Bertha/CC Ballou (Father) – Page 3 – BERTHA BALLOU LETTERS

“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.

My deep disgust at being ordered to Spokane

To Bertha from C.C. Ballou – October 14, 1920

War Department
Headquarters Recruit Depot 
Fort Logan, Colorado

My dear Specks,

I have neglected you as of late – partly owing to “much trabajo” and partly to my deep disgust at being ordered to Spokane. We are in the throes of packing up. I received your check, and bought you a Victory bond, and owe you a balance of $3.55. The bond costing $96.45. It pays 4 ¾ percent, and matures on May 15, 1923, or about two and a half years from now. The interest you will draw, plus the $3.55, makes you about seven per cent on the investment, should you keep it till it matures. At any rate you get 4 ¾% at any time you want the money at what it cost you.

I make my last speech here Sunday night, Central Christian church, “Our duties to The Government.” Mamma is busy and – also disgusted – we will be about as near you as we are now, but farther from the others. I also regret leaving my many friends here. The worst is the packing up after getting things looking so nicely – my regiment is the 21st – scattered over five posts on Alaska and there in Washington, Montana and Utah.

Sorry we don’t go via Elks.

Your loving old dad.

Also I wanted you to feel assured of my entire willingness to assist financially

To Bertha from C.C. Ballou – January 12, 1921

Fort George Wright, Spokane, Washington

My dear Speksie,

Quite a snow storm visited us early this morning, but it has suspended operations. The pines are covered, of course. The weather has been “right sharp” for two or three days – mercury twelve about Monday night.

Mamma as adopted two small cats, of various colors, and I dare say will desire much satisfaction from their antics. On Monday, I built the box for four of your pictures – as forecast in my last letter – worked hard for four and a half hours at it. The extra work was caused by the arrangements for separating paintings by slats. Yesterday, I made one for The _____. Today I will not work, as I intend to go to the library for more books.

I can quite understand your desire to work, and your enjoyment of it. It is life. If I appeared too urgent in my expressed hope that you would not put in a second year at Elks, it was because I feared the loss you would sustain in being so long and out of touch with real painting. Also I wanted you to feel assured of my entire willingness to assist financially. I don’t like to urge you one way or the other, for I always feel so afraid lest some development might prove that a different course would have felt better. So, I will leave it with the assurance that I want you to do as you wish, relying on my entire willingness and ability to help you financially – if I live. In other words, money considerations should not at all constrain your action or influence your decision. It was very nice of your landlady to change your only half for _____ and very different from the profiteer at Ann Arbor, who charges ten dollars a week for an unoccupied room [Note: Where Senn is living].

Mrs. _____, in common with the other nuisances, is to be clad in uniform. Isn’t that idiotic? Colonel Black is now a full Colonel. There is no other news, as far as I know, except that one of the officers from Butte, a West Pointer I am sorry to say, is so lacking in the conceptions of a gentleman that the ____, Lanes and ourselves have left the big table at the mess and sit at the small one. It is not a recent matter, but one that is awaiting the action of a Court of Judging. We don’t care to recognize him socially. The mess has a new cook, a soldier, whose wife waits on tables. I have relieved Major Brown and put Chaplain Lane in charge of the mess, which is somewhat improved.

Your loving old Dad.

Postcard from Fiesole

To CC Ballou from Bertha Ballou – Approx. date

The view looking down from my window in Fiesole. It is perfectly lovely although it doesn’t seem so in the card since one cannot see the colors and the shapes of the hills beyond Florence. I miss it so much that I have had to be very “strong-minded” to come back just when the evenings are growing beautiful and mild.