To Bertha from Marie Schubert – December 1967
My dear,
You have been in my thoughts so many, many times. I do hope this year has been, when all is told, a pleasant one for you. And this is to wish a happy and prosperous New Year.
So our friendship is nearing the half century mark; imagine that! Sometimes it seems a long while; other times it seems like yesterday. For example, when I picked up this card, it brought back so vividly a trip that we made once to Mount Vernon: Your mother, Sally, you and I. You were going to sketch; it was Springtime, Sally was “setting” your palette, and commented that you would need a lot of bright yellow – it was a golden day. I remember thinking that seeing the chair Washington sat in, and the curtains his wife embroidered, and all that, made it seem as if they just had stepped out and would return in a few moments. My-MY! I wonder what those “founders” would think of our USA, today???
I have been toiling, by fits and starts when the spirit moved me, to assemble a family history, with photographs. It proved to be enormously interesting to me, anyway. The rest of the clan have expressed interest, too. My Father was from the ancient regime nobility in Bohemia as it was struggling to win free from the hated “usurper” (Emperor Fraz Josef of Habsburg); his Mother was a lady from Poland whose family had emigrated to Bohemia when Russia, Prussia and Australia dismembered Poland. Father was educated at the University of Prague (Praha). My Mother’s Father was of Florida-pioneering Huguenot-French stock who fled from Normandy in 1597 and escaped the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Night (1578). His ancestors settled on the Southeast coast of Florida. They were of Viking stock originally; sea-fairing men; crusading ancestry. His (Grandfather Tancre’s) Mother was a lady from Holland; whose sister married a Prussian officer attached to the court of the German Emperor. Gran’pere was educated in the University of Leyden because Holland at that time was the haven for all Church Reformists being persecuted in Europe and England. Thus it came about that Gran’pere played as a child with Wilhelm von Hohenzollern [Note: A European royal, Wilhelm was once the heir presumptive to the Romanian throne.] – and followed “Willie’s” career with deep interest, thereafter. Gran’pere was snatched from school and conscripted into the French Army while still ‘teenaged, to fight as the Restoration of the French Kings gave way to Napoleon. He returned to France during the Civil War with his father as secret agents to the Court of Napoleon III trying to buy warships for Jefferson Davis (whose first wife) daughter of President Taylor, was Grandmother’s kinswoman; other cousins were General Cherman, and General Beauregard.
And speaking of Grandmother; Her Parents were a blend of British background, Down East Yankee, Puritans and Pilgrims (Mayflower, Nantucket Island, Gardiner’s Island, ect) with Cavaliers. My sister married a descendant of the second wife of Isaac Allerton (Feare Brewster) who was ancestress of the Balls (Mary Ball was Washington’s mother), the Lees, Taylors, ect. My branch of the family descended from Allerton’s first wife.
When you go ghost-hunting up a Family-tree, it gives you a fresh interest in history and geography. It makes you feel like a like in a chain-of-important-events – maybe just a tiny link, and inconspicuous in the chain, but it makes one wonder where it all leads. There must be some reason; some pattern; some over-all plan or goal for Mankind. It began in the mists of long-gone time, and will end no man knows when, where, or how?
One wonders about the next phase of existence, after this earthly one? I do feel that there is such an existence. Not only is it promised by seers, but science tells us energy can be transmuted from one aspect to another, but never destroyed… Life is a form of energy. One approaches the Unknowable at my age, and one speculates. I do not presume to try to imagine what it will be like – but I do know that I am not tremendously keep on the halo-and-harp promises. Wings are something else! And Heavenly harmonies sounds persuasive – I adore music. Was it dear Hopkinson Smith who postulated employment for artists in the Next World? Dawn and Sunset, and Autumn effects, and so on, for painters; cloud masses, volcano eruptions, tidal waves, and so forth for sculptors? I choose color.
Once more, Holiday Greetings, Best Wishes, and may the Lord take a liking to you.
Write me your news, please. Keep in touch.
With love,
Marie