Blackwell Family April-May Alice Stone Blackwell Kitty Barry 1920Contributing Editors Mary Johnston Stephen S. Wise Josephine Peabody Marks Zona Gale Florence Kelley Witter Bynner THE WOMAN'S JOURNAL and SUFFRAGE NEWS 585 Boylston Street, Boston, Massachusetts Telephone: Back Bay 4717 Contributing Editors Ben E. Lindsey Caroline Bartlett Crane Ellis Meredith Mabel Craft Deering Eliza Calvert Hall Reginald Wright Kauffman Assistant Editor Henry Bailey Stevens Editor-in-Chief Alice Stone Blackwell Managing Editor Agnes E. Ryan April 5, 1920. Dear Kittykin: Florence sailed on the "Lapland" April 3. I wondered up to the last moment whether she would really go, she had changed her mind so often. But this morning (by the same mail with your letter of March 21) I got a few lines from her, written on the point of sailing. She was in very miserable condition physically, and all unstrung nervously: but we all hope that the sea voyage and the complete change [would] will set her up. 'It is impossible to imagine the suffrage movement without the Woman's journal. "--Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt. [*Easter Lily, and they could hardly tear him away from it. Your affectionate cousin Alice.*] 2 I agree with you, though, that it is not restful to have to rush about sight-seeing. Howard and I have not received a notice to sign anything about your passport, except that declaration of your having been born in New York, which we sent you some time ago. Of course we shall be glad to sign. I do not understand what it is, though. Is the government supposed to have sent us some document to be signed? If so, I wonder whether Howard can have failed to get it because of his being away in New Jersey so much. All his mail is supposed to be kept for him, however. Please explain this matter. I [*it, a little - so it must be very sweet. Anna says the little Charles Hastings was perfectly enraptured & bewitched by an] 3 THE WOMAN'S JOURNAL and SUFFRAGE NEWS 585 Boylston Street, Boston, Massachusetts Telephone: Back Bay 4717 Contributing Editors Mary Johnston Stephen S. Wise Josephine Peabody Marks Zona Gale Florence Kelley Witter Bynner Assistant Editor Henry Bailey Stevens Editor-in-Chief Alice Stone Blackwell Managing Editor Agnes E. Ryan Contributing Editors Ben P. Lindsey Caroline Bartlett Crane Ellis Meredith Mabel Craft Deering Eliza Calvert Hall Reginald Wright Kauffman should be very sorry, and so would Howard, to have your sailing delayed by any negligence on our part. I was invited over to Howard's yesterday for Easter dinner. They were all pretty well, except that John looks rather frail. They are extra intelligent and uncommonly well-behaved children, the older two. Lane is too young to behave very well as yet. Howard's beloved black cat, Wuzzy, sat on the arm of his chair while he carved the chicken. Wuzzly occasionally tried to advance his nose [*'It is impossible to imagine the suffrage movement without the Woman's Journal. - Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt. '*] [*sent me in a beautiful Easter [lif] lily, and I find to my joy that I can smell!]or paw in the direction of the victuals, and had to be rebuked. After [so aw] awhile Howard gave him his special Easter dinner on a newspaper, and later I saw him clinging about Howard's neck like a baby. The little Beldens had been over the day before and had had a great time coloring Easter eggs under Helen's directions. Then they took them home, and at night Anna made nests to put them in, and hid eggs and nests for the children to hunt for them Easter morning. with this attack of grippe. I am still weak and coughing. But today a friend Mrs. Parker expressed a fear that you might fall down the elevator well, when you are living with me. Please tell her that you couldn't do it if you tried - not even if you were bent on committing suicide. There are [children] children in these apartment hotels, and the little boys love to "monkey" with the elevator, and it has to be arranged so that they cannot fall down the shaft, or they would be killing them - having bronchitis! It is a horrible affliction. I had a touch of it - a very small touch - in connectionselves all the time. The elevator is run by the passenger, and is very easy to operate when you know how. I hope that you will use it instead of climbing so [may] many stairs. Suppose you were in my flat in the 6th story, and wanted to go down. You would go out into the hall, and find yourself cut off from the elevator well or shaft by a strong grated door, which you cannot open. You press a button, and the elevator glides up from wherever it is down below, and stops on a level with you. When it is there, but not before, the strong grated dear can be opened. You open it, go in and recent issue of the N.Y. Tribune. I am so sorry you have been shut it behind you, and find yourself facing a row of buttons, marked 1, 2, 3, etc. You press the button corresponding to the floor you want to go to - No. 1 if it is the ground floor. [You] The elevator glides smoothly down to that floor, and stops. There is another strong grated door there. You open it and walk out. It is very simple. People are afraid of it till they understand it, and then they get very fond of it. But creditor, and adviser. The advertisement is from the Orange supplement to athere is a staircase, too, if you prefer to [wal] walk. You also suggested that you would have small chance in case of fire. The fire escape goes down right outside you bedroom window. The hotel Mt. Monadnock , where I live, and the Hotel Denmark, stand side by side, and they are connected like the Siamese twins, only that they have a double connection - by a passage on the ground floor, and by a bridge from roof to roof. In case of fire, as [we] my flat is at the top of the house, just under the roof, probably the best way for us to do would be to go up appear in connection with it, I asked him what his relation to the Kelly Ackerson Co. was, & he said that of to the roof and cross over by the bridge to the roof of the Hotel Denmark. There is the iron stairway to the roof which goes up from an iron platform just outside your window; i.e. the fire escape; there is also a back stairs by which our washerwoman takes the clothes up to dry them on the roof: and a third staircase at the end of the hall. We should hardly be cut off from all three Howard gave me for you the enclosed picture representing the apartment house for 62 families, which he has been helping to build in East Orange. As his name did notunless the fire was very far advanced, and your keen nose would detect it before that. What little sense of smell years of catarrh had left me has mostly been destroyed by the grippe; but I hope when the grippe is all gone it may come back, at least in part. I expect to derive great advantage from your sensitive proboscis. For weeks I had been wondering what had become of a big blue china bowl in which I make matzoon - a sour milk preparation. The other day Mrs. Bayer discovered it under some cloths & papers on a table in my work room. There was a remnant of sour milk in it which had gone absolutely rotten, and must have smelt to heaven, yet I had perceived nothing of it, though it was right under my nose! That couldn't have happened with you in the house! I will lend you the use of my eyes and you shall lend me the benefit of your nose. We shall be like the Three Grey Sisters in Hawthorne's story! Yesterday April 11. 1920. Dear Kittykin: Today Florence is landing, if the steamer got in on time. I hope the weather is as fine today over there as it is here - glorious sunshine, although the wind is east. There is not much family news. I called up Howard's house this while she is in Scotland. I am sure she will want to compass it if she [car] can. Your affectionate cousin Alicemorning. He generally spends Sunday at home, but Helen said this week he had not been able to come back. The children were well: and Anna reported the little Beldens as flourishing also. They are planning to send Elizabeth to a summer camp for girls for two months, and I think it will be good for her. It will certainly be a great relief to her mother. But I can't help feeling a little sorry for the other campers. She will torment them, to a certainty. But there will be girls of her own size, who can must try to follow your good example of patience under worse affections. I do hope you & Florence will meet and will resist when she imposes upon them. It is not good for her to be always with children so much younger than herself as her brother and sister. I shall be interested to know what steamer you select. I think you are right in preferring "the best and slowest" without so many frills. I hope there will gave me to allay the irritation, she said it was a worse case than she ever had!be a good stewardess. I don't feel quite easy about your making the trip alone, and wish you could make a junction with Florence; but I suppose that is hardly feasible. Lovnia has just passed her 83rd birthday. She hopes to rejoin Anna soon. I am rather miserable, as to health, and am so unused to it that it makes me cross. I don't seem to get up my strength after the grippe, & have come out with an itchy eruption which is very annoying. Mrs. Boyer thinks it is "hives," which she used to have every Easter - but when she swabbed my back with the stuff the doctor 2 Monadnock St. Boston 25, Mass. April 17, 1921. Dear Kittykin: You had better sail as soon as you can, or you may be tied up indefinitely by the coal strike or the transport workers' strike! I read Howard your letter, in which you said he must be sure to meet you, and he says he certainly will,2 "whether she lands at Boston, New York or Baltimore." Helen has gone to the hospital for a small opera- tion. It has been successfully performed, and she is understood to be doing well. Howard called it "taking a tuck in her inside." They fastened up the womb to the front of the abdomen, so that it should not press upon the nerves of the back as it has been doing. They 3 think it will make her feel a great deal better. Howard's little boys have just set up some gold and silver fish, in which they are greatly interested. Elizabeth continues to be almost supernaturally good; and her father thinks it is not because she heard they were planning to send her away--he says she would not at all object to go, to a place where there are animals!-- but because of Dr. Haley's mental treatment. He had4 her for 18 visits, of 2 hours each, and he psychoanalyzed her (I think they call it), and when he was through he assured her parents that she was now a reformed character, but they didn't believe it. He is doing this sort of thing for wayward children for the city, right along. He does not often take a private patient, but he did this for once in a way, for Charles, and charged a mere trifle for it. The change in 5 Elizabeth didn't show itself immediately, but after a little while she grew so good that they hardly knew her. She has had only one tantrum in a fortnight. They have found a good motherly woman to board her with for a while, so as to give her a change of environment, as the doctor recommends-- a place where there is a [da] donkey, chickens and a cat, with a good school and a swimming pool within6 reach. She is very fond of the swimming pool. She will probably go next week. You asked about Grace. For a long time she had been perfectly sane, though not normal, for she hated to do anything--even to dress herself. Then she had a relapse, and has been completely demented again--talks and sings continually, and does not know Florence, or Miss Dunham. For a while she would not eat, and had to be forcibly fed. Miss Dunham got all worn 7 out, and they had to get a nurse who was used to insane patients, a Miss Campbell. She and Miss Dunham were dividing the work between them, at last accounts; and Grace had lucid intervals, when she knew Florence and Miss D. Bu she no longer tears her nightgowns or injures the furniture. Do you remember Dr. Frances Rutherford, who used to be a the Infirmary? I have sent her Xmas & Easter cards & she writes:8 "I have received your postals, & have hoped to find your exact address. Lately I have reread the writings of Dr. E. Blackwell, and I so wish I might see you face to face. I knew personally your mother and father, as also Antoinette B. Blackwell, as well as my beloved Dr. Emily, & the sister that lived with her. I also visited Dr. Elizabeth B. at her home at Hastings. A noted--- (word undecipherable) was 9 Dr. Elizabeth's guest that day, desiring to see a real American, but his (or her- writing not clear) comment on me was, 'O Elizabeth, she has the same staring blue eyes and big feet as the rest of us English!' Will you ever come west? Do, for I desire to see you, and remember you so well the winter your father and mother were in Kansas and you were with the Drs. Blackwell, and me too!" Dr. Rutherford10 is living at 55 Sheldon Ave., S.E., Grand Rapids, Mich. I have found Ethel Robinson's letter describing the memorial meeting for Aunt B. at the Academy of Medicine on March 16. She says: "There were about 50 of the best women doctors of N.Y. there. Dr. Sarah McNutt gave a talk on 'The Character & Personality 11 of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell.' It was taken largely from Aunt B's biography, and was very good. Then Dr. Elizabeth Mercelis read a letter from her aunt Dr. Elizabeth Cushier telling of her visit with Dr. Emily to Hastings, & of Dr. E.B's visit with Kitty to York Cliffs in 1906 to see Aunt Emily. Her letter was full of dainty and distinct characterizations12 of Dr. Elizabeth. Then a letter was read from Dr Stephen Smith of N.Y., who is 99 and was a classmate of Aunt Eliz. in Geneva. Then there was a talk by Dr. Ethel Blackwell Robinson on 'The Inspiration of Dr. Eliz. Blackwell.' I led up through the favoring conditions and her mental and moral resolution to study medicine, to the sudden reaction she felt, and dire distress of soul which came, and 13 then the wonderful mystic vision which flooded her soul with assurance. How she from thenceforward became larger than her individual self, led by the holy spirit, and consecrated her life to her work. I got a good many points [out] and stories from father's splendid diaries. Dr. Annie S. Daniel, of out-practice fame, gave an exceedingly good14 paper on 'The Books of Dr. Eliz. B.' she said the [au] autobiography stood in a class by itself. She devoted her time to summarizing the wonderful advanced lines on which at that early time Dr. Eliz's brain ran, and how she wanted women trained in these ways: Hygiene & sanitation, prevention & not cure, moral & social purity, political study. All the 15 things which this centenary [?] time are proving so helpful. It was an appreciative and capital paper. Then Dr. Lucy Mosher of N.Y. talked informally of her visits to Rock House, etc., & Dr. Mary Hussey reminisced of her mother's early work with the young pioneering Dr. Blackwell. Dr. Hussey was probably Dr. E.B.'sfirst baby in private practice, so Aunt E. says in her autobiography, although a friend two years older claims to be so. By the glowing faces that listened, it was a very interesting evening. By the way, it was the regular monthly meeting of the Women's Medical Association of N.Y. City." Howard says he has Frances's money ready and will send it right on. Your aff. cousin Alice.1920 Apr 19 As B to Kitty B - Plans for Kitty's trip to U.S. Howard Blackwell's Bldg plans publication of Spanish - Am. translationsThe Woman's Journal and Suffrage News April 19, 1920 Dear Kittykin: Yesterday Howard and Helen had me over to dinner, and we exchanged what family letters we had. He showed me your last one, and we discussed various plans and possibilities of things that you might like when yeu got over here. "Kitty is as much a Blackwell as any of us!" said Howard. have a bad reputation. When I go out for a walk now I take unusual notice of the dogs that I meet, wondering whether they will be friends with Jock. I go out for a little saunter in the sun, all that I am yet equal to, for my strength is very slow in coming back. Did I tell you that [Bretana] Brentana is going to bring out a volume of my Spanish American translations? Your affectionate cousin, Alice.I don't understand why your passport is so long delayed. They surely can't suspect you of being an anarchist or any sort of a dangerous character! You remember old Dr. Stephen Smith, who was at the Geneva Medical College with Aunt B.? He gave an interview about her to the Sunday N.Y. Times lately, and I am enclosing a copy. The interviewer made a few mistakes in his report, but in the main the story is straight. It seems to have attracted considerable attention. Several persons cut it out and sent it to me. The Times has a huge circulation. have hopes that your eyes & ears may be improved by some able doctors here and we discussed the possibility of a Florida trip helping your neuralgia. For it is too true that the Boston east winds The Woman's Journal and Suffrage news I was amazed to read in your letter to Howard that Mamma once said you had "black hair, black eyes and a black temper." You must have got bravely over the temper, before I was old enough to take notice much. You had a hot temper, along with your warm heart; but [as] I don't remember that when you were a girl you ever got mad without cause. In my childhood, whenever you came down upon me it was because I had deserved it, and on the whole or she will hardly be able to keep up with her party. I do hope that you & she will manage to get together for a visit. Howard & II respected you the more for the blowings up that you gave me. Lovina is still at Gardner. Howard says he's not going to build any more houses at present, because of labor troubles. He has had 22 strikes while putting up this apartment house and the four single houses! He and I agreed that Florence really ought not to spend her winters at the Vineyard, at least [until] unless she can get much better help than she has had hitherto. She gets all run down. And Howard suggested the possibility of setting up you & Florence & me, or you & Florence & Miss Murfitt, in a small flat either near him in Cambridge, or here in this apartment house where I am now. He said your furniture would come in handy to furnish such a flat. But I don't know whether Florence could be pried loose from Chilmark. I don't seem to get my strength back. It is more than a month since I was taken with the grippe, & I am still very weak and good for nothing. I hope Florence has got her strength back faster,Howard Helen Dr. Stephen Smith Dr Eliz - (Aunt B). Florence (Mayhew) Miss Murfitt Apr 19 1920 asB to KBThe Women's Journal and Suffrage News April 23, 1920. Dear Kitty Yours of April 4 came yesterday, and has thrown us all into commotion, as my letter seems to have thrown you! Howard and Anna and I all feel that you ought to be with your family, where, if several big print weeklies! Your affectionate cousin, Aliceyou should be ill, you can be taken care of by someone who loves you. With all of us earnestly desirous to make you and Jock comfortable, it will be a pity if we cannot succeed. Maids are hard to get in the U.S. Aunt Emily left Nannie well off, yet she has been doing her own work, & Ethel Robinson too, because of the difficulty of getting satisfactory you will have great opportunity to read headlines with me for I take 5 daily papers & help. But it is comparatively easy to get "accommodators", and you may be sure I will have one, if it proves to be necessary for your comfort. I dare say my family will be glad, for the doctor told me long ago that I should never be to meet her at the station. It will be a great comfort to Anna.properly fed as long as I continue to get my own dinners! Anna seems to be exercised on the same subject, for she turned up unexpectedly the other day and brought me a bag of home-made brown-flower "gems," two cup custards, and a tumbler of mayonnaise of her own manufacture! You shall have Wiltshire bacon if there is any to be got in the market. If not, we may import some! Lovina comes back to Anna today, & Howard is May 17, 1920. Dear Kittykin: I am wondering whether you and Florence succeeded in getting together. In about a week I ought to hear. Things here are in status quo, except that Lane has a cold and is suspected of whooping cough, so he has Miss Murfitt in attendance, the nice the early summer, and come crowding home in the late summer and autumn. Your affectionate cousin, Alice.little nurse who took care of Emma. John has had it, but they are not sure whether George did; he never whooped. So Miss Murfitt is keeping Lane and George apart. Sophie Siebker doubts if she can come to me in the fall. If not we will get an "accommodator." Perhaps you will really like it better not to have a German. Howard again this morning expressed the wish that he could go over to England and get you. He said he would, but that he cannot be away from East Orange for more than a week at a time. Do let us know when to expect you. Howard told me to remind you that you will find the steamers much less crowded now than later in the season. People go to Europe in The Woman's Journal and Suffrage News May 23, 1920. Dear Kitty: The New York is in, and Florence is supposed to be in El Mora. I hope to get a line from her tomorrow. I am anxious to know how she stood the voyage. Howard meant to go over there to spend [Sunday] the evening of of May 20, but he telephoned from [New] Newark, & found that Tom and Agnes & Kenyon had all gone away [of] for an automobile trip ofseveral days, & therefore he turned back. Mrs. Geity was there taking care of Aunt Nettie. She said the 95th birthday had passed off very pleasantly. Florence had written me from England that it had been a great disappointment to her not to see you, and that it was due mostly to her own "stupidity." Howard said it showed how far from well she was, or she would surely have managed it somehow. She was evidently feeling helpless and incapable. Howard is back for the week end, but must return promptly. Helen has been in bed for several days with a bronchial cold. Elizabeth has joined the [G] Girl Scouts, & is much interested. She has also conceived the idea that white stockings are the extreme of elegance, and wants to wear them oftener than her mother thinks best. Alison toldAnna that sometimes when Elizabeth is told to wear her tan stockings to school, she puts the white ones on under them, and peels off the tan ones after she gets there! Anna is all ready to have you come to her if you do not find yourself comfortable with me. She speaks in high terms of what you have done for the Blackwell family. She said only the other day, "Kitty is splendid!" Do let us [*Well! How. Why!*] know by what steamer to expect you. Your affectionate cousin, Alice.