NAWSA GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE Spofford, Florence P. 1621 Massachusetts Avenue. October 19th, '93 Alice my dear, Every hour since I knew the shadow was hovering over you my thought has gone out to you, and now that it has fallen, my head is barred with sorrow too. While I was spared what you have borne, I know the daily loneliness and heartache, and I feel for you and your dear Father by the sad privilege of knowledge. With a heart full of love and grief, Affectionately yours, Florence P. Spoffard Dear Alice Thank you so much for characteristic Christmas message. We need all the inspiring words we can remember to keep up our courage in this distracted world. I am just back from my first hospital experience of my life, but still have a nurse. The trouble is a stomach ulcer supposed to 'benign' according to Xray pictures, but tho' I named him Ben Malign and dropped the Malign on leaving the hospital, he is sharing signs of resenting the familiarity, so more Xraying tomorrow. I am really better though, and probably it all means being a slow train through the rest of life as you too are realizing. Like the child told to be good, who retorted "I'm as good as I can be anyhow" we have to adopt the motto "We're as cheerful as we can be anyhow." Most affectionately, Florence Spofford F. P. SPOFFORD 2311 CONNECTICUT AVENUE WASHINGTON D.C. September 23/22 Alice dear, I received your fat envelope this morning and took it to the Library with me, but had no time to look at it after the first reading. I don't know that I can get at all the facts you want, especially from any source that will be truly authoritative, but I will do my best. I assume that you want the material as soon as possible and I will try to take it up the first of the week. I returned the first of this week and have now Miss Nicolay sends her cordial regards and I am, as always Affectionately yours Florence P.S. let my assistant off for a vacation, so that I am subject to the interruptions of hurry orders from people on the spot, and never know what time I can command. I am so sorry for your anxious and laborious experience in nursing this summer, when you need as much as you can get of rest and freedom from care. I hope your cousin will improve rapidly and be able to go home before long. Thank you very much for 'Hermana Agua' and I should be greatly obliged for any of the other translations you have made so admirably, if the originals have real literary value. I have been reading up during the summer, but find it difficult to get hold of many original works. It seems harder to find novels and essays than the poems, but I do not wish to be limited to the poetic output, and I want also as many countries as possible represented in all fields available. The novels that I have read - only three or four - are so exceedingly Latin in the moral tone, and painfully frank in expression, that I find it hard to see any value in them. The club paper is not due till November, so there is abundant time for anything more you may be willing to let us use. Miss Micolay and I drove home from New Hampshire, taking a week for it. We had but one rainy day and that unfortunately was the [*Florence Spofford*] one we spent with Barbara, and her brood in the 'Hideaway' cottage they love so much, just out of No. Adams. We stayed the night in Williamstown and I lost my heart to the place. Then we drove to Northampton to welcome back a friend just returned from her sabbatical year abroad -- circled back again to Stockbridge and across to the Hudson at Rhinebeck, where the Beekman Arms claims to be the oldest hotel in the country -- it was born in 1700. We ferried over to the west shore and lunched at West Point, slept at Dingman's Ferry and reached Norristown, Pa. to stay over Sunday and spend it all at Valley Forge. The Washington Memorial Chapel is really a gem and the services beautiful. I will report on your business as soon as I can. F.P. Spofford 2311 Connecticut Avenue Washington D.C. November 1/22 Alice, you are a great dear to keep in mind my search for Spanish modern literature. I have not yet thanked you for the translation you sent me last week in the Christian Register, which is useful in bits - and to-day comes your letter about Regal. I shall at once look up the poem and the novels, if I can find them. The Philippines may seem remote from Latin America, but if it is exceptionally good literature it can be brought in, -- though I assume it is a little farther back in date than I have been going. It is the modernista movement [[*Florence Spofford*] I am examining. Thank you too for the jolly Hallowe'en card which is enlivening my landscape. However do you find time to remember all the holidays of the year with clever messages? I am devoting a lot of time to the housing and financing of the Speech Reading Club. I am not a good example of what it does for us in lip reading practice, but at least I can do something to make it a boon to others. Affectionately thine Florence P. Spofford [*Florence P. Spofford*] F.P. SPOFFORD 2311 CONNECTICUT AVENUE WASHINGTON, D.C. November 11/29 Dear Alice Pray forgive my forgetfulness of manners in writing you so late in acknowledgment of that attractive and monumental book of yours, Spanish-American Poets. I know how the translating has been a labor of love, but the actual mechanical labor of preparing both texts for the printer, has not been all done by you, I trust. I know very well what it all means in work and I congratulate you that the result is so satisfactory in its make-up, and thank you most heartily that you have honored me with a copy. I have told you before how much I admire your gift for interpreting the spirit of poems in another tongue and I can appreciate it most fully in your Spanish translations. I am about to lend the book to Dr. Robertson, editor of the Florida State Historical Society, who will be a most appreciative reader. He came to my desk with a volume of Darko in hand and it was my first knowledge of his interest in Spanish-American poetry. I hope you are keeping well. Affectionately + gratefully Florence Florence Hafford 5 2311 Corm. Cheuue Washington Fav. 27/31 Dear Alice, I am ashamed to see how you bask in the date of your letter about the Biography. I learned promptly that those are the copies required by copyright in the Library of Congress—of course the publishers did that—and I have had quite a heart to locate the "suffrage collection". As a matter of fact the nucleus of that is the Susan B. Anthony collection of books on suffrage which are classified together but not kept actually segregated. I should say it was quite unnecessary or you to present a copy for this special purpose, so I shall mail it to you. I took the book to the Library and so I may be a bit delayed in sending it but you should receive it within a week. It is high bedtime so I must hurry this off with affectionate greetings Yours Florence P.S. [*Florence Spofford*] 2311 Conn. Avenue Washington May 30/31 Alice my dear, Thank you for your note of the 27th and inquiry about my summer address. I expect to be here until July 7 and then I am going to Lake George Village to take a summer training course to teach lip-reading to darks! I've had one pupil in a hospital class and in the fall we hope to start with a real class. So, if you want to communicate with me after the early part of July, you might as well address care of Miss [Miolay?] Holderness N.H. She would forward to me, and until I reach the school, I shall not know my local address for I may have to board outside. I trust you are well and bound soon for the freedom of the island. Affectionately thine Florence [*Florence Spofford*] 2311 Conn. Avenue Washington June 14/31 Alice my dear, The interesting book of father tributes came days ago, and I sat down and read your story of your beloved pater right away and enjoyed it. You certainly had an amazing pair of parents - in character, mentality, and accomplish- ment _ for even tho' your wonderful mother did not see the actual end that crowned her labors, I always feel that she did personally accomplish her aim. Thank you so much for the book, which will stand beside the life of your mother among the few things of the kind that I possess, or ever will possess, for one doesn't live nowadays in a way to encourage owning any sort of a library. You may be already at the Vineyard and I hope enjoying it. I am here winding up jobs till about July 8, and then I am going to a summer school to get some training as a teacher of lip-reading, so that I can take a class of colored people for free instruction, in connection with their college or hospital. Affectionately & gratefully yours Florence P Spofford [*Florence Spofford*] 3133 CONNECTICUT AVENUE WASHINGTON, D. C. May 30, 1937 Dear Alice, I was really so surprised when I received the new edition of Spanish-American poets, thinking you would not be very liberally supplied with gift copies that you would not again honor me with a copy. "Thank you much" as Papa used to say - it was a part of his brevity of expression and avoidance of superlatives; and brought up on that diet, I find myself constantly objecting mentally to "very" and "awfully" and "marvelously" in everyday talk. When you wrote your friendly note you were not at all well, but your Howard and Helen came to call soon after and assured me that you were really better; so I hope you continue to improve. They tell me also that your new abiding place is comfortable and suited to your needs. I am so glad to know it. Miss Nicolay and I go north in two weeks, to the wedding of my grandniece Diana Morgan, and then go on to New Hampshire for the summer. You will receive a wedding announcement and will know that Diana is Charley's grandchild. Barbara Spofford's eldest. The young man is a budding lawyer and as Barbara seems in love with him too he must be all right, for she is a modern psychologist about her own, and other people. Affectionately yours Florence Spofford [*F. Spofford*] Washington Jan. 1.19.1938 Dear Alice I am so sorry to know that you have to live behind closed shutters - you who have always had your eyes so wide open to the best, and used them so incessantly to help other people, I wish I lived near you because reading aloud is my only accomplishment, and it would be such fun to read to you - provided you didn't confine me to the depressing tales of the world's present woes! So this is just a New Year note wishing you steady improvement and no long waiting to regain enough outward seeing to balance again your inner vision. Affectionately thine Florence Spofford 3133 Connecticut Avenue Washington March 7, 1938 My dear Alice, I received your letter about the list of ambassadors and ministers late on Friday and, as we have no Congressional Directory at home, this is the first moment I have been able to get hold of one. I think it is a capital idea to send out the inquiry. Wherever the diplomatic representative is an Ambassador the complete title is Ambassador Extraordinary & Plenipotentiary, that is to be used in full, and beneath the imposing array, My dear Mr. Ambassador. In the case of Legations Envoy & Minister Plenipotentiary is sufficient title (Envoy Extraordinary seems so unnecessary) and My dear Mr.Minister the familiar address Of course this is no "job" -- it has taken but a few minutes and if it were much more time-consuming, I should not let you consider it as a business request. I am happy to see that you are apparently using your eyes a little more and I hope in all other respects you are well. Affectionately thine, Florence PS Argentina Senor Don Felipe A. Espil Ambassador Embassy 1806 Corcoran Street Bolivia Senor Don Luis Fernando Guachalla Envoy Extra- Legation 2507 Massachusetts Ave. ordinary & Minister Brazil Mr. Oswaldo Aranha Ambassador Embassy 3000 Mass. Avenue Chile Senor Don Manuel Trucco Ambassador Embassy 2305 Mass. Avenue Columbia Senor Don Miguel Lopez Puarejo Envoy Extra. Legation 2306 Mass. Ave. & Minister Costa Rica Senor Don Ricardo Castri Beeche Envoy & Minister Legation 2125 Leroy Place Ecuador Senor Capitan Colon Eloy Alfaro Ambassador Legation Barr Building El Salvador Senor Dr. Don Hector David Castro Envoy & Minister Legation 2362 Mass. Avenue Guatemala Senor Dr. Don Adrian Recinos Envoy & Minister Legation 1614 Eighteenth Street Honduras Senor Don Julio Lozano Envoy & Minister Legation 1818 Q Street Mexico Senor Dr. Don Francisco Castillo Najera Embassy 2829 16th Street Ambassador Extra. & Plenipotentiary Nicaragua Senor Dr. Don Leon De Bayle Envoy Extra. & Legation 1711 New Hampshire Avenue Minister Plenipotentiary Panama Senor Dr. Don Augustus S. Boyd Envoy & Minister Pleni. Legation 1535 New Hampshire Avenue Peru Senor Don Manuel de Freyre y Santander Embassy 1601 Mass. Avenue Ambassador Uruguay Mr. J. Richling Envoy Extra. & Minister Pleni. [Carlton Hotel] Legation 1010 Vermont Avenue, Room 819 Venezuela Senor Dr. Don Diogenes Escalante Envoy Extra. & Legation 2400 16th Street Minister Pleni. Florence Spofford Legación de la República Dominicana Washington April 8, 1938. Miss Alice Stone Blackwell 1010 Massachussets Ave. Cambridge, Mass. Dear Madam: In reply to your letter of April 5, I take pleasure in enclosing herewith the name and address of the Minister of Education for the Dominican Republic: Licdo. Victor Garrido Secretario de Estado de Educación y Bellas Artes, Ciudad Trujillo, Dist. Santo Domingo Dominican Republic, W.I. Sincerely yours, Andrés Pastoriza, E.E. & Minister Plenipotentiary. Santo Domingo Education At the Library Wednesday, March 23, 1938 Dear Alice, Here are the addresses of the Cuban and Dominican Republic representatives in Washington: Cuba Senor Dr. Pedro Martinez Fraga Ambassador etc. Embassy: 2630 16th Street, N.W. Dominican Republic Senor Don Andres Pastoriza Envoy & Minister Legation 2633 16th Street, N.W. (Don't you love their sonorous names?) Affectionately thine Florence P.S. Addresses of Ministers & Envoys of Cuba Santo Domingo Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.