To Bertha from Marie Schubert – (Date is approximate)
[Note: Bertha has left her job in Elks, and is now studying at the Boston School of Fine Art. Marie is studying at the Corcoran in Washington DC.]
Greetings once more,
Here is another Sunday and my letter not yet mailed which proves what a hectic life I am leading.
I really haven’t any more news except that Dorothy is sick with annoyance from the atmosphere in her life at the office and comes home mentally “frazzled” by it. The three girls as I told you have been reuniting Miss Cutcher’s studio. Now the talk of a studio of their own. I have an idea that I may a little later arrange to have a half day (or maybe two) a week for myself (wouldn’t that be splendiferous and then I’ll paint a marvelous “pie” and take some fat cash prize and buy a studio of my own and everything.)
Dorothy agrees to do “something” to submit next “Biennial.”
She says hers will be people outdoors in sunlight. Now, you think of yours. My trouble is I can think of a dozen I have been saving up to do and I do not know which one to do first.
I do hope by now you are beginning to feel that the Boston move was somewhat of a gay adventure. Maybe something quite thrilling has turned up since I last heard from you. A nice thrill, not an apache, burglar one. I hope you see a more lovely aspect of city life than I do.
Goodness! How drab and dismal bare and squalid and ugly and hopeless are the rows and rows of awful little hovels that line my march to duty every day!!! The car I take at 16th and New Hampshire Avenue goes down you, Florida Avenue and Seventh. How children reared in such surroundings can be anything like civilized human beings or as much as even half-witted is to me quite preposterous. It is simply terrible to contemplate the hordes of people who live in that hideous dreary manner. What is it that keeps them passive and unrebellious? Why do they not either force a more beautiful everyday panorama or die in an insane asylum? It is something outside of and beyond my comprehension or imagination. How (even if the they can stand it for themselves) can they tolerate the pitiful appearance of their children? Such bedraggled little guttersnipes! Poor little things.
[Note: She is referring to the Shaw neighborhood in Washington, DC. Shaw originally grew out of freed slave encampments in the rural outskirts of the city. The neighborhood thrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as the pre-Harlem center of African American intellectual and cultural life. Duke Ellington would have lived and played there at the time the letter was written.]
Did I tell you that President Harding and Norman Rathvon attended the unveiling of the Dante statue in Meridian Park (two blocks away) (just across from Mrs. Henderson’s famous “castle”). Yes, Norman Jaucré and Mr. Harding were there and it was a delightful occasion.
I have added three books to Sonny’s growing library. Kipling’s just so stories with R.K.’s own illustrations and came across your “goes wop with a wiggle between.” By the way, Walter quoted that to me the other day. It had made an impression upon him also. He was in a hurricane.
The other two were beautifully illustrated “Fairy Tales of Haus Anderson” and “Swiss Family Robinson” which used to be so satisfying when I was young. They picked so much better than Robinson Crusoe.
Karl has presented Sonny with a dishpan and a spoon “to keep him quiet,” he carefully explains. So, can’t hear myself think, feel as if I ought to shout to you. Do write soon. I love your letters.
Loads of love,
Marie
P.S. My nephew is a niece named for Lady Vaux with one of our family names “Coffyn” for a middle name, “Vaux Coffyn Noble.” Distinct individuality – just one in the world. There are dozens of Mary’s and Bettys and Elsie’s but ________________________.