All letters – Page 6 – BERTHA BALLOU LETTERS

It is three months today since the last shot was fired

To Bertha from C.C. Ballou – February 11, 1919

I enclose some letters to assist you in writing French.

Headquarters 19th Division  (U.S. ARMY)
Camp Dodge, Iowa

My dear Bertha,

It is three months today since the last shot was fired. What a change I find a little blue at times, but when I think of the fact that you don’t feel that I have done so badly, and that you can love the ugly photograph because it is most like me. I feel more content. I am sorry that I did not make a brilliant success – for your sake and that of the others. Yet perhaps I did about as well as I could with the tools I had to work with. I certainly tried.

I will have completed by Friday the mustering out of the 19th Division if the _____ approve the recommendation I wired today that the H.Q. also be mustered out. Of course I knew that it meant in all probability my own immediate demotion, but I can see no good reason for delaying the muster out the headquarters and as I recommended just as I would had my own head not been concerned.

Where I will go next, I don’t even guess. Perhaps to the Mexican border. I am going to talk tomorrow night to the colored people of Des Moines and to another bunch on Friday night; and to the white folks on Sunday evening. I don’t know what I will say but it will not be much.

Today I received Mamma’s letter. Glad Bowd was not hurt and sorry I did see him again. [Note: George Bowditch Hunter was Reba’s Husband. He would remarry in 1937 and retire from the Army as a Brigadier General in 1943]. I hope he will not forget us and drift entirely away. I have been trying to catch up on my letter writing since I arrived here and have the docket pretty well cleared. The letters from France will soon fall off. None have arrived since I got here.

It is a beautiful day, warm and sunshiny. There are now two good roads to Des Moines, one of brick and one of cement. I have not been in town except as I passed through coming here. The rooms here are kept fearfully hot and dry as a bone. I don’t enjoy it at all. There is very little grippe here now. Colonel Newman is here, in command of the _____ Brigade. If I stay long, I will have to get one some reading matter for evenings.

It is too bad that your painting is not in a better place in the exhibition

To Bertha from C.C. Ballou – February 25, 1919

[Note: Bertha is 29 years old, and currently studying at the Corcoran in Washington, DC]

Headquarters
Camp Doge, Iowa

My dear Specks,

It turned cold last night, the mercury dropping to zero or lower, but it cleared up and though cold, is not unpleasant. No news yet as to what is to become of me.

Yesterday, a lady came to interview me about your painting and also about the pictures I brought back from France. I don’t know what she will publish, and I don’t suppose it matters very much though I don’t particularly care to get the customs tribe on the _____ of anything brought in without duty. However, I told her what the paintings were, and by whom painted, and gave her the essential facts about your work. At any rate, few people in the East will be likely to read a Sunday article in a Des Moines newspaper, especially matter of a more or less personnel and social character. I don’t hear any more from the various people in France, but I dare I will when they find out that I am landed and located.

A week yesterday I talked to the largest audience I ever addressed. It was in the largest church in Des Moines, and not only were all the seats filled, but the aisle in both pit and gallery were jammed full. Colonel and Mrs. Newman said they went early but couldn’t get standing room and had to leave. It was estimated that there were four thousand in the church. I put in quite a bit of time in visiting the Camp ______ _____ and other places of assembly, in order to remove some of the discontent or the part of men who are in a hurry to be discharged. I am also trying to find men who do not care specially to get out right now, and by holding such, enable me to discharge the discontented.

I sent you a photograph yesterday that may have enough wrinkles to suit you, though it is to my thinking rather flat. The photographer should have instead that there a white map in rear of my head, making a very bad background. It is too bad that your painting is not in a better place in the exhibition, but the fact that it elicited observation and comment in spite of the unfavorable hanging is all the more complimentary.

Love to everybody.

Your loving old dad.

The other men with one breath said she was “loose morally”

To Bertha from Beth Cary – September 7, 1919

[Note: Though this letter doesn’t provide new insights into Bertha, the gossip of a young woman says a lot about the culture of the time.]

Dearest Bobby,

Don’t think I didn’t appreciate your last letter because of my delay in answering. It was such a fine honest letter that I felt both time and inclination must be awaited to answer it. Your opinion on the matter I wrote you of jibes of my own but your “if” is the rub.

You see the man has a very bad heart due to a goiter. I was removed five years ago but left a bum heart so army turned him down. Then last winter when the girl first started to make these disclosures, the man suffered horribly more than anyone I’ve seen. As each new disclosure was forced from her, he went thru a new _____ one and forgave her. To begin at the beginning, he fell as soon as she appeared to teach last fall and was engaged in less than two weeks. At that time, she said she wasn’t sure and acted as though she weren’t really in love with him. His father said she was fooling him when he first met her. (Dad was bedridden and had an unusual intuition when it came to the real thoughts and emotions of the few he saw.) They wanted to be married before Thanksgiving but his mother had a fit and it was postponed until spring. One red head told of her father, a piano seller, in _____ before his death and her sister who taught and her brother are in the army and one in the church – a priest.

Well, first it turned out her father was a dissolute drunkard whereabouts unknown and used to mistreat her mother, etc. – regular shanty Irish. Later at Christmas time, when man was to visit her at her home (mother dead), her aunt’s, she wouldn’t let him go with her at the last moment and finally he wrung from her that the aunt was a boarding-house where she stayed. Her brothers were not as she said but a younger one was in the feebleminded school (from results of scarlet fever, she says.) One sister teaches but two others are missing whereabouts also unknown. To cap it all, she insisted on going home with him for holidays – presumably because he had promised her a diamond but hadn’t brought it (native caution.) Well, when she finally got the ring, she wouldn’t have it because it was three stones instead of one. Wanted the solitaire he had given his mother and finally got it. (He got it back five months later.)

In the meantime, she was sized up by every relative, as being a “bad one.” The nicest, most innocent said a husband somewhere but the other men with one breath said she was “loose morally.”

Late in the spring, we found there had been a boy which she had given away. The man then gave her an education in payment or as reparation which ever you wish. Poor me had to get the confession from her and tell the man. Well, he _____ forgave her that and then I don’t know whether she began to love him or not. Seems to me love is unselfish, yet she begged and pleased until all hours of the nights. One mother was crazy of course but says she’d rather see him dead than married to her. Says they couldn’t be happy because she is such a liar. Now I admit she lied but say who wouldn’t. No sign she will on the future. She admits it; says no girl ever had more to confess and we really forced the lies from her. Kept asking about family, ect. Expecting and taking respectable antecedents as a matter of course. If she hadn’t lied she would never had stood a chance of getting him. In this day and age, successful living down a mistake means concealment for a girl.

Guess she has lived OK the past six years but for the five engagements and five diamonds (all still in her possession). The men were all boys of 21 or under and mad over her as only a woman’s experience can get them. She claims to be 25 but is 32 and looks it. She is a dandy teacher, perfectly presentable and attractive-looking with magnificent red-brown hair. She is rather dramatic which makes it hard to know where her real feelings stops and the grand stand begins. She knows the psychology of love and man backwards so knows just how to work to keep Mr. Man in agony.

I’ll admit the man surprises me at times. He has given up to his passion for her, inspire of the hurts she has given by not voluntarily hustling him. I’d tell him to marry her in a minute but for the fact that her past was well known at school and as soon as she married him, it would be dragged out sure as shooting. The Earth isn’t big enough to hide some things though it is not to anyone’s credit. He has always held his head with the best and has a chance to make a name in the state. The busybodies would soon say he thought he had to marry her, ect. And his mother would be entirely a stranger to him. She has lost him anyway, though, for he thinks her objections selfish. Lots of his thoughts and actions are not as he used to be yet he is not a weak man. If he was, she would have gotten him. When an experienced woman with nothing to lose starts after a man’s “goat,” she is likely to get it.

He was an unusually fortunate man in having few if any of the fights that usually come to the young men but it left him particularly unready for the difficulties in the present situation. Only a man educated to feel that marriage was the first requisites to have, in the satisfaction of his love, could have resisted her. His mother refused the inability to love the girl and my warning that even his children would be called on to suffer for the mother’s sins keeps him from her.

How about it? Do you still think he better try to fight it out or had he better take a chance and marry her? If one could only be sure she really had repented and loved him. It is a mess and no mistake wouldn’t write you all this _____ now it will never go farther and chances are you will never see the interested parties. Oh, yes. Man feels his ideals must be lowered because he wants to marry her anyway. Do you think so?

Have mailed you a set of pictures of the kiddies. Hope you like them. Fred is especially good. Wonder how you and Reba’s boy are getting on. Must seem funny to have a little one in the house. How old is he, five? Fred will be three soon and the baby crawls all over upstairs and down. Sure do think funny sometimes.

Wonder if I’m degenerating or are the animal or rather rather India stories in the Post good. I think them as good as Kipling’s and can hardly wait for more same school of writing _____ are by Will Levington Comfort and Jamin Ki Lost one in Sept. 6th number is particularly good.

Really must ring off or you’ll be bored to death. Lots of love and don’t lose sleep over the puzzle as I have. Could like red head fine if she was only square but had to learn to like her. My instinct is to say, boy you’re 27 years old and ought to know what you’re up to. If your heart says to go on, why hop to it. When it comes to marriage family has no right to interfere and others are too often jealous of their sons and can’t realize they are grown men. On the other hand, the cleaner and finer the man, the easier it is for a wise woman to catch. If more “nice American girls” know how and weren’t afraid to use the wiles the Lord gave them for the purpose they would get the nice man they want every time. Foreign women and southern women do but the northerners and New Englanders either don’t know how or are afraid. The more one studies, the more one finds it is the little things that catch a man they are only big boys after all and one might as well start in managing them from the first, only don’t let them know it.

Lots of love,

Beth

“A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country”

To Bertha from C.C. Ballou – October 1, 1919

Chicago

My dear Specks,

Yours of the 29th received. Your address Miss Clark send one as her “permanent address” is “308 N. Neville St., Pittsburgh.” I wrote her there and have received no reply. She wrote from “the Mount Pleasant House, Mount Pocono, PA,” when she sent me the address, and I know she repeated to go there in a few days. Better put a return address on your envelope.

I have heard of “Salome,” but can’t yet recall the painting or perhaps didn’t see it.

I think Hudson explains all of _____ _____’s work, except her apparent “clairvoyance” in regard to the future, and in a very logical manner. I bought his “Laws of Psychic Phenomena,” so you may know I was interested.

[Note: Wikipedia says “Thomson Jay Hudson began observing hypnotism shows and noticed similarities between hypnosis subjects and the trances of mediums. His idea was that any contact with “spirits” was contact with the medium’s or the subject’s own subconscious. Anything else could be explained by telepathy, which he defined as contact between two or more subconsciouses.”]

I have moved into new quarters. Tell Mamma not to fret about my “comfort.” I have a large, well ventilated room; a big, clean and most comfortable bed; running water; a bathroom more convenient to my room than hers is to her room, and I eat where I please. I pass the Chicago Athletic Club every day en route to my office, and get my breakfast there. The service is fine, and the food excellent, cost moderate. They give me a choice of half a dozen club breakfasts at prices from 25 cents up. Yesterday, I took “no. 2,” two eggs, lots of rolls, and a pot of splendid coffee. Today, I took the “no. 3,” fruit oatmeal and cream, rolls and coffee. In each case, the cost was forty cents, no tipping allowed. I get a nice dinner for one dollar, nearer my room. As a rule, I don’t eat any luncheon. This is in the interest or reducing flesh and smoking. It also saves the cost of luncheon and of at least two cigars a day, a total of some three dollars per week, or thereabouts.

No news yet as to leaving here. Have got a very small staff made on my _____. It is going to be a long, tedious and expensive job. Yes, your improved health is a matter for general satisfaction, and with reasonable care, the good work should continue. The resulting state of mind, in knowing you are as much better, is not the best benefit.

I was glad to note in Mamma’s letter that she has gained weight during the summer. Tell her the doctors here don’t think climate has much effect on arthritis. I guess sweating and hot baths might help some, and in that way a hot climate might help, indirectly. Madame Grandeau sent a lot of postcards to me. I think she said, “for your daughter,” but whether for you or for Sally, I don’t know. The dear good soul will stand on her head when she hears that I have been given the Legion of Honor decoration. She likes to think that her country does things gracefully, and it does. I believe there are various grades, and have heard that the ribbon for Privates is red, but what mine should be, I don’t know. It is that for “an officer” of the Legion of Honor, and is not known in Chicago. I have not received the decoration, but have the Chancellor’s certificate that it was awarded me on May fifth by the President of France.

I wonder if you can realize all that this means to me. I would not have stayed at home and missed my experiences in battle. My “Croix de Guerre, with Palm,” and “The Legion of Honor” for a Major generally in the regular army. Nothing in a professional way has ever done me so much good, not even my first _____ at West Point. “A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country.” I can afford to forget what personal anniversary caused me to miss from our own war _______.

The Croix de guerre is a French military decoration created to recognize French and allied soldiers who were cited for their service during World War I

It is not only a flea bite. But I did feel it when it seemed that sending me away from my division had robbed me of all recognition. I didn’t care so much on my own account, for I know what I had done, but I wanted something that would speak for me to all of you at home.

I hope your new instructor will prove a success. I feel that you are ___ “finding yourself,” finding out what you lack, and that you are sure to progress.

Love to Mamma and Sally.

Your loving old dad.

We should not stamp our work as “failure”

EDITOR’S PICK

To Bertha from C.C. Ballou – June 1, 1920

War Department

HEADQUARTERS RECRUIT DEPOT
Fort Logan, Colorado
June 1, 1920

My dear Specks,

Your letter received. Excuse me for taking issue with your conclusions drawn from my letter. While I expressed the opinion that you would find copying the Sargent portrait very difficult, I don’t think I expressed the opinion that it would be “unsatisfactory.” Also, I fear that you are becoming a bit too dissatisfied, or difficult to satisfy, with regard to your own work. Of course, the mere words, “satisfactory,” or “unsatisfactory,” do not express deeply defined lives; but you should, I think, avoid running toward pessimism, and as is expressed in your statement that you are “foredoomed to failure” in copying this portrait, as your apparently think you were with the Benson. “It wasn’t Benson.” Surely not. It couldn’t be; yet it is not necessarily “unsatisfactory” because the impossible was not achieved. It was your first “copy,” and it seems to me that the commendation it elicited should stamp the effort as very satisfactory, all things considered. A too complete satisfaction, I am fully aware, may result in some such _____ content as makes an A.J. Smith, and renders progress impossible. I don’t believe in that, but I think that so long as there is progress, progress that makes one’s work stack up well with that of one’s fellows. We should not stamp our work as “failure,” or even as “unsatisfactory.” And we should avoid getting that that way of thinking and feeling. It cultivates discontent.

You’re receiving the first award in your first attempt at “still life” must certainly be regarded as eminently satisfactory, regardless of the fact that your work probably does not equal the works of Chardin. (I am not sure if I have that name right.) Of course you think I am too partial, and I know I am incompetent as a judge of your work. Nevertheless, I believe I am capable of a general estimate, based less on my judgement as to the merits of what I see, than on a general survey of the views of others. And, while I have not made any very great success in life, as regards worldly achievements, I have at least learned that a sense of disappointment or even of failure, is not necessarily fatal to progress or to happiness.

Have you yet made any inquiry as to cost of living in Boston? We might be able to fix things up so you could go there this coming year. I didn’t ask Madame Breger to look up all those matters. She did it on her own book. I merely asked what the expense were at the best of the Paris schools, meaning the tuition. I suppose she misunderstood me.

The news from the dag, or from Denver.

Love to Mamma and Sally.

Your loving old dad.