past week but Monday I am going to send you a bunch of them. Sue has taken up stamp collecting and I enclose a notice about mail to Italy while the war is on- but as it is only suspended I'll keep on sending newspapers. Yes Dorothy Thompson is not much thought of here among the intelligensia comprising myself and Mrs. Jones and Conrad etc and many more no doubt. We never listen to her on the radio. Roosevelt seems to be hysterical but there is a lot of sense in his precautions. Lindbergh is considered by Conrad to be a mighty fine adviser but I think he is a little too optimistic. I am so sorry that you like to listen to the very lowest newsmongering and do not believe in the integrity and high ideals of democracy. I had rather be ruled by an England than a Germany. In other words I could never be a slave and that is what will happen if fascism and nazism get rampant. I enclose some clippings from that filthy rag the Mirror which you like. Someone gave it to Conrad the other night when he was in New York. I never buy it as you know.

Well, well, to brighter things. Just received a $10. check on my rubber stock, gherb glory be- have only five share now but am hanging on to it. Conrad having taken up baseball at Dartmouth came home with a big picture of himself with two huge bats across his shoulder and insists on learning to drive the car. He already knows how to shift gears and so we had to go to Englewood

-2-

to get his permit and also his birth certificate- the
latter something new. Said he, now I will find out if
I am a legitimate child, or rather he said "suppose I am
not one" I've just forgotten what he said but it was in
a funny joking way. I said, well I've never told you
but you the son of the Prince of Wales. I have been
taking him out every day and he drives very well but
stalled at first quite a lot which makes the battery
low until I told him he could hold the clutch and now
we don't bub bub along but he'll get the "hang" of it
pretty soon. Maybe I won't worry when he goes out
alone! As it is every time we get back safely I'm just
along. Unless you drive a car you don't know the
surprising things that happen to a new driver. For
instance we go along a road for miles and not a car
and just turn around a corner and there is a railroad,
a red light, a truck and two or three cars coming
from different directions. Well such is life.

Next Tuesday Sue and I are going to drive up to
Syracuse to see sister Lora and maybe bring her back
with us and go to the Fair and Asbury Park etc.
Sue's aviator friend flew in circles about 1,000 ft
up around our house the other day in a yellowszsea-
plane. We ran out and I waved a dish cloth. Last
night a Goodyear "blimp" or dirigible went over the
house with red electric letters showing all the time
reading urgings about the Red Cross. It went very
slowly and looked very mysterious. My garden is
thriving but very dry lately. Conrad has got a job
teaching tennis and volley-ball etc to an Adult camp
somewhere in Penn and goes next Friday. The pay is
#100 for the season so he says and I hope so anyway.
We have great confabs about the war- Conrad having
been taught peculiar things at Lawrenceville and
Dartmouth about the English. I enclose a clipping
by a youth (I believe) David Gordon Bridgman which
elicited Conrad's approval.

Well we're going swimming at the Hook on Hudson
tomorrow. You poor dear, keep your pants on and remember
you can always come and live with us if the bullets
get too hot over there. Bless you my dear and accept
the love of us all in these ignorant days.

Viola.

P.S. When we heard on radio that Antheil was killed I thought at first it was George, your friend but am glad it is not. Is this one any relation to him?

2 P.S. Listening to an broadcast from England just now but in spite of it I am trying to write. That's the way I listen, the typewrite, do the dishes, answer B's protests at taking a picture out of her "Life" to send you and Conrad propagating on the ice-chest. An amusing happenstance in the papers about von Spiegel, whose picture I enclose looking like Mickey Mouse. It seems he said something to a newspaper reporter about Germany's not forgetting what happened in 1914 and that the U.S. better "watch out". He denied this after being hailed before some authority or other and somebody said we ought to "throw him in the Gulf of Mexico" as he was not much use to Hitler et c. You know of course about all the Germans who have been propagating down in Mexico these many years.

Well I suppose you and Victor will just have to sit around and watch the bombings.

July 23-40

Dear Ez:

I don't know, of course if this will reach you or whether you are pining to hear the simple doings of US. I sent you some newspapers twice, once to Rapallo and the last ones as Miss Angleton wrote me, via Japan - Siberia. I hope they reached you. Will send some more soon.

We have been up to Syracuse and also Lake Ontario, Barbara, Sue and I brought back my half-sister Lora who weighs about 200 pounds and took her to the Fair which was a Flop as she couldn't walk far so we got stuck in the Amusement area and didn't know that we could take a bus for ten cents outside the fair grounds to any point. However we went to the Frank Buck exhibit and saw Mr. Buck emerging from an enclosure where there were some curious monkeys and of course I whispered loudly to Sue, "that is Mr. Buck" he turned and I said "I've read all your books" and he gave me a cute smile and twinkled his eyes and said in a soft voice"that's very nice." My, was I thrilled. Pooh pooh. Well we had our fill of looking at monkeys for once. They threw bananas tied to balloons to those on the mountain and it was darn funny to see them grab a banana and run like the devil on three legs with the banana tucked under one arm. The girls stood looking at the three savages who beat drums out front for fully 15 min. One of them was perfectly fascinating in a horrible way with a light brown mask with red and white horizontal stripes thereon and about six buffalo horns and large feathers stuck on his head and a feather skirt. They were all as black as a nigger can be and fine specimens.

-2-

We took Lora to the Paramount and saw the Rockettes and took her up to Inspiration point which is all laid out with parking space and have very good refreshments. Remember we went there and you asked us to have tea? I don't believe there is a tea leaf in the place now as you know what we Americans like, ice-cream and hot dogs.

Then we took her to the old Washington '76 house and a german with quite an accent, of all things, was caretaker there and Lora who has never been to New York had her feelings hurt when he bounced her quarter on the counter when she bought post cards. I told him to bite it. I can't understand the curious fact of his being a caretaker there- I guess the Masons are very broad-minded.

Conrad had a job as bus-boy at a Howard Johnson's restaurant for about two weeks but couldn't stand it, the hours were too long so he walked out and he said three dish-washers got dissatisfied and left also. I fear that son Conrad is somewhat of an agitator as I overheard his telephone conversation with a pal of his saying he was going to write about his experience. He got $18. a week but his hours were about ten every day but Sunday and one day off. He said his legs were athletes legs and couldn't "take it". He first was going to teach volleyball and tennis at a camp in Delaware but when the man saw him he said he wanted a more mature person but Con stayed at the camp for about a week at the man's invitation and got a bid for next year.

Today he went to N.Y. on another quest this time for someone to drive a car, with dramatic ability. I fear this is an old gag for a salesman to sell magazines but Con will have to live and learn. He took his test and drives our car now- a very good driver too.

Sue wrote for an audition on the radio and WNEW answered so she will go Monday can't make up her mind what to sing!

-3-

Barbara is doing nothing very well and getting fatter. She helps me with the housework but her zest for writing is certainly at a low point. She just won't sit down and plug at anything.

Our raspberries did quite well this year in spite of so many years in one spot and the jap beetle. Violets can be very detrimental to raspberry bushes- their bulbs take a lot of the now甚 nourishment away so I had to dig them all out this spring and have a trap for the beetles.

Sue has a chance to get into a large Baking Co.'s art department and a little stenog. as the girl whose place she might get was drowned at Jones Beach last week. It takes a drowning or some other drastic upheaval to get artists out of a job these days it seems.

We've had very warm weather these last 3 days but tonight is cooler. Mrs. Jones, you remember? our tenant had a baby girl last Friday. Well you will notice I have refrained nobly from saying anything that might be censored. I do hope the censor enjoys this letter because you won't probably. However I'll send you some more papers and then you'll be happy. I suppose or hope. Who is that Miss Angleton I ought to remember but can't. Miss Barnard sent me a postal which I'll enclose. As there was no definite address I couldn't answer it. Funny, what? Perhaps you know where she lives now and will gladden her by a communication eh?

Well, dear child, I hope you and all your families are safe and getting something to eat. We all send our love and hope to hear from you if possible.

Yours, Viola

5¢

via Japan-
Siberia
(Giappone)

BONDS
PREFERRED STOCKS
INVESTMENTS

MORRIS COHON

42 BROADWAY
NEW YORK, N.Y.
—
WHITEHALL 4-0869

January 16, 1941.

Dear Friend:

Enclosed is a copy of our Investors News and Digest.
We hope that you like it and find something of interest contained in it.

This Investors News and Digest is published by the
firm of Morris Cohon for the use of its clients and prospective
clients. There is no charge for it and it is mailed free.

We are enclosing a card for your convenience. If you
desire us to continue mailing you a copy of the Investors News and
Digest every week, please sign and mail the enclosed card to us.
There is no charge nor are you under any obligation. We simply do
not wish to mail out copies to those who do not wish to have them.
If you desire a copy mailed to you every week, please sign and mail
the enclosed card.

Remember, there is no charge and we only hope that we
can be of some service to you.

MRS. V. S. B. JORDAN

195 JEFFERSON AVENUE

TENAFLY, N. J.

-3-

as I wrote you and I wrote her another letter so I got a
letter written, I swear by Bill, I can tell his handwriting,
but he wrote it as if it were Florence and signed her name!
what on earth he did this for I'll n ever know. Anyway he
or Florence wrote the letter and it said that Bill's mother
had died and Florence's mother was in bad health and the young
Bill, M.D. was getting married this week but that he, Bill or
Florence would write after it is over as Bill would love to
meet "Perdita". in quotation marks- I wonder if Bill thinks
that really isn't her name. Well I'll write you of course
describing the meeting etc. Perdit a and Mary B. are coming
out for Thanksgiving I hope.

This afternoon I have to go to the florist and order
some flowers for our neighbor old Mr. Griffin who passed away
at his home across the garden that he will not cultivate next
year alas- while I won't miss him too much, he was rather a
crusty old gent but used to make me a Xmas wreath every year
and took such pride in it- but you know I never really liled
the cut and dried round wreath- I like a few fir branches tied
with a red ribbon much better. Roy gave me $1. toward the
flowers and Con two and I hope I can get something that will
not look too stingy- hope a dozen carnations but really don't
know- flowess at a funeral funeral are so foolish- I'll have
to go to the Pell funeral parlors in village to attend it
I suppose. But what else can one do- throw the body in
a hole and shovel dirt upon it as they did to Ophelia?
why not- that is the question eh?

While I was doing the breakfast dishes just now

didn't see the "Ar"

course I'm talking thru my hat
as Con says I'm wanted to take care
of the nouse and cook etc. The future
will take care of itself- but everyone
worries. I now have 4 front teeth
only, to come out and next week ds
the time- then I'll be gumming food
or perhaps Dr. Beck will stick some
falsies in my mouth somehow for the
girl in the office says she wouldn't
let me go out toothless. Whatever
they do I'm sure it's going to hurt to
put even a temp. bunch of teeth right
in- but---

It began to rain last night and
was kept- kept it up until now- about
2 P.M. old Mr. Humpnry's(a tristie od
older than I and a bachelor) is out
roiling his lawn and raking up the
uncountable catkins or plants that all
take up so much space. His
lawn isn't anything to speak of in looks

Harrington Pk. N.J.

May 29-31

My, my, Dear Ezra:

Barbara just came home from
dentist in N.Y. and brought your note!
I must get a few lines to you on the
eve of Decoration Day as I shall be
so busy and unnappy- my cousin is
coming and God knows if she will come
tonight and stay over- anyway--

I must disabuse you of your picture
of me on the rocks. Not quite, so far
I have $2,000. savings account and
when I get my beautiful new teeth I
shall probably issue forth, telling
employers I am 58- maybe I can get a
job at Benux where you have to get
to work at 7:30 in A.M. but you get a
pile of money for just sorting out
little gadgets all day long. Or

O me, I'm trying to become accustomed
to this environment, making me one or
my thick rag rugs- making a dress for
inder- it is so funny to go into rooms
with our old familiar furniture and
then remember-- Con is industriously
painting screens white - the house is
brown- O here's something funny-
last eve when he came home he said he
had just stepped off the train in
Closter, he is here, when his car horn
began to sound and wouldn't stop! Con
was enbar rassed, but it finally
stopped as he rode along-he thin ks the
jarring of the train set it going.

He cut the wire on it so it wouldn't
happen again- but must have it fixed.

Wrote to Florida but haven't heard
any more but what you said about Bill-
that he was getting better. Mary B.

gone to Vancouver-perhaps I'll write-
she is so Flowering Bogwood

Cornus Florida rubra

From Series 2 Originated by Betty Carnes

Executed in water color by Kathleen Cassel

Approved by American Nature Association

Published by Barton-Coffman, Inc., Baltimore, Md.

Cornus Florida

Wish I could help her be interested in something
but I suppose fame is her goal. I've
Viva

Viva

avec l'oeuvre de l'artiste

I must run along now, down to Closter
to leave the car for 3 days while
they put new wiring in- cost $20.
ah me, sometimes I think I ought
to put car up for the winter and
let Con have the garage- I could
use bus for groceries and there
is a grocer who delivers in the
neighborhood or Closter anyway. But
Con thinks contrary.

We haven't peeked into our
funny looking furnace-oh we have--
but haven't tried it yet- don't
believe there is anything wrong
with it only some dam phool built
it too near the cellar entry door
and facing away from the coal bin.
Here we are in the coal bin again.
Well-- we've had lots of tomatoes
just lots but the corn was nothing
to speak of, just little nubbins-
have some musk melons-fancy that
don't know if they'll be eatable-
and had cucumbers.

Barbara goes forth job-hunting
Monday-I asked her if I should bake
her a bannock. Heard from Mary Barnard
who feels better but is dieting "with
much sugar" which seems queer to me for
a liver complaint. She says she is happy
with greek- that is her father bought her a
watermelon pink lounging robe and she reclines
on bed and translates greek. She has leased her
apartment in N.Y.

Well I really must run along now-
bless you my dear also

Viola

MRS. V. S. B. JORDAN
LA ROCHE AVENUE
HARRINGTON PARK, N. J.

Jan. 7-152

Dear Ezra;

Well well a new ribbon- cost, $1.
vs. 65c. when I was a woiking gal.

Oh now I remember "Little Rivers"--and it
was Gwen who selected it-I remember saying"is
that all you could find? and of course she said
yep. She might have gotten you a copy of Tom
Jones' Rose Jar" which I wish I had now- This
fellow, a son of the lawyer in Utica who negotiated
my father's divorce or should I say my mothers,
anyway he, Tom Jones, got to be on the New York
Times, and I have found out he is still living in
N.Y. as I wrote the Times a few months ago. I
wanted to get three copies of his little book of
poems, perhaps I quoted one of them to you and told
you how we used to call after him, "Tom Jones broke
his bones on a bunch of cobble-stones." I was
always a little afraid of him because he looked
like a chinaman- round face and rather slanting
eyes- I probably can get copies of his book if
I write the"out of print" people who get these,
books for one. Some day I will. Just in case
I didn't copy one that I have in my memory book.
I'll give it here-I like it.

A Quiet Vale

I know a quiet vale where faint winds blow
The silver poplar branches all awry
And ne'er another sound comes drifting by
Save where the stream's cool waters softly flow

-2-

WILD

Wild roses riot there and violets throw
Their perfume recklessly, while up on high
Great snowy clouds pillow the smiling sky
And cast frail shadows on the grass below.

All is the same, the summer stillness dreams
In idleness across the sunny leas,
Until for very drowsiness it seems
The wind has gone to sleep within the trees-
Yet we once laughed at what the years might bring
And now I am alone remembering."

I shall always call this "poetry" all this
stuff about words sounding like something and no
thought behind it is poppycock.

It's cold again this morning at ten
after eight. Egad I hate to think of taking my
old car out and down to Tenafly- but it's better
than having snow to worry me about tires.
Yesterday about 4, Sue and Roy brought over the
children- Con and Roy sat before the fire and
Roy drank 3 wine glasses of muscatel and Con smoked
a pipe given him for Xmas by someone in the office.
Linda built blocks and screamed whenever Donnie
crept near her and he would stop and sit up--such
a darling. Sue's neighbors are beginning to be
"neighborly" having them over for, what do you call
that milk, cream, eggs and brandy-on New Years Day
etc etc-the people right next door have two sons
and they and the father play instruments, clarinette
I can't for the life of me remember the name of

MRS. V. S. B. JORDAN

LA ROCHE AVENUE

HARRINGTON PARK, N. J.

-3-

that thing they play with two hands that hangs
around the neck because I loathe it almost as badly
as the harmonica.

Sue who always said she had no small talk
at all is at last finding she has to meet and
talk to people. I suppose it was all my fault
while she was growing up that I never went out
or made an effort to take either Barbara or
Susan out to meet people-

Maria sent me a lovely picture of her two
babies and a postcard showing the Schloss and
wrote a note which tells me that Dallam actually
was there and took the little gifts to her.
I suppose you would never tell me, bad boy.

Did you listen to Gotterdammerung Saturday?
Singing not good- Traubel as usual but the Siegfried
awful and Hagen worse-the Gudrun was that norwegian
or swedish can't remember her name and good.

Am sending Saturday Review with article
about Marianne Moore.

Rec'd a note from the old actress Ruby Marion
Kendall, 88, in the Actor's Fund Home in Englewood-
I had sent her some preserved ginger for Xmas so she
thanked me but said she had had X-rays and heard the
nurse say something about gall bladder- feels
nauseated and was so weak etc- well, thought I'd
drop over and see her- so took her some anjou pears
2 oranges, 2 other pears and three red roses- the
fruit I put in a plastic dish from the 5 and dime

-5-

health- doesn't want an operation-- must have friends
in New York for she lived there before she came to
the Home- I met her at Mrs. Fairfield's, all the
people on that street know Ruby at least old Mrs.
Barr a scotswoman does- Ruby goes visiting- she has
been over here all dressed up, earrings etc gave them
to B. who admired them-- loves to go to N.Y. to
good restaurants etc-- she never was over at 195
too- too bad, no, I think she was once- well
to think she is 88 you'd never know it and sometimes
I think she isn't telling ye truth- but germany
vitality is " something" you know.

So- with this I will close and get to work.
will go downstairs and get another cup of
coffee and a piece of my tea-cake with nuts
dates and raisins in-- hope you liked the "friendly"
nuts-- this word friendly is battered around on
radio, TV until we say to either each other-
come in to our "angry" store and buy Crawford
clothes etc etc etc--the "angry" clerks will wait on
you.

Well Costello is on the stand again this P.M.
he might get 11 years and fined $11,000.
suppose he will sing his "I wouldn't know" in that
husky voice of his.

So farewell for now
much love as ever

Viola

Harrington Pk.N.J
an.9-'52

My dear Ezra;

There you go
(exclamation point which isn't
on this machine) you aren't the
only one to think of "nuts to
you"-- but the taste of these
nuts I hope will erase it from
your mind- However the fact
that you read "Lil' Abner"
mystifies me considerably, alas-
shall I have to send you a book
of cartoons- how about Hopalong
Cassidy. Wish I had the money
these fellows make.

Got a letter or very small
note from John Edwards, inviting
an answer- he must be back again
at the Univ. wonder who hauled
in their horns? I also heard
that Sir Dallam did deliver the

little presents to Maria. She
also sent me a lovely snapshot
of herself and the two children.
So many young folks, heh, heh,
sent me snapshots of their
kiddies that I'll have to get a
special album.

I don't suppose I shall
hear from Bill about my "joke"
but it is enough for me to know
he got it-gives me a laugh every
time I think of it.

I went to the Postoffice
especially to get some as I
thought newly printed two cent
postcards for you- but it seems
they have 30,000 of the old ones
on hand so just licked a one cent
stamp on and sold them to me.
Such an economy* how can we stand
it. I would like to know if
you have tried to get any in
Washington or is it peculiar
to the Tenafly P.O.

Must go down now and
heat up the pea soup-I make it
with onion, celery and bay leaf
Have been writing letters most
of the day- five or six--
hoping you are free from the
ubiquitous cold- Barbara and
I barking alternately- Linda
and Donnie have one each-
and now I hope we can forget
Xmas for 365 days- my old
friend Marj. Fletcher writes
it should only be celebrated
every five years.

until the next time
love from
us all and me.

2004

-3-

time Saturday- and when I tried to turn it out of
the pan it wouldn't come- so I decided one had
to eat it with a spoon- hence the name, see?

it is like a dry souffle and yet not dry and
awfully good if I do say so as who shouldn't.

Well I'm reading Collette in between times
of the Peabody Sisters- and of the two books I
-well, thereis no comparison the two of course are
worlds apart-- this Colette perhaps you've read-
supposed to be the best woman writer in France-
preoccupied with what every frenchman is-- and
women for that matter- what a curious national
trait-- I will say tho that their artists draw
the nude better than any other nationality-
this collection of 6 short novels includes
Cheri- and the Last of Cheri-- he the gigolo
son of a ballet dancer and he shoots himself
in the rooms of an old prostitute Copine where
he took refuge occasionally to get away from his
beautiful wife and luxurious home to hear Copine
tell anecdotes of the other prostitute Lea whom
he could not forget. Perhaps you have read these
stories etc-Colette is indeed wonderful in her
intimate descriptions- humorous too.

And now I come to the last bit of news-
what do you think Sue saw out in back of their
house the other morning as she was about to
go out to hang clothes? a young deer.

-4-

tell you the most incongruous thing- we happened
to turn on TV to the middle of some program or other
and there was Marianne Moore sitting next to that
idiot Jones who wrote the "best-seller" from Here to
Eternity and he was being interviewed- one couldn't
get head nor tail to what he was trying to get across-
and Marianne Moore looking quite er fat, with a
hat on, sometimes straightened up and threw her head
back in some kind of gesture -and I would have liked
to have read her thoughts- but the picture went off
and we didn't hear her being interviewed- quite
exasperating-think it was news of the day or something-
Jones being considered in the like-light more than
M.M. evidently.

I enclose two clippings, one of M.M.
and the other about Marg. Anderson's book.

Well it is getting on toward noon- must
get ready to go to Sue's- she's going to N.Y.to
get some kind of cloth adv' in yesterday's paper-
hope she gets back before dark as my car-lights
are not working and I'm waiting till I have to
get this year's license, get inspected and get a
ticket to show garage idiot that they MUST fix my
lights RIGHT- all they do is put a fuse in and
unless I get on the man's neck and punch his forehead
in he won't DO A NY MORE- I swear I will do this
to the next ape that gets by with a fuse which I can
put in myself-

Amen- how are you ? did you listen
to Madame Butterfly? I didn't-I like that opera
the least of Puccini's.

Love from Viola

Feb. 6-152
Harrington Pk., N.J.

Dear Ezra:

Well, it looks like spring but is still snappy weather- I guess I forgot to enclose a clipping so here 'tis. I have two sore fingers, just the tips so am typing hit or miss- told Linda yesterday when we were at her Aunt Gloria's(Roy's sister) to a valentine lunch, that I'd go over and get her today. So about 9 I'll start over- Sue looks as tho she's drawn thru a knot-hole- in the first place she won't go out and get fresh air-- the house is heated by gas and altho there is a cold air register coming in, I think the air is too dry. I keep telling her to take the children down to the village for a walk even

they never lose that burr. Gloria's little son Christie and Linda got along fine and Gloria put some photographs in beautiful soft coloring on a stereoptican screen for us- one of me smoking as usual in her backyard, taken last summer-amazing what photography has developed - scenes like paintings- Christie, 2 yrs old and small for his age blew his top only once when Linda played with his engine that emits sparks while running- really the toys children have nowadays are something- the dog Pluto of wood crawls along uttering growls- large balloon that children can sit on and that rights it-itself-hobby horses that bend with steel rod bouncing up and down.

I have painted the woodwork in our dining room "autumn brown"(it was rohins egg blue)

BlueJay

MADE IN U. S. A.

just to the end of the street and back but it's like pulling teeth to get her to do it- she wants to sew etc she does put Donnie out in his play-pen- on the concrete platform Roy made and the house faces the sun so its nice and warm there- but Linda has no one to play with til the P.M. and then the two little girls who go to school run away from her- sometimes- alas the tragedies of childhood. Sue snaps at Linda for the least little thing sooooo- well Linda will go to school this Sept. I gave Sue $25 to send her to a nursery school but Roy made her give it back as he said I couldn't afford it etc.

Yesterday at the luncheon- Gloria had, two scotch women, neighbors- one of whom I could hardly understand- she hailed from the Kyles of Butte and the other came from eastern Scotland-O they've been here for years yet

1454

the parlor is also blue but I'll leave that
as its pretty- have to give the woodwork
another coat-the paint they make nowadays
dries in 4 hours- I painted the walls sun-
light yellow with texolite or a water paint-
I told you about that. Of course I have lots
of things I'd like to do but I feel that I
must help Sue somehow- Donnie is so heavy I
don't see how she can lift him and not have a
back-ache- but now he is standing alone and will
walk soon. Sue went to N.Y. one day last week
while I stayed with the children and she didn't
didn't get back til 7 P.M. got lost over
location of the 8th Ave subway- walked the
wrong way or something- Linda kept crying I
want my mama and I kept saying so do I because
the lights on my car don't work and
finally had to tel. to Con to come and get me
when he finished his supper- however I had
some fuses with me and he put one in(I
never tried to do it) and so I drove back
after all instead of having to take bus and
go get car in morning. Went to Hackensack
tother day-looked at ticket on window of car-
saw that I neglected to get inspected in Jan.
dropped in to the inspection station, long
lines of cars waiting as usual- nothing wrong
with car but they made me go across street and
have front license bolted on(it had wire only)
50c. it's a racket- we pay 50c. twice a
year for inspection- O now they're having the
middle orange light between the red and green
signals in N.Y.

Well King George the 6th has entered into his
rest- I think the young Elizabeth will make a
smart Queen - we saw pictures on TV of the
King taking leave of Elizabeth as they went to
Africa etc and he looked very ill- cancer of
the lung I believe. Con says he thinks the
smog of London must be very bad for the people.
I wonder why they don't eliminate the smoke
the way we do in certain factory cities.

Well I don't seem to have anything much to
write about-- O I almost forget, little

old Miss la Roche, 92 was taken to a
sanitorium or is it sanitarium for a
thoro check-up day before yesterday- the
ambulance came for her and Barbara happened
to see it- I called up Mrs. Winters her
companion and she told me Miss la Roche had
a fall last week-didn't break anything but
I think personally she may have had a stroke-

C'est la vie. who wants to live that long
anyway- sans teeth, sans sight, sans everything
isn't it funny Miss la Roche didn't come
over to see TV- well- what a foolish thing to
say- but she was always so up to date so I
understand- drove a car and smoked etc seems
to me altho the flesh is weak, the spirit still
functions. what is the spirit anyway, who cares,

Well I must get ready to go over and get
that little Linda altho we have nothing but
a few toys in the attic for her to play
with- and she will want me to read to her
alas- guess I'll take her to Tenafly and
get some groceries and maybe Barbara will
take her for a walk.

Farewell for now
love Viola

O yes that is one of my
favorite songs by Rubenstein-
words by Heine- and SUCH a
jewish melody-I'm surprised
you liked it- never knew my
mother sang it for you -I
used to sing it too.

Who do you think will be
the next president. I'm sorry to
say I don't like any of the
candidates- Eisenhower giggles
too much-mKefauver knew he
would get a chance via his crime
investigations and Taft- well
maybe

I have a cake in the oven so
nitey--nite

love Viola

3003
MADE IN U.S.A.

Harrington Pk., N. J.

Apr. 2-52

Dear Ezra;

You don't owe me anything for the telephone-- the Ft.Lee taximan is the one to be sorry for- out $7.

"This Pablos" also wrote me a special del.letter saying he was going to Berkeley to pick up some tape recordings by Jaime d'Angulo I believe tho he just said Jaime.I wrote to Mr. Edwards to warn him and he wrote back he'd be prepared but if he pulled that taxi trick he'd bash his head in.

I have been over to Sue's all day and brought Linda and Donnie over here because they made such a fuss while Sue is ill with the grippe. Have to

do the same thing tomorrow- Linda has a fractured leg. For right arm- she took a neighbor child on the back of her velo-cipede and went scooting down the driveway next door- the other child wasn't hurt much. Donnie had a great time toddling in the leaves Barbara has been raking up but I never saw such unmanageable children- Donnie absolutely won't stand still for anything. Linda won't eat any breakfast and so it goes.

If Shaw said youth is too wonderful to waste it on children, I'd like to have him at my age just try to keep them in line- only youth can do it- but then Shaw never had any.

P.S. I forgot an important piece of news-
perhaps you know of it- James and Irene
have separated- she wrote me- the
she works in a local bank and they live
with her mother and father in Westbury, N.Y
Too bad- but I guess James isn't good at
earning a living.

V.

all is lovely and I live in a
beautiful world of do-nothing.

Con met Finley on the street the
other day- didn't tell me much except that
they separated with best feelings on both
sides and may get together again when
circumstances permit. That is what Irene
wrote me also- but she is working in a bank.

Her mother has had diabetes for a long
time so it's quite hard to have two little
grandchildren to look after and Irene
wishes she had money enough to get a
nursemaid, alas.

Of course I could chatter and
chatter about the old german? man in the
P.O. here who was sending a letter to
French Morocco and a small package--
spy no doubt-- the man who lives on the
street back of us who has a "sending
tower in the lot which interferes with
our television when he "sends"- I have
heard he belongs to the F C C but one
of our neighbors fights with him regularly-
it is true he only uses one channel but
he should not do it in the daytime but does-
sometimes- and we can't see the broadcast
with jigging and dots in front of our eyes.

I am going to leave you now and sew
on a very intricate pattern of a wrap about
pantie-skirt and waist for Linda- have done
a small washing(B. does the heavy things in
washing-machine) and going to have a cup of
coffee and a one egg cake in which are raisins
dates and walnuts-a specialty of mine.

Do you realize that everything in this
world moves?

much love

Viola

P.S. article in Sat. Review by Harold Strauss
on the illiteracy of american writers. At
last the truth is out.

June 3-52

Dear Ezra:

At last the 2 cent postcards
are out-if they were out sooner, I
didn't see them so I enclose some.

I'm also sending you some
"goobers"-- now don't get the idea of
muts again- simply sending them because
they are so delicious-- when you once
begin to eat them you can't stop.

Just called Sue up to see how
Linda and Donnie are progressing with
their "whooping-cough"-- doctor gave
Sue some sulpha and penicillin for Linda
but Donnie has gradually begun to whoop
so they're both having a whooping time.
Nothing much one can do but raise their
arms up, an old -fashioned idea, but
effective. I am to go over at 1 P.M.
and take Donnie out in his go-cart for a
walk as this is better than his sitting
in wet sand- Sue ought to keep them both
in but in a bungalow this is murder- that
is the reason I like a two-story house-
with an attic too. You understand that
if I were in Sue's place I would find a
way to keep them in, but Sue seems to have
no idea of how to treat a child, too long
to go into here- she is good at lots of
things- but is either too lenient or too
strict at times-it is hard to keep an even
keel I know.

Now the roses are coming out-I have
some lovely white iris with lavender lower
petals. There's no use my telling you about
my garden activities- you get the idea that

-2-

whooping-cough takes 5 weeks to come and 6 weeks to go- tho I don't remember much about when my children had it and do remember that Gwen and I had it, but it can be serious when a child as young as Donnie gets it. However he is toddling around with his little bottle of water or fruit juice and laughs and tries to talk. We had Linda over here yesterday-I try to bring her over often to lighten Sue's housework etc-

She wanted to wash her doll's clothes I had brought her doll-carriage in the car-in it were two large dolls and one small rubber doll-so I gave her a dish-pan with soapy water and strung a string from the crab-apple tree to a chair out back- then she took a cart I used to carry groceries in down at 195, out front and gathered fungus from two tree trunks, swamp maples to be exact that had been cut down long ago- these fungi were very large and she called them her "penano" playing on the leaves of them-- I fixed a string to another apple-tree so when she was in the hammock she could swing herself.

Barbara said she hid under the hedge and when the grocer who delivers to the la Roche's next door went by she said, "hello Mr. Jones poo poo." These things make life bearable.

I could go on and on and tell you how I took Donnie and Linda down to the village of Demarest, so get Sue's mail one day and when I got back there was a tall youngish man talking to Sue who was reclining in a chaise-longue gotten recently--under the one tree on their lawn (o there are two other small firs)

he turned out to be the Episcopal minister

June 10-'52

Dear Ezra;

Olga's visit must have perked you up a lot and I'm sorry I could not have met her. Mary Barnard had written me just the other day about it being news to her that Olga was coming over and that letters from Italy were slow in coming to her or their writing etc. She enclose a snapshot of herself and said she had sent one to you-I think she looks very well for having been ill.

Really I have money for what I want to do you know even tho most of it is Con's- and I'll bet you wouldn't send out for shelled peanuts like that now would you? Donnie gets or has lots of toys tho every time I go over I take something to Linda- she must have 20 or 30 little books-the kind you buy in grocery stores-imagine-- the Grand Union stores seem to be planning so Con says to sell almost everything under the sun- they now sell socks, T shirts-- flowers, hardware and I don't know what- they have a door that opens when you step near it-with arms full of bags of food and can even carry them out in a wire basket on wheels, to your car.

Did I tell you both Linda and Donnie have whooping-cough- Linda is getting over her whoop but Donnie is still at it- tho both children have the latest in medicine- sulpha and penecillin and pills of a very expensive kind, the latter for Donnie.

-4-

And now I will close- it has been a
beautiful day- tho TV said it would
thunder as it did yesterday with rain
and lightning, but didn't.

I have got to write to Bryher
now and send her an article from Sunday's
N.Y.Time book review that Con spied
about her "IAth of October" as she
wrote me today- seems Perdita will stay
longer with Valentine the baby boy and
John her husband will go back to the U.S.
and she will come over in mid-July.

Perdita I mean. Hilda is at Lugano.

Wonder how Bill is getting on
with his novel. Con met Finley on
the street...said practically what

Irene wrote me that they would get
together as soon as circumstances
brightened.

well, bon nuit or is it
bonne nuit--

as ever

Viola

-3-

of St. Andrews church here in Harrington
Park. Of course I said "what brings you
down here? and he answered that he was
looking to get aquainted with all the
new people etc etc and there are many
many houses being built all over the
place- but it did look funny to me as
Sue lives on an unpaved street.

I suppose Sue looked so inviting out
under the tree and then I had to come
along with her two children, alas--
but he was a typical young minister-
he said he had read read Niebuhr's book
(can't remember name) and I had seen
some of Niebuhr's articles in Time

he also said he was reading Rouseau's
Confessions. This floored me-I said
Rouseau? in I am sure a derogatory tone
and now I wish I had said and have you
read George Moore's also? I could have
said the Decameron or the Hertameron
if that's the way to spell it-
anyway I told him I was a Presbyterian
but used to sing in the choir of St. Paul's
in Englewood because I liked the music-
said he-I hope you don't mind the
carrillon(can't spell it) of St. Andrews
of course I said no, but they do ring
those bells almost every evening and
Sundays-- I also told him I was an
agnostic and a heathen, said he and you
glory in it? I ignored that. Somehow
Sue's neighbors, Armenians, on one side
and Swede's on the other was mentioned-
O I said, Jesus was an Armenian. Said he
WHO? I suppose he expected me to say
Jesus Christ and bow my head as all good
Episcopalian's do- then he said he visited
an Armenian family once and they had a
drink made of milk and yeast which made
him "burp" - that is typical Episcopalian
ese--- and with that he departed but not
before he had politely requested to call

upon MR- ME. Egad I hope he won't.

MRS. V. S. B. JORDAN
LA ROCHE AVENUE
HARRINGTOON
JERSEY

Mey 30- '52

MRS. V. S. B. JORDAN
LA ROCHE AVENUE
HARRINGTON PARK, NEW JERSEY

Dear Ezra;

Hello- remember me? I haven't been writing to anybody for a very long time-- it's almost impossible to feel "in the depths" when birds persist in building nests in trees near our house and a robin built one some time ago on a p lank jutting out from our old garage, part of a support for a broken-down lattice-work for grape-vine. We saw the 3 blue eggs, and then the three little heads and then came the day when one robin, probably the eldest got too big for the nest and sat outside while the other two were still straining their necks for food etc. Conrad, driving in from Sue's with a load of wood he had cut in their "forrest", got out of his car as I was planting tomatoes, and looked over at the nest--0, said he, they've got a thrush visiting them." Tableau.

Barbara on the back porch watched some little birds in the crab-apple-tree, the phoebe bird we think, making a very intricate basket of a nest--finally one came flying in with a very small tomato plant to which was attached a small strand of white cloth we had torn up to fix it to a post. B. rescued the plant which it dropped and this gave me the idea of helping on the good work- so I tore up narrow pieces of cloth and put them in the crotch of the tree--before long the birds were at them, not only the little ones but black ones with yellow beaks I think they're starlings. Then the cat got interested and went up the tree so B. put

him in the attic for a while but this can't go on- he has to come down some time. This cat we brought from "home" he must be about 8 yrs. old but doesn't look it anyway- he has been catching baby rabbits and eating them on the porch. These are the progeny of the ones under Miss la Roche's carriage house and which we do not dare shoot etc. Poor little old Miss la Roche is still in sanatorium and probably won't ever come back to her home again. Mrs. Winters, her companion still lives there a-lone- I go over sometimes but as long as she never comes over here, altho she says she would come over sometime and see our tv-I am not enthusiastic.

Has Olga come over yet? I certainly would like to see her if it is at all possible. I thought I understood from her letters that she may have relatives in New England and if she goes to visit them she could stop off here it seems to me.

Many things have happened since I stopped writing to you--too small and uninteresting to mention no doubt- what is worrying me now is Linda who has had a bronchial cough for so long that we took her at last to a doctor who "talks" as Sue said- her doctor whom she has always had is too busy, and seems to be too old or something to be interested in children- altho he is noted for obstetrics- I went with Sue when she took Linda and all he gave her was a perscription for the cough. There is a unit going around the country analysing people for diabetes, they have an X-ray and all this is FREE-- Sue wanted to take Linda to have her lungs x-rayed---fancy that* This doctor encouraged her and as I was in the office I said"why Dr. Protzman, it isn't possible she has TB." He shook his finger at me and said I was an obstructionist at which I departed and sat in the car to await Sue's return.

-2-

-5-

Here is some more from my little book:

... the Moon, which is a ball of rock only about an eightieth as massive as the Earth.... I cannot explain here exactly why it should be so, but owing to the effect of the tides our satellite is getting steadily further away from us, and the lunar month is getting steadily longer. If we go back into the past the converse is true.... if we worked backward in time as far as the birth of the Earth which as I shall show in a later chapter occurred about 2,500,000,000 years ago, it is probable that the Moon was then very close to the Earth, if indeed the two were not in actual contact....

I think I shall send you this book for your birthday if not sooner. You will say you have read all this before but this little book puts it to one in such a clear way.

Here is some more:

"The most obvious question to ask about continuous creation is this" Where does the created material come from? It does not come from anywhere. Material simply appears--it is created. At one time the various atoms composing the material do not exist, and at a later time they do...

O there is so much I can't copy it--

Con has been looking at the base-ball games all afternoon and now has built a fire in the grate-

Well, will close now- hope you have been well--

love, from old prune0
face Grandma Joradn

P.S. Can I send you anything? a dandy bag of shelled peanuts for a mere pittance at the Grand Union stores?

we saw and heard Margaret Truman sing on James Melton's program last night.

-2-

Sunday P.M.

Just been looking at the end of a telethon of some word like that- like marathon-- for a bid for a million dollars to send our athletes to Finland this year. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby were the main attraction- they handled the checks, letters, telegrams etc and had many many other actors etc on to help-couldn't begin to enumerate all the people connected with it-they began last night at 11 and stayed on all night until 1 P.M. today. Imagine Ezra the wonder of seeing people and hearing them talk in Calif. and then New York answering with people here-these people in N.Y. could see the Calif. and hear them- and millions of people looking at both. and hearing them of course. They made the million and twenty dollars over and still more to be answered etc.

It was very amusing because they put on an man who professes and I believe he does, look into the "rackets" of all kinds, he has a broadcast called Treasury men in Action showing up all kinds of crooked things- this was probably to give the people the sense of security in sending their dollars to the cause etc. It does seem a bit queer that so much money is needed just to send 200 or so athletes over there their passage, incidentals and keep while there-the country-Finland, perhaps will give the cups and trophies. Cousin Irve Baxter as I wrote you I believe some time ago attended the Olympic games in 1912 or 1914 I believe and won cups in pole-vault-of course they go much higher than he did now. He vaulted 12 feet but now they go 14 I think. Irve must be almost 80 now up in Utica-he doesn't answer my letters so I don't know what to make of it.

Last night Sue wanted me to stay with the kiddies while she and Roy went to a dinner at the Legion I think-Roy won three bottles of wine and Sue enjoyed the evening-drank some port which made Roy laugh as Sue professes not to like wine-- they have a very swanky awning which Roy put up yesterday-he saw it advertised somewhere-it makes their porch look like gay Paree-it is yellow one side and pale green under-and is held up with about five or six plumbing pipes but I don't know how it is fastened to the house-

-000 -3-

"oops" more stinkum--
when I told Con I bought
this paper perfumed he said it always
reminded him of "loose" women-- alas
for romanticism-- well about the awning
I must investigate how it is fastened to the
house next time I go over. Roy did a wonderful
job with the concrete porch- making colored
stones in it etc.
Linda had me reading to her
and wouldn't go to bed of course--but told me she
wouldn't cry this time and she didn't. She told
me a long story about her Daddy's uncle and I not
knowing that Roy's father had a brother asked
Sue and she said Linda was making it all up-
children of today have so much in their little
heads. Donnie is not over his whooping
yet but they both are better.

Yesterday I took Sue over to Englewood with
Linda and Donnie to get him some sandals and
what a time-- Donnie of course wouldn't stay
still-it is impossible to describe riding in the
car- with Donnie standing up and reaching for the
gear shift if I don't protect it and him- Sue of
course holds him- but when I am alone with him its
murder- he pushes my hand away when I put it out to
prevent him from falling forward when car stops etc-
I could spank him and make him sit down but I just hate
to do it- many people have seats attached to the
ar seat for them but-----

I meant to mention the price of the awning- the one
put up- second-hand cost $30. and he was lucky to
get it- the awning man who came to measure it would
have wanted $100-

Barbara had a very bad throat but it's all right
now- I had her tonsils taken out as a child so that
sore throats seem to operate way down hard to get at-
this was sort of small quinsy-B. got some pus out
and then I made her go to doctor- who gave her a
shot of penecillin in buttocks and a perscription
"bicillin" which cost $5.40 -it seemed

-4-

cleared up the throat "slowly" in the meantime making her tongue feel "graty" and rather numb-- the docs today waste no time telling you what symptoms to expect so B. has written to Dr. van Dellen on the Dan News who answers questions etc.

I meant to ask you more about Olga's visit but I don't suppose you cee care to go into details- I was wondering just what satisfaction she got out of her visit- perhaps I should write to her-I have a clipping about Vivaldi- it seems his operas are being revived-article says they are hardly theatrical but often "lively as gunfire" They gave Juditha Triumphans, a delight to the ear, out a little difficult to imagine as opera. Virgil

Themes- Thomson of the Tribune said "let's have more of him" etc. Article from Time--but as you do not like any magazines I send you I will send it to Olga.

I am much interested in the ideas of Prof. Walter T. Stace who says that any attempt to reason about God as Creator of the Universe is doomed to fail

He's an englishman but studied briefly for the ministry at Dublin's Trinity Coll. He thinks there is a God independent of nature,altho experience of Him (why italics) need not be tied to a religious creed.

Well, as I said before I have come to the conclusion that the young cannot think and do not, and the old SHOULD NOT.

So farewell for now- I have a fine garden but the sun doesn't stay with us long enough to encourage it tho everything is growing well-

bye bye with love as ever Viol

P.S. Sue met two fellows at the dinner last night-she said one was an artist-one named Nelson and the other Obermeyer. Sue is always eager to begin art work but can't somehow til Linda gets going to school in the fall-she may have a studio in the cellar which is 8 ft.high and Roy is making it water proof with sheetrock etc a grand cellar-Roy has some machinery on which he makes screens etc

-4-

Did I have an easy time with Donnie and Linda?
well-- Sue doesn't do the same things I used to do
with my chilluns so I was pretty worn out each night-
the minute you put or he sees a milk bottle, he
reaches for it and throws his head back and if you
aren't careful he'll fall right on the floor, in fact
Sue does let him have the bottle on the floor- when
you change him he marches all around so Sue does it in
the crib and he reaches for things and turns and twists
and you with the safety pins sticking into your hands
and trying not to stick him-I tell you it was awful-
He is however the most darling little bird, chirping
and laughing and I wish you could see him sitting on
a little chair in front of his record player. He
brings the record to you and you have to run in the
room and change the record(it runs by electricity )
and he's be satisfied with the music for half an hour
at a time- when dancy music is on those childrens
records- he jigs up and down.

Thank you for the Babette Deutsch article-I
haven't had time to read it- but it is raining today
after three days of very warm-beAUTiful days so I have
time to write to me frens- also the pic. of Slavenska-
Linda had lunch with the little Maria Neumann, her 5yr
old daughter yesterday- when the Slavenska and husband
and daughter came home (no doubt from Washington, in their
trailer) word came thru Linda that they were going to
have a birthday party for Maria's father with a turkey
etc etc. In fact Linda told us that Maria slapped her
yesterday, so I said and what did you do to Maria?
Linda is like Sue, intense in her likes and dislikes
and won't get dressed o'mornings and I have to read
a story before I go -you know how children are?

it began to rain yesterday about 6 so we sat under
Sue's awning on porch and I tried to remember all
the fairy stories I used to like to tell her- The Frog
Prince- Ali Baba and the 40 thieves, etc and fouhd
I only remembered part of them alas- but Linda(s head
is full of about 50 childrens books of animal stories
television cartoons every day at 5 P.M. puppets etc etc
but she liked my fairy stories and kept asking for
more. Sue won't let her look at older things on TV.

-6-

I knew you would remember Ibbetson- it sounds
so queer and sad to hear you call him Bib, brings
back memories etc

Well think I'm written out. Here I am 65
and thought I was old- but I wonder today how I
did all the things I did at Sue's- lugging a
100 foot hose from back to front of hours- house
running after Donnie- getting three meals for
all of 'em- re-filling ice-bag- making bread and
cake- ironing millions of clothes-- hanging them
out-keeping Donnie from running away with clothes
pins, which he would take and drop in the branches
of a tree that is down. Sue has everything up to
date- an aluminum stand with linen bag for clothes
and bag on side for clothes pins-runs on wheels et c
but between you and me and the lamp-post a wicker
basket is just as handy- I never use her dish
washing machine- you have to have boiling hot water
(of course they have automatic hot water heater
same as we do(I wish I had had one at 195) and I
don't think dishes are clean unless wiped with a
towel and you have to scrape pans anyway- there
is a wonderful new cloth called goldenfleece, little
squares, 3 for 19c. which gets off sticky food im-
mediately- perhaps Dorothy uses it-I sent some to
Bryher for her HOUSEkeeper-well, I'm getting silly so
I'll say by by for now and don't go near the black
widows or any widows etc etc

love from Grandma V

Harrington Pk.N.J.

July 20-'52

Dear Ezra ;

Just listening to my

favorite comedian on TV- Tizzie Lish. It is
a man of course, dressed in a dressing gown,
dangly earrings, a hat that looks just like the
one I wear in the sun-mine has narrow ribbon tied
under my dam old chin- Tizzie's is held on by a
will drawn so that it hides his hair- a ratty looking
booa- and glasses with which she emphasizes her remarks-
she chews gum( doesn't really, these comedians have

a way of chewing without the actual gum) and

she sometimes sits down in an old rocker to
read out of her DIARY when we can see her big
feet and socks with men's garters- this man
is the most unique on radio or TV- nothing like
hik him- makes Milton Berle and all the Jewish
contingency look foolish. Tizzie is always
talking about her BEAUTY and how every man is her
slave-one of 'em said he wanted to give her a
necklace made of a pearl for every year of her
age. but was afraid she would trip on it. etc etc
I never get tired of this kind of nonsense.

This morning I had to go to Bergenfield with 2 of
Con's suits to be cleaned and pressed. It is a nice driv
drive from here but I loathe the traffic of Bergenfield-
the main street is so narrow- had to get dressed and the
older I grow the more I hate to fix up for going out-
the locust is a-locusting and we shall have another hot
humid day with a slight breeze but we do have cool nights

Early this morning some time I heard a horrific clap of thunder-it seemed right in our backyard and my room faces it- it sounded like an atom bomb but I was most surprised to learn that Con and B. didn't hear it--am I going nuts?

Got a letter from my friend Mary Elizabeth
Broadhead- daughter now 50 of the old scotch
lady-they lived back of us at 195- old lady
came from Kyle of Bute and I believe she lived
in the castle there tho I never can get her

daughter to +

to tell me the family name- O well- Mary Eliz.
sent me a "prayer" letter sent her by an old friend
a Miss Howard of Wellfleet, Mass. this prayer lett
is to be sent to 4 of my friends and on the 4th day
I will have something nice happen to me-- Miss Broad
head doesn't approve of these things nor do I but
she doesn't want to let her friend down so I sent it
to 3 of my friends-it is about praying for the Korean
peace and we are to say the Lord's prayer and repeat
the 23rd Psalm for 9 days- told agnostic that I am
I shall have to decline tho I like the Psalm.

I received a long and entertaining letter from Olga
the other day- she says she'd like to come again in
November and perhaps bring Maria-and that she might get
dome kind of work in Washington. I would like to have
her visit us and meet her etc but as to the work I
wonder if she knows she has to have a social security
number and how will that jibe with citizenship. Well
now that we are on soc. sec. numbers, will tell you
I have one. yep. Perhaps you notice this typewriter-
I paid $54 for it-it is a second-hand Underwood- all
fixed over and the touch is very nice-- I got it be-
cause I answered an advt. of Ponton Co. in Englewood.
They wanted Home Workers to take home typeing or is it
typing. Anyway I'll try to make it short about how I
fared. The woman gave me about 2,000 stamped post
cards and a list of 867 names of filling stations all
over the U.S. and asked me if I could do 200 an hour-
I said "O sure". the wage was or is $4 for 4 hrs.
think- in fact I have mulled the whole thing over in my
mind? so that I scarcely understand it- but it went
this way. I got the cards Monday and she said bring
them back Ed- Wed. at 9:30 A.M. she understood I
would be jumping up to do my own housework etc so she
only gave me one list and said "count the addresses".
Well I worked 2 hours Monday night on them and saw
that the list was written very badly- o's like a's
n's like v's or vice versa and this stopped me a good
deal as I had to puzzle out names to make them right-
I took my time and finished them in about 4 hours the
next day- when I returned them the girl said "O

-3-

this is much too slow."
I cannot understand why she
gave me so much time if she wanted them
so fast. Con was all for going over and
getting more of an explanation -he said he
thought the girl thought I was wanting pay
for more than 4 hours- anyway I told the girl
about the badly written list and that I always
wanted to be accurate- for instance the town of
Walpole,N.H. was written Walpale. Now the usual
stenog. if she were not a little bit educated
wouldn't see this- but dare I say, knowing that
perhaps the town was named for Horace Walpole,
I corrected it-otherwise the card would most
certainly be sent back etc etc etc. Well
I called them up about 3 days after I
left the cards with them as I had said send
me a M.O. and the girl said I would get my
money the next Wed. after 3 o'clock whatever
that meant. Sooo this ends the saga of the Home
Worker. The "time" element stopped me because I
could not see why she gave me so much time if she
wanted the cards so soon and why didn't she give
me more of a specific time to return them-- and
perhaps the whole thing would have passed by if I had
lied and said I had done the 867 names and addresses
in 4 hours. It was darn hard work-- because they
wanted tabulation, it would have gone faster if I
could have addressed them in three lines each running
farther you know how I mean- I did not use the
tabulator on this machine but could have-- I did it
by just pulling the carriage into line but it was
the accuracy I thought was more important-however you
see they don't want that- only "SPEED" like everything-
today- hmm.

We had lots of laughs over the Dem. Conv.
on TV- one delegate from S.C. I think it was said
with a drawl. "With tar on mah heels I vote
for Barkley-" and they were always asking for
a poll which made everyone groan.

-4-

It was enlightening to see Kefauver's father pushing Mr. Kefauver thru the crowd while the poll was being taken, trying to get up on the platform to make a speech which we heard after his rebuff by Raeburn, that it was to turn over his votes to Stevenson. One would think Mr. Kefauver would have had more sense.

This Adlai Stevenson seems like a nice fellow-but I pity him among the wolves-- I heard on TV or somewhere about his speech where he told that joke about the 3 boy scouts who helped the old lady across the street, one at a time. When the 3rd boy was asked why he took the same old lady also across the street, he said, well, you see she didn't want to cross the street- and Adlai likened his own situation to this. I read that his wife left him because she didn't like political life and I can't blame her, but think she must be a rather foolish woman- she has 3 nice sons.

As I told you I like Taft, but of course the Rep's know that Eisenhower is more popular so I will have to vote for him after all.

Con read in the Times how the english go to Ireland to get more food than they can get at home-- that is they have money and the irish have food--

Miss Broadhead whom I mentioned before has an english friend coming over to visit her--this friend was left a few hundred pounds and is only allowed 34 pounds to spend here but nobody will cash her travelers cheques over here- She has her return ticket on the Mauretania. A propos of nothing did you hear or read how Churchill called Atlee a sheep in sheep's clothing-mwe were laughing last night over Churchill's quips etc.

Saw Gromyko arriving in London on TV this morning-he is trying to make friends of England-- our announcer said, Mr. Gromyko is speaking pretty good english these days." You know here at the UN he always had an interpreter-never would speak english.

I sent Master Walther two jig-saw puzzles made of thick card-board the better to piece together and

-5-

only about 8 or 9 pieces each, for tiny tots.

I introduced them to Linda yesterday and she became enthusiastic the first time-with a little diplomatic helping- and wants to do the same one over and over again not so enthusiastic about doing new ones.

They do these in kindergarten so she will be ready for them when she goes in the fall. She is the

that cute age where she says the funniest things-

B. was asking her if Donnie got stung by another bee and she said no the one near him was a

"tame" bee. Don is losing his chubbiness my how fast they grow. Roy is not happy in his new job of sitting at a desk and doing what he calls "paper work"- he was sent to

Phila. to oversee some shops there but told

Sue it made him feel bad to think the improvements he would suggest would put someone out of a job. Roy likes to be among soldiers- and is primarily a "leader?" of men as I told

Con physically instead of mentally. He is trying to interest another printer in his job and it is too bad-Roy has not much patience and can't sit

still at a desk. We saw a cartoon by a woman showing a man fixing a chair from a written plan and his wife says "You and your How-To books." Sue

could do these things as she has a sense of humor and perhaps when Roy finishes the studio in their cellar she may get busy at her art again.

Donnie and Linda just about live in their rubber pool these days- dear me I feel so useless unless I am doing something I don't know what--

I think I'll call up an advt. from Jersey City which calls for women home workers to"help us fill our customers orders-we deliver." I suppose this might be finishing sewing or something of the kind.

-6-

We have had a few tomatoes and last night 4 ears of corn from our garden but the ground is not rich enough for corn-I plant 3 in a mound and next year will only plant 2-- have a few broccoli and two plants or something did-it was too cold and rainy this spring and now I'm busy chasing the little white worm in the squash plants with a hair-pin and the huge green tomato worm.

I think I cut Sue's ever-bearing raspberry bushes at the wrong time-they are not cut like mine-it seems-met Mrs. Griffin who gave some to Sue and she says those that bear in the fall are left over to bear again in the spring-but now I don't know just when to cut them and so I will let Sue and her raspberries alone. I cut mine yesterday-got quite a big bowlfull out of my little patch-only 1-5th as large as the patch at 195. the ground up here is hard like clay and my 3 blueberry bushes did not even flower-I think maybe they had nourishment in them when we brought them from Tenafly last year and so they bore berries last year. I shall have to fertilize them with stuff bought at the drug-store like nitrate and phosphate etc and keep them watered constantly here-after.

Well I have no other news-Con came home from his 2 weeks at Avon by the sea looking like a red Indian and then proceeded to go golfing those hot days the minute he got home every night so that he has a slight cold-from exhaustion I think and so he has been desisting and eating watermelon instead.

and with this I leave you I hope also eating watermelon-I'd rather have a tall drink of Hoffman's Tom Collins and tea-the most refreshing drink there is.

love, as ever

Viola

-2-

to find something to occupy me and thought of "washing"

Went down cellar but cellar is such a mess I got
interested cleaning up a mess of paint pots and brushes
and sweeping and painting a long pipe with the right
kind of paint--had some left from painting the furniture
pipe and doors etc. Cellar door outside, needs repairing-it really needs a NEW one and a pane of glass
out of cellar window-I suppose I can do that but not
the door-but hold-I could even do that if I knew how
to saw thru ply-board(if that is possible) I could use
the ping-pong table-top which we will probably never
put up again-and it would make a nice door, or would it?
rather light, but I always liked the Japanese and Chinese
idea of lightness in awnings and doors etc-- Barbara
made a picturesque awning over the back porch steps by
using that bamboo? awning, a small one and two poles
jutting it outward and the poles resting on the steps.
quite an idea and it makes the kitchen ever so cool.

Marj. F. as I said, returned Bill's book saying she
did not like writers to be so emotional, in a rather
peeled tone. She met Bill once at our house 195 some
few years ago. That's all she said about it except that
she hadn't known that Bill and you went to Penn. together

I have to admit I hadn't read his book clear thru
so set about it and was struck more than ever by his
preoccupation with SEX. Stevenson says in Virginibus
puersque as you no doubt ree recall that "love rests
upon a physical basis; it is a familiarity of
nature's making and apart from voluntary choice"
but Bill seems to be rather confused about it.

Are you at all concerned about the flying saucers"
people have been seeing? On TV the other day or eve
they showed photos of the many different shapes of
these "things" people have sent in- and actually in
terviewed a scientist-have forgotten his name, but it
was german-he talked with a sort of belgian accent-
and this man said on being asked if he thought they
were "real", that yes, he thought other planets or
some planet was trying to communicate with us.

At the radar sta/ in Wash. they showed the mechanism
connected with radar and interviewed the young men who
had control there etc

-3-

and it was generally the opinion as written by Menzel I think is his name in Time that they are refractions of light- and I believe this-- it seems this sort of thing has been observed from any back before biblical times- I suppose you have read the papers about it so won't go into it further-- it is queer that nobody sees them when it is raining, eh?

Thurs.A.M.

It's about 8:30 and I've just been-- turned off TV so I'd like to keep it on and look at funnyman Morey Amsterdam but alas must get busy chasing dirt etc. heard on TV that there are prizes amt. to $9,000 for art work submitted to Metrop. a Mr. McKinney but they hardly gave one time to get a pencil and put it down-nevertheless I shall send an inquiry in for Sue. On TV this morning saw the carrier on which 9 jet planes were destroyed- saw the polish counsel Mr. Angel in Chicago being interviewed about his co-frere who seems to have disappeared. saw many doings on several roof-tops, pent-houses, a wealth club where members were sunning themselves- another where ballet dancers were practising- another where pics were being taken for magazines, a little of which work Sue had while working in N.Y. can't remember where they pub. True Story mag. I believe-- saw the returned athletes from Finland, two of which interviewed- a jap swimmer and Irish relay race- said the russians were VERY friendly but they couldn't talk to them needed an interpreter- saw models wearing new kind of street pyjamas quilted- usable for college girls etc Dave Garroway said he wished they'd make the same things for men and the lady in a darling tiny spangled hat very frenchy only she wasn't said she'd look into it for him. saw the thousands of germans

the Schapparelli in parrot hat dancing and Orson Welles drinking

also saw Hollywood's version of a french mardi-gras-

passing into the part of Germany in which our
part is governed, never can remember which it is

east or west-anyway they want to get out of that
part governed by the russians-they were making bed
filled with straw-- being fed at soup places-certai-
very pitiful-but one must remember as Con says how

cruel they were during the war. Whenever there are
pics or news of distressing things Con always says they
are "by-products" which always makes me laugh.

Speaking of laughing- Con makes for the couch the minute he gets into shorts and is comfortable and gets his beer and peanuts etc and the paper while B. and I eat supper-it doesn't matter if this takes the edge off his appetite, he will do it-- he had a little box of different colored peppermints last night and I went in to say something or other(I hardly get a chance to talk as we're always looking at plays on TV or he watches ball-games etc so as he always puts up a fight whenever I want to interrupt his "leisure" I picked up the candy which opened and flew around and in picking them up my teeth arose to the outward part of my mouth which made us all laugh like crazy-Con fairly writing with merriment and a good time was had by all.

I am sending you a cake of the most wonderful soap, "Dial" which Garroway advertises on TV every morning- I'm quite wild about it and I hope you won't think I'm sending it to you except for the benefit to your skin-it certainly is refreshing and makes one feel so clean- this A-27 that they use is probably some kind of deterrgent (can't spell it) but perhaps some kind of salts but whatever it is it's fine.

I tell Con CPP better watch out for this rival put out by Armour. Sue thinks it will take the oil out of the skin on her face so is a bit skeptical but every time I have a chance to bathe Donnie I use it on him.

She gets funny ideas, probably because I have told her she washes her hair too much and gets oil out of it.

Anyway I am hoarding on his this soap for fear the price will rise or something.

I must stop now-a friend is bring her sister from Riveredge to see us-more tea and cake- want to go over

-5-

to see Sue and my
darling grandchildren too and take he
her some cake I made with dates, raisins and
"nigger toe" nuts this time-cheaper than
walnuts. Sue doesn't seem to want to cook
much- once in a great while makes an upside
down apple pie or cake but would rather open
cans and make puddings with little boxes of
jello and flavored tapioca. I wish she would
make her own tapioca with egg and but I
suppose it's easier for her.

I have been thinking of getting a new top
for my car-some days I feel extravagant-a garage man
told me I could get one at Sears(they measure it and s
send away for it) for $45 and you pay $10 to have it
put on. Con says why don't I go and get one for $60
and not have to worry as to whether it will fit etc.
But Sue says there is a kind of cloth quite thick
called boltex for $1.19 a yd at the five and
dime. I could tack it on the top-would have to measure
as this stuff is only 45in wide and a seam sewed down
the middle on the machine might let water in-water gets
into everything you know-such is life.

Wish you'd tell me if you are supplied with
writing paper- alas there are so many
questions I could ask, but I will be con-
tented with knowing that Dorothy takes good
care of you. The english instead of the irish
are the "salt of the earth" you know,
and yet in certain individuals there is still that
misunderstanding of Americans. But now I really
must stop chattering- wonder how Bill is pro-
gressing with his "novel" bet it's a lulu. haven't
heard from Mary Benard since I wrote last- very queer
why Bill didn't mention her in his autobiog. when he
wrote about those very inspissated talks at Reed Coll.
(have a thesaurus you know) so farewell for now-

much love

Viola

P.S. would you

like to hear a joke?

Barbara heard it some time ago on TV. Oh perhaps a few years ago-long enough to be forgotten. I hope so. When she heard the Al Pearce show will give $25 for any jokes sent in(nice ones). She said she'd send it- here 'tis.

a man bought a parrot and then finally
for some reason or other had to kill and
roast him- he told the dealer about it and
the man said"what, why that parrot could talk
in 27 languages" "Well, why didn't he say something"
said the man.

as I always muss up a joke I should have
said the man one day roasted and ate
the parrot.

Harrington Park, N.J.

Aug. 12-'52

Dear Ezra;

Yes I suppose Bill has the blood of
two or three "near" races running thru him but
don't we all? there was an article many years
ago in Esquire, perhaps you remember it- by a
girl who had spent a vacation in Cuba I believe
and she reported "latins are lousy lovers."
This doesn't explain anything. Would it explain
Hilda with her irish-german blood? what can we
expect from Bill's progeny with Norwegian added.

Well, I've just turned TV off and come up
here to write you about what I saw-- BUT if you
have seen Dave Garroway, then perhaps you saw
and heard too--wish you would be more explicit
about these things-you leave me to wonder if you
have TV at your place or whether Dorothy des-
cribes what she sees on her set. Anyway it was
very interestin' this A.M. a woman teacher at
N.Y.Univ. showed a small hand loom and a model
had on a skirt she had woven- I have always been
wanting to "make" rugs or something lasting and
now is my chance- but I'm thinkin' it's going to
be expensive to buy a 36in. loom and the yarn
etc and furthermore take lessons from this
teacher--"nothing venture, nothing have" is just
a catch phrase at my age darn it-- it must be
my scotch blood wanting to make something out of
nothing- I remember how I made a pair of cur-
tains out of string hanging from a rafter in our
kitchen at 195-- the string was the warp and
some strips of cloth the other thing-- I had the
dickens of a time to make it straight and then
the awful thought of how was I going to wash the
d--thing.

Also heard the voice of Edison on his

-4-

Thanks for advice about ply-board- Barbara was
reminiscing about her weight- she used to weigh
weigh much more than now- her waist is 25 in
now but she is still a "big" girl- there is a
simple fellow(divorced we think) a fireman who
spoke to her at the P.O. and every time he sees
her he wants to introduce his mother to her- take
her to barbecues etc, but Barbara says that's
what she gets being kind to people- she says his
teeth are green and saliva accumulates at the
corners of his mouth- about the only high
light in B's day is when she gets dressed to go get
the mail and kids with the P.O. personnel and she
tries to get there when "Cobb" that's the
swain's name isn't there- she gets quite huffy
when I tell her he is her last chance. If she
would only go out and get some kind of job---but
whenever we ask her about it she says she's going
to and that's that.

Con is such a darling-going to his work so
cheerfully-every now and then I see on his deak
notations" "Man has gone as far as he can with
his present systems. All systems break down
eventually for they are predicated on the fact
that man cannot work for the good of all with
kindness in humanity and pity. A system is needed
Law, the most wonderful of human creations, has
served well but it is facing in another direction-
the coercion of man by impersonal laws or
directives to the end of making him law abiding.
........ perhaps chaos will occur but at some
future date all systems per se will be discarded
in favor of a single climate........" and so on
you see what the dear boy is up against.

But Con has his humourous side- whenever
we see politicians spouting forth-he on TV he
will say, and my friends there are conditions
and when you have conditions, you have more con

-5-

I can think of nothing bright to go on this
night--I enclose pic. of the Prince of Wales
of whatever his title is now- lately he is
doctoring-- his mother has sent over the Court
physician- personally we think he is getting
ulcers as he is on a bland diet- alas-I have come
to believe there are two kinds of bodies, the
kind where worries don't leave the head and the
kind where they reach the stomach.

Last night I stayed up til 11 for my
"Dangerous Assignment" which stars Brian
Donlevy-- absurd plots of course but I like it--
last night he was to find who killed another
correspondent in Burma and a girl called Lina
who was hidden by the Dallai something or other-
a museum full of burmese? statues etc and
one of those girls in tarletan and chiffon, a
co-partner in crime with others- a handsome
egyptian comes up to her in Donlevy's presence
and wants to get acquainted- she called him
"Buster". At the last when many shots were fired
in the hiding place of the burmese girl she comes
in also with a "shootin' iron" of course Donlevy
is the victor and turns to her as he shoos out
the bad men, saying, "you too Buster." at which
I go up to bed chuckling.

Barbara has the radio on and I will have
to go down now and get a second cup of coffee-
and do some ironing-- of course I could go on
and on about my garden etc
so bye now ), I see that they're
seeing flying saucers in Italy, but so far
Russia hasn't reported any.

take keer yerself

Viola

(over)

P.S. O I might tell you about Roy's brother Bill who is a commercial artist- Con saw in the World-Telegram last night (he reads every word in the newspapers I declare) this about him and I am sending it to his father "Pop" Fairfield as they hardly ever read, even newspapers I guess--- here tis'

" BBDO's art staff, working on some Schenley copy combed model agencies for a "healthy-looking American male." Scores of them passed thru E.C. Van Swearingen's office. Nope. Model albums were scanned. Nope. Across the hall Van spotted Bill Fairfield. Just the guy. He'll be on Schenley outdoor billboards, in newspapers and mags. come November."

I might add that Bill is a nice boy, I wouldn't call him handsome but he has a face that has character and good-looking- his teeth have gold fillings however- he's about 30 and not so tall as Roy or Bob his other brother and is going to marry a scotch girl this month-this means a wedding present, O me but we're all glad Bill who is a very quiet fellow is being appreciated.

If I see any advt. I'll send it-- you know Sue was a Powers model once but couldn't stand the "racket" modelled for Palm Olive Soap once in a satin gown but they put tight shoes on her and standing for hours while they photographed she fainted. selah.

-3-

center- nobody knew what streets the parade was coming on- bought two tiny mouth-organs on pins for Linda and little Susie- the vender held forth riding whip to Linda who took it but I lustily returned it saying they would hit each other-- paid a quarter apiece for the mouth organs which they both kept blowing lustily and then were thirsty- candy store doing a wonderful business-never saw so many kids all everywhere--got them some root beer and asked if they would like an ice-cream cone which to my amazement they refused. We then wandered up and down around the block and finally the parade came- a band sitting in a wagon with a girl wearing glasses sitting on the end clashing cymbals-- the price of admission to the affair was 75c. for children and $1.50 adults-needless to say my pocket book refused to co-operate what with Linda moaning,want to ride on the ponies-- Sue and Roy were going in evening to get a meal and perhaps take Linda at 6:30 when there were pony rides but it rained so that was off. I saw one balloon left at the stand but courageously asked for another one and the old man kindly blew up another one so both were happy. 25c. apiece- prices ain't what they uster be. A side-light was a rodeo girl in bright red dungarees calling out to the Williams Bros. garage as she went by on her pony"want to give me some gas?" and nodded her black tricorn hat-she had black hair and looked efficiently rather homely. Perhaps it was worth it for a glimpse of those two old indians tho they did kill my great-great-great great- 13 times great relative in King Philip's war.

-2-

invention saying he would sing only his wife
said his voice was like a claxon horn. When the
voice of Teddy R. exhorting his hearers to
fight some jgor other, said he "don't Ilin',
and that's all I remember (I heard him speak
once in Utica, the school was let out to go down
to Johnson street to hear him) then the voice
of the beautious Lilian R. singing and also
Caruso at 18-his voice showing the famous tambre.
timbre I believe (can't find my fr.dict.)

Eden is going to marry Clarissa Churchill, the
old dog and the athletes were shown returning
from Finland including a cullud fella, nice
looking bunch.

Instead of getting busy on the sewing machine
with an old sheet which can be sewed together
down the middle twice, 6 feet or so and perhaps
the edges, I continue to tickle this machine.

Tomorrow Sue and Roy and Linda are going to
Asbury and I to stay over there with Donnie from
tomorrow morning at 9 to Friday night- he is too
young thank heaven to miss his mama but I'm a
little bit worried about night-time- will he miss
her then? he is the funniest kiddie- makes up his
own language- he will stop, assume a-sa-a-
stance and with an anxious look say "detebbddd"
I have succeeded in getting him to say "all
gone" when his bottle is finished but it
sounds weird and guttural so far. There was
a shindig by the American Legion in Closter
Saturday--I took Linda and little Susie Kruger
to see the parade-My what a lousy parade- two
old indians in gorgeous head-dresses, one in a
wagon and the other atop a brownish black pony.
a string of ponies carrying rodeo girls and
a hay-rick loaded with Closter children. I left
car atop High street and walked down to business

Aug. 16-'52

Dear Ezra:

It was very very nice and kind and
sympathetic and I appreciate your concern very
much about Conrad's THOUGHT. I must take the
blame for perhaps misleading you with the words
"you see what he is up against." I am always
saying things like this without thinking how it
strikes my listener-- It would be too long and
perhaps useless to say that Conrad has had a deal
of contact with many kinds of people- he talks
continually with employees looking for jobs.
He has been in Australia, New Guinea, Hawai'i-
was cited for action as pilot-- but added to this
in his college days he showed signs in essays etc
of looking more at the spiritual side of things.
He is no prig. He does not believe, a la Will
Rogers, everything he reads in the papers. He
does realize the danger of communism--do you?

But I want to thank you again for suggesting
his reading Blackstone etc. This brings me to
the sage conclusion, that you think England's
laws are the best. We in America, I can't give
you examples right now, have found that England
is way behind us in, say, divorce laws. You will
also remember that America was founded by people
wanting FREEDOM. England is a wonderful example
of BRAIN and THOUGHT, and INVENTION- it is also
very CONSERVATIVE. I like what little I have
seen or heard or read of their COURT laws. We

-2-

We have many more different kinds of peoples here more open GRAFT, laxity etc.

I am quite sure Con knows the dangers of 'liberalism'-- that democracy can resolve into tyranny-- I don't quite understand your reference to local control of local purchasing power.

Out west, the middle west, they have a system which it would be fine if we here in the east could have:

I have heard Conrad tell of it but as usual:

I have not got it quite straight-- it is as I understand it controlled by the farmers- they are not caught in the chain stores as we here in the east are. You may not have heard, but there is a movement by a company (can't remember the name) to send people, especially women, around to the different stores to find out prices, what things are liked or have value- getting the opinions of different people to the end of valuating merchandise etc- my friend Marj. Fletcher has been dabbling in this-taking jobs given her by a friend who cannot accomplish all of it. This is only a slight thing- but it shows that people are awake to let us say GREED which is very prevalent today.

As to the idiocy of the tax system- you know of course the saying "nothing is certain but death and taxes". You agree that there has to be taxes of course? you cannot generalize about the idiocy of the tax system unless you know modern business methods. You know of course that when the democrats are in power they fill Washington with beaucracy- in other words they think the Government should support them instead of working- democracy is too ideal to rule nations-too many people would like other people to share their wealth with them.

Labor began to get so bold as to want to see the books of their employers/,.,

MRS. V. S. B. JORDAN

-3-

Your phrase "vocational representation" I take to
mean Guilds? Unions? Unions may be all right-
but there must be some control of the heads of them
because many of them are going around in limousines
while their workers gape at them. What is good for
the gander must be good for the geese you know.

To return to your control of purchasing power
and I believe you include interstate commerce laws-
ever since 1845 America has been agitating these.
It would be very interesting to you I am sure to
read about this in a good encyclopedia to know the
history of them and bring you up to date.

I do not want to seem to "preach" at you- I repeat
I am touched by your interest in Conrad. One of these
days he may drive down to Washington- we have spoken
of it- but so far have not done so and no reason that
I can see but money.

Right now Con is at Avon-down there below
Asbury-he drove down last night which looked clear as
to weather but it has rained all day-perhaps it is
not raining there who knows? I think as I said before-
I have given you the wrong impression of Con's thought.
He is of course 31-- he has the burden of supporting
his mother and sister--but I know him well enough to
know that if he wanted a change he would tell us/
But aside from all this Conrad's thought is
above the meannesses of men- he knows and can
differentiate between sham from realism. He can
see more in Moby Dick which is more than I can do.

-4-

I wish you could have TV- then you would hear
so much that would explain the America of today to
you--the other evening I heard the head of the C.I.O
being asked questions by the representatives of
several newspapers- every week they select a man
to "get on the carpet" so to speak and they dig
him unmercifully- and he who runs may read his
answers. It all boils down to the fact that
everything is "moving"- even the teacup you drink
out of is moving-- we cannot "go back" cannot
stand still-- the old days of politeness, people
who care, have gone. As Conrad says there must be
a new "climate" we must build for kindness to one
another-- so many people are worried because of
the atom bomb- who will use it first etc-- our world
may be blown into kingdom come-- the Russians open
ly deny God-- sometimes I myself wonder....

no one can think clearly of the value of merchandise in the old way-- when you think of the price of food 30 years ago or even 10 years ago you see to what a pass the minds of the world have come--

the only thing that will gradually change the
thought of the world is "education". and that is
slow-slow.

My dear Ezra it is like talking to a stone wall
if you have not heard and seen and known and had
contact with your "twaddle" of "nazi-fascist."
etc. Sue's motherinlaw is Scheckslav you know-we
know first-hand about these things have heard and
seen people who have known the cruelty of your nazi-
fascist. Why are you so deaf and blind. Above all
look into yourself and see if you haven't got a
persecution complex. It is a thing that gets us all
if we are not careful. love as always,

Viola

-3-

he always makes for the fish-pool and this time he
threw a little mannikin I have sitting on the edge,
into the pool kerplunk quick as a flash- we have a
swing from the one of the apple-trees, there are 4, none
ofaring many apples-- this swing is different from his
metal one with chains- so, having to hang on with rope
he fell off but it's only 1 ft. from ground-- he doesn't
like hammock- and wouldn't get into the baby swing, one
with a seat and back in it which I had beenth bought some
time ago. he kept going over to the iron fence that
separates laRoche's house you know the land etc command
saying dddeddtted--- but he loves to climb stairs and
I must teach him to go down backwards or he'll wear me
out. He has no stairs at home at all you know.

Saturday, Roy's youngest brother Bill, a commercial
artist got married to a scotch girl with glasses, not
very pretty-well as B. says she worked hard to get him--
Bill is a very nice boy, doesn't say much--was over in
Holland in 2nd w.war-- piece in the World Tel. about
Schnley the advt.firm he works for using him as a
model for typical american--we'll probably be seeing
his face on bill-boards this November-if I see an Ad.
I'll send copy- he really isn't that good-looking but
was the nearest at hand I guess. The mother of the
scotch girl wanted Bill to be piped down the aisle of
the little church in Hudson near here- but Bill didn't
want to be "made a fool of." They had a scotsman singer
who sang 4 songs and the minister said he hope he wouldn'
get tired -very outspoken minister. They had a reception
at the Amer. Legion, big feed, violin and piano- a
character they all knew, drunk all the time, fell off his
chair to the floor.Fine time had by all- Sue wore a

-5-

or rather going after the white worm that gets into the
squash stem-- how in the world it gets there I don't know
but I have a sneaking suspicion that a butterfly does
i.e. lays egg whiff turns into worm. It is more satis-
faction to slit up the stem and find the worm and haul him
him out than it is to see turban squash or zuccini on the
the plant(of course I'm kidding). I spray with rotenone
too- but we did have some very good string beans with no
fuzzy caterpillars(they haven't seen string beans up
here for so long they didn't come) but these beans
were quite as long as I've usually had them- 6 in. and
over. have some chard too- one row-- but I must do
something about the d-- wistaria vine that has ensconced
hifaultin word that--itself under the broken -down
garage and if I'd known what an unkillable plant it is
I would never have put currant bushes there- this vine is
almost frightening-it grows so fast- it was here when
we came and is going up back side of the house too- it
is of course lovely in bloom--

it was so rainy first of the year that my zinnias re-
fused to come up-had to plant and re-plant them- my
glad too weren't good out back- but I was awfully so-
prised to see a white triangular lily that Bryher gave
me when she was here last- the corm must have got in
with my glads-- we didn't have a single blue-berry-
perhaps I told you- have 3 bushes and was very disap-
pointed- ground up here not acid enough. must find out
what makes ground acid or get some vigoro or something-
our plum tree has about 5 plums that refuse to get
large and have dropped off-- perhaps tree is too young-
it had about 20 first of the year but bluejays ran off

-6-

with 'em until I covered them with old curtain-
but finally only 5 left-every eve. Con gets out
of car, goes over to plum tree, inspects it minutely
and when I ask him if they're ripe he says hope-
fully todavia no(my spanish)

However I expect great things from my chrysanthemums- had one bowl of raspberries, alas not like the large patch of them we had at 195.

O i must tell you something funny about our old
crusty neighbor Mr. Humphries. Perhaps I told you he
is retired from the R.R. ( don't know in what capacity)
lives with his married sister, about same age, in late
sixties I believe. He has a peach tree with quite a lot
of peaches, not very big, growing right near his back
eppoch. Well, Barbara went over there with some tomatoes
and string beans to give him, but he said he had some
tomatoes, then he peered at the string beans and said
no, don't think we'll take them. B. said afterwards
she wished she'd said, "thank eee Guvnor and pulled
her forelock. This has become a by-word with us/

It has been and is a beautiful day- but so cold
at night and early morning- it gets to 80 at hoon
I should do some washing but would rather sit here
writing to people- must write to Mary B. and others.

So, will close now and look forward to our trip
down to Wash8n-- will let you know when the spirit
moves Con- and don't faint when you see my wrinke
wrinkled face and false-teeth- but my hair just won't
get gray-funny isn't it?

au revoir

V.

Sept.11-'52

Dear Ezra:

If all goes well, Con and I
will drive down to Wash'n the 21st.
It would be nice to know the visiting
hours at St. Eliz. Going to get a map
at a garage today- asked for one in
Closter (small place you know) and they
didn't have one but gave me one showing
the route to Florida. I'm sure a busier
garage say in Englewood would have a
map of Wash'n (larger).

My friend Marj. Fletcher and
John are "going crazy" so they say and
are driving down to Florida just for a
"look-see". Two of my old friends have
settled there-one near St. Pete and the
other near Daytona. Seems when people get
to a certain age they long for "heat" and
can't take the winters up here--even Con
asks once in a while if I wouldn't like to
live in Florida. Perish the thought say I-
I know I'd miss the snow- but the older I
grow the more I see that it does no good
to plan anything, that is unless you have
money and really want something.

Well well, we had a comeuppence with
neighbor back of us- they who have the tower
that sends messages which interferes with
everyone's television.

-2-

They are jews and it seems he has a license etc
but it's damned annoying on a certain station or
rather channel which one wants to see. But this is no
what we had the row about- it was GRAPES. and whether
or not they own the land right up to our boundary.
Mrs. Wolf and small daughter began picking "our"
grapes madly yesterday. I should have asked her why she
didn't come over and prune the vines if they were hers.
I pruned them this spring and while they are not good

grapes they brought forth so many bunches that I've made 16 jars of jelly and there are plenty more, but Mrs. Wolf also said "get this wood off my land". Con had piled some fire-wood near the boundary. I am going to talk with Mr. Quantmeyer at the Hdw. store whom I understand owns part of her "field" or he is or was the owner of the whole field. I told her there is a foot either side of the boundary line that neither owner has a right to- which was news to her and she said this law did not pertain in Harrington Park. the fool. Well, it is pretty far-fetched that she should have planted a grape-vine way at the end of her supposed land-and furthermore a Mr. Gemeiner(a german with whom I've talked and who plays the piano and I had the presence of mind to remember the tune of the 9th symph. when he mentioned it) said his grapes were wonderful and they extend the length of the other side of the Wolf's "field" and Mrs. Wolf at Barbara's question said she picked them too. Now I know Mr. Gemeiner would not let her do that. She was the one who set fire to the field last spring and I called out the fire department. Ho hum.

We also have a "story" developing with old Miss
la Roche who has been in a sanitorium all year in bed
with some bone or other broken-- Mrs. Winters her
companion has decided to break off her friendship of
30 years and go live with her sister in Scarsdale for
Miss la Roche wants to come back to her house with two
nurses etc Mrs. Winters called me on phone and said

MRS. V. S. B. JORDAN

LA ROCHE AVENUE

HARRINGTON PARK, N. J.

-3-

"good-bye" with a long tale of how they went abroad when they were young and that Miss la Roche who cut her hair when she was fifty, used to row a boat on the pond and catch fish and fry them on the bank and eat them- etc etc etc etc and for me not to believe anything I hear etc- and that Mrs. Williams who has done the house-work for about 2 years is "taking over". Sounds like a regular thriller of who gets mentioned in the WILL etc doesn't it? There have been no lights in the house for 3 or 4 days and no signs of occupancy so we don't know what's going to happen. It is a nice big old-fashioned house and I wish I could have bought Mrs. Winters Sohmer piano-mine is in bad condition but as I don't play much I don't care.

Yesterday we had Sue and Linda and Donnie and Mrs Riddell(Trudy) for our Wednesday tea and had ice-cream on the lawn-hammock up and it looked very pretty with table etc- Donnie fell three steps down off the back porch and got an egg on his forehead- I'll bring down some snap-shots of him and Linda etc Barbara didn't watch him down the rest of the steps-he seemed to be going fine until the 3rd step.

Linda has been going to kindergarten and brings home Picasso like paintings etc Sue takes the aluminum go-cart, so light, and trundles Donnie in it who loves it- about a mile to the school with Linda and then calls for her- this is the first time in Sue's life that she has walked out into the neighborhood and takes great pains to tell me of the conversations she has with neighbors on the way etc- she has always loathed talking to people- it will broaden her mind considerably

-4-

if not her feet- several ladies have said they would
make it easier for Sue by ,eletting their older ch
dren take Linda and one woman said she'd call for Linda
in her car- but I think after about a week Linda will
know the way-- there is a police-man always down by
the R.R. track and she is equipped with raincoat and
umbrella etc- but Linda is rather a scatter-brain as yet.
Last month one day Sue thought she'd try her and sent
to the-<u>g</u> village for the mail- Linda got the mail all
right but went in the candy store and left it there.

Well I must now write to my friends in Fla. and
tell them that-Mr Marj. and John just might look in on
them on their journey.

So farewell for now and au revoir
the 21st.

as ever,
Viola

on TODAY--and Stirling North called his Old Man of the Sea- just a fish story.

Fri. eve.

Your note very true about nicotine- I must
poisoned clear thru as I smoke almost a carto
a week but try to make it go over-- you will
have to limit yourself to one a day--can you?

O about Con's money- we started out with
$40 of what Con calls my money at the Savings
Bank in Closter- that is money left after down
payment on the house-but it has been dwindling
mortal fast-- Con had brought $80 along, bless
his heart-in-case something unforeseen should
crop up like accidents etc- but Con is a very
good driver-- I know if I undertook the journey
I wouldn't go faster than 40 no matter who was
back of me and I'd sure hug the right side of
the road, but Con went 50 and sometimes 60 all
the way.

I took home some souvenirs for everybody-
didn't cost much--two little oblong vases holding
a plant that lives on air- one for Sue and one
for my friend Trudy-- Sue's had a pixie on it and
Trudy's an owl-wish I'd got one for myself--
but the vase was 69c and the plant 49 so you
see--- a nightgown for Donnie, a blouse for Linda
silly stuff for the rest of them and a belt for
Barbara- the cost of the motels was $4 and tax
apiece both places- the one at Elkton was the
best and cutest with carpet on floor 3 lights,
dressing table aluminum stand for suit-case, chairs
bath-room and stall shower between rooms.

Well I must close now, with my best to Dorothy
and you-could chatter more but will spare you.

Viola

a book, out today, paper covered I think as Dave held it up--
I couldn't begin to remember all the author said-he had a german
accent-wouldn't you know-- when asked if he would go up in one
said yes if he had the qualifications - I certainly hope Donnie
won't be fool enough to go up in one- but I won't know it anyway.

I started to make a wool jumper for Linda this morning-then
decided to let you know about Bill- how on earth, he, a doctor
doesn't know enough to prevent a stroke, is beyond me. It shows
how we ignore warnings-- how much we relie on our WILL forgetting
our physical limitations.

Was just talking to my old friend Marj. Fletcher on
't phone and she is inviting us over to supper this Sunday.
I told her we(not including Conrad) are going to a barbecue
at Sue's that afternoon and she said well, since you will be
full of hamburgers I'll know you won't need so much food at
night, when I asked her not to "make company" of us.
Marj. and John are going on a "mad" trip down Florida way this
month some time. I don't know if you would like to meet her
and John- they would like to meet you of course- I haven't
talked with them about their trip yet but probably will Sunday-
and in my impus- damned impulsive way will no doubt ask them
if they are going down Washington way and could drop in to
see you and Dorothy. They are New Englanders- Marj- both of
them great readers of latest fiction etc conservative but not
easily shocked you know the kind I mean- they live in Hackensack
alone now that John their only son married about 5 years ago-
John or "jack" as we call him used to work in Washington in the
Housing department or whatever they called it- but now lives
in Cambridge and has been studying something, never can remember
it, at Harvard- has two little children-- John is an Amherst man
and Marj. went to Wellesley I think, can't remember.

will will let you know more about them and their trip and hope
you and Dorothy will like to meet them if they do go thru
Washington and drop in on you. I have known Marj. and John
since before I was married- they lived in Bogota when we did etc
Marj. used to take care of Sue and B. when I went to N.Y. a
for any reason-- her son Jack is about 2 yrs younger than Sue.

John is in some kind of "statistic" business- a well known
firm-something like N.I.C.B. I think but my brain never will
retain anything connected with business unless I have actual
contact with such.

And now I will say adieu but not before asking you
how your neck is getting along? I mean have you any inkling as
to just what might be the matter? I think if you lie down a
great deal that might be bad for the neck muscles. You could
probably wear out quite a few attendants making them walk
with you around the grounds- anyway I worry about it.

Can you have wrenched your back in any way-perhaps one
of the vertebrae is out of place somewhere.
Would they let you have osteopathy to find out?

Farewell for now- the leaves up here are beginning to
turn-seems to me pretty early.

with love to you and Dorothy
asnever

Viola

Scenic Notes
232-2
WHITE & WYCKOFF
HOLYOKE, U. S. A.

Harrington Pk. N.T.

Oct. 2 -152

Dear Ezra:

Have to take back my other machine to Englewood to have
the middle part where the ribbon takes the keys, fixed- not
familiar with the Underwood machine.

Well I wrote to Florence and I enclose her reply as I believe you told me he had had another heart attack- I may be wrong- usually am. Con has agreed to make a visit to Rutherford in about two or three weeks, with me in his car. My car is in fairly good condition but his car looks better and has a heater in it. Great excitement over the Dogers winning yesterday but today it is raining tho I believe they are mad enough to play just the same.

Yesterday we had our Wednesday "get together" Sue and the kiddies and Mrs. R. and Donnie nearly picked up my biggest musk melon(a little larger than a base-ball" he thinking it was a ball probably- we had it this morning for breakfast, I scraping it to the rind but Con just getting a few spoonfuls-- I am so mad at myself for not thinning out the plants- they would have been larger- but its like carrots, one forgets to do this in time.

Speaking of time tho it has nothing to do with space-
we saw on TV the man who with others has invented a rocket ship-
took him 15 or 25 years thinking about it-- they sent up two
white mice and a monkey- not in the same compartment-- the
monkey looked all right, was eating something-- the man has written
abok

he is taking metamucil with food for a while.

-2-

I told Conrad how you told me your doctor said to drink water until the bowels move if they don't

I don't think people in general drink enough water- I have heard of so many cases like this-- Conrad said there were two men on his floor with something of the kind. Men are very foolish not to take enemas as women do- also Conrad said during the war he had to sit on a folded parachute for hours, in the air you know.

Well he's all right now and has to eat soft things-- and it amuses me that one of the things which he would never eat before is "jello" but ate it in the hospital-and tea which he made fun of etc-- I have made some custard today and some strawberry jello and some nice lamb broth. Perhaps I may be able to make him take maltine and cod liver oil --

It is very beautiful today and I hope you and Dorothy can still sit "on the green"--

You asked me if Con had read his boy's list etc- he has not had much chance to read the books you lent him, but I have. Of course my opinion is worthless but my dear Ezra why will you persist in talking of fascism. You know don't you that Mussolini was strung up by his feet, also his mistress and spat upon by his erstwhile recipients of his benefactions.

Communism of course can be quelled by tyranny of a dis dictatorship,-- this is what the rest of the intelligent world wishes to avoid. There is something revolting to some people to kill lazy, uneducated human beings, but to a Dictator this is the only way.

I have just been out filling the fish pool with more water-it isn't cold enough to