Blackwell family Lucy Stone Subj file: Lucy Stone Corresp. (P)Mrs. Page's suggestions for invitations to tea at College Club preliminary to Mrs. Park's play production by Federal Theatre. No. 55 College Street Wellesley Massachusetts Jan 10th, 1938 Dear Edna - I have tried to think of the old suffrage guard that used to work with us, and most of them have gone - There are three of the tried and true that I think it would do well to invite, although they might not do much good - They are : Mrs. Wm. L. Benedict. 25 Essex Rd. Brooklin. Mrs. C. M. Baker. 111 Ivy St. Brooklin. Mrs. H. L. Bearse Longwood Towers "Do you know Mrs. Randolph Myer of Cambridge? She is in her forties, and has worked for the Cambridge League, and really is interested in the work. She is a friend of Katherine's. Would you like to have me ask her to come? Also Miss Bronson who teaches at the High School here in Wellesley, and has voiced an interest in woman suffrage? - Mrs. Forbes should preside - It is fitting, and she knows more of the people now than I do. Many of those on your list I do not know at all. Mrs. Park and I both hope Susan Fitzgerald won't be there. NO. 55 COTTAGE STREET WELLESLEY MASSACHUSETTS Edna, I think you are a triumph, and I take this extra piece of paper to say it. Yours always affectionately, Mary Hutcheson Page. I like your card of invitation.For Mrs. Park I'd like to write the introduction to Mrs. Page's folder, but I really think someone else could do it a lot better. A long time ago I wrote some letters to Barbara in the form of a diary- that is I have been doing it ever since she was born, - and I have looked up what I wrote about Mrs. Page in the part about the women I had worked with and admired. It may interest you now. "Dear Barbara: Some day you will wonder how I ever came to be associated with the League of Women Voters. It goes back to the second job I ever had - in the Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government - an organization with a long name and just as important as the name sounds. "I had such wonderful associations in that organization of women - selfless women, most of them, all working for a common cause - and giving every ounce of their strength to the fight which they had on their hands. "And in this chapter I am going to tell you about those with whom I worked most intimately and whom I adored, really. "Mrs. Pauline Agassiz Shaw was the President of the Association when I went there in 1916. She seldom came to the office; she was really President in name only, though I seem to remember that no letter ever went out to the Association as a whole, without her advice, and usually she wrote the letters and insisted on signing them by hand, - usually about 800 of them. Then Mrs. Pinkham had a rubber stamp made with Mrs. Shaw's signature and we always chose Florence Luscomb's mother to stamp the signature because we knew it would always be straight. "But I am getting ahead of my story. I must tell you first of all how I happened to go to work there. "Wenona Pinkham called me on the telephone on evening in October 1916 after Mrs. Park had been called to Washington to take over the work of the Congressional Committee. Mrs. Pinkham told me that she had made an appointment for me to have an interview with the Chairman of the Board of the Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government. "Don't let her frighten you in this interview, Edna dear; she is truly a remarkable women. The girl in the office now (Miss Jones) is scared to death of Mrs. Page, but she is inefficient and provokes Mrs. Page. I have told Mrs. Page of your background and she is interested to have a talk with you, even if you think now you may not want to leave the Economic Club. If she chooses you for our office secretary, she will back you and help you in every way can. And she will know after one interview whether or not you do for our office. Mrs. Page expects to get value for every the Association pays out, and she doesn't feel that she is getting with our present stenographer. I have to be out of the office a go deal of the time speaking and helping with general organization wo:and you will work with Mrs. Hutchins and Mrs. Beatley, our Treasurer. We cannot pay you what you are getting now, but I have confidence that you will prove your worth to Mrs. Page, and it will then be easy for you to get an increase at least by the first of the year." "The next day I had luncheon at the Sunflower Lunch Room with Mrs. Page. She had at least ten interruptions during the hour and it was a most unsatisfactory interview. She asked me to come back to the office at 5:15 so that she could have a quiet, uninterrupted talk with me, and I told her that I had planned for a long lunch hour and could stay another hour with her. "Now that is what I like", she said. "Come into the front office with me and I will lock the door and we'll have the room to ourselves." "In that second hour I heard so much of the work that was needed the daily schedule, the women I would work with , the files to kept, the mimeographing to be done, and the reasons why Miss Jones wasn't satisfactory, that I knew what Wenona Pinkham meant when she told me not to let Mrs. Page frighten me. I wasn't at all sure that I wanted to work for the suffrage association. I go up to go and Mrs. Page took my hand in hers and patted it and said, "Now, Miss Lamprey, if you want to try it out, and if you think you can work with at least six women bossing you, come just as soon as you can." "I came home and talked it over with Dad, and called Mrs. Pinkham that night and talked with her some more, and she begged me to try it at least. And I did, and have been thankful ever since that I had those few years of association with Mrs. Page. She became one of my very real friends; wrote me letters when she was in Chocorua and in California; always called me up when she was in Boston, long after the Suffrage Association had merged into the League of Women Voters. From that first day I went to work for the B.E.S.A. for G.G. as we always called it, I was her devoted slave. No matter how busy I was with the organizers, whether I had 100 or 100,000 letters to get off whether we were in the midst of a series of industrial meeting, or typing the menus for the Lunch Room, which had to be ready at 11 A. M. every morning, when Mrs. Page came to the door and said "Edna dear, I want you now", I left everything and went into the front room with her. "We raised the money after 1916. She had a list of outstanding Mass. women who used to contribute form $500 to $5000 every time Mrs. Shaw asked them for money, and Mrs. Page sent them periodic appeals for funds for the suffrage campaign. She had a faculty of writing the kind of letter that brought results. "I remember that there were a number of women working in the organization who disliked her very much. I always felt that they didn't understand Mrs. Page. She was blunt with them at times, and I know she hurt their feelings, but in all the years I worked with her, I never knew her to say an unkind thing about anybody except Susan Fitzgerald. They were arch enemies! And I never knew why. "I was impressed with her personal family life. Her boys and girls came in to lunch with her often. They were a devoted group. Mr. Page wrote our publicity when we wanted something important for the Boston Transcript. Her interests were his. I think the thing that impressed me the most was her knowledge of people and their financial status, and the degree in the point of dollars, of their interest in the suffrage cause. It was uncanny!