by Edward Burns
and we do love papa Woojums
B. W.
1. When Stein was in London in February 1936, a number of people had spoken to her about a production in London and perhaps also in Paris of Four Saints in Three Acts. One of those who expressed interest was the producer Charles Cochran. Stein also wrote to Edward James asking for his financial support of the planned production. James replied to Stein on 23 April 1936 (YCAL) that he was ill and was not in a position to undertake such support. He did, however, suggest that Stein contact John Sutro and Cecil Beaton. The idea for the production was that it be presented in both Paris and London in the summer of 1936. Pierre Colle, an art dealer with the firm of Renou et Colle in Paris, was working with Stein’s friends the d’Aiguys on plans for a Paris production. Nothing came of the production plans in either Paris or London.
2. Trac, Stein’s Indo-Chinese cook who had been photographed by Van Vechten in Bilignin in 1934. Toklas writes at length about Trac in The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book, pp. 186–95.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Carl Van Vechten in Central Park. Photograph by Mark Lutz]
2 May [1936] [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
Dear Gertrude:
Listen to Me is epatant and would be sensational on the stage may I play Sweet William or the brilliant epilogue? I’d love to… Of all your plays this seems the most spontaneous & exciting, and I’m very excited too about 4 Saints being done in Paris. . How they will love it!! I wish you were here to see Macbeth in Harlem and to see Papa Woojums who sends his love to Baby & Mama W!
[Carl Van Vechten]
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Unidentified mask. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten]
[postmark: 10 May 1936] [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
Dear Baby Woojums!
I sent you another photograph and a card about the EXCITING Listen to Me and what not to rue de Fleurus & I see by the very bottom of your letter which I have just reread that you have gone to Bilignin! Well I hope all reaches you safely.1 We have signed a lease for a beautiful apartment on Central Park West from where we can see only leaves & towers. We move in September.
Love to Both.
Papa W.
Fania is going to Georgia in a day or so.2
1. Van Vechten’s postcard, 2 May [1936], arrived before Stein had left for Bilignin.
2. Marinoff and Van Vechten were going to see Eugene and Carlotta O’Neill at Sea Island Beach, Georgia.
To Gertrude Stein
13 May 1936 150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York City
Dear Baby Woojums,
We are at last going to move! Though not till September, there is so much to attend to that we are packing and shifting this and that already. Besides we shall be away part of the summer as usual. Tomorrow, for instance, we are off for Sea Island Beach and the Casa of Eugene O’Neill. . So I have thought it was safer and better to put your Mss. in a storage warehouse in a special room I have engaged for things of my own. . They are plainly marked as belonging to you and are ALL together. They are a little inaccessible but with some notice they can be procured, but they are almost 90% safe from vandals, fire, revolutions, strikes, and casualties due to moving. I think you will grow to like your mss. reposing in a fireproof vault.
In the fall we shall be living on Central Park West and Seventieth Street and you will hear all about it and eventually, no doubt, see pictures of it.
You are always Baby Woojums and Mama Woojums is always Mama Woojums!
I wish you might see Macbeth in Harlem!
L Ο V Ε and LET Love!
! Carlo!1
1. The verso of this letter contains two lists in Stein’s hand. The first is:
Pay taxes
Envelope for t. w. [i.e., Thornton Wilder]
The second list, with the paper reversed, is probably of persons to be written to.
Carl [Van Vechten]
Woolcott [Alexander Woollcott]
Mike [Michael Stein]
Hahner [?Marcella Hahner, of the book department of Marshall Field & Co., Chicago, Illinois]
Johandeau [Marcel Jouhandeau, the French writer]
To Carl Van Vechten
[Postcard: Ambrenay—Le Cloître—La salle capitulaire]
[postmark: 14 May 1936] [Bilignin par Belley Ain]
My dearest papa Woojums,
The photo has come, decidedly one of Romaine [Brooks]’s best, I like it, the only thing is just above papa W.’s eye-brows and the point of his chin, not quite to my feeling but eyes and nose and hand, really papa woojums, and looks like rather very fine painting too, do tell R. how pleased I am and lots of love1
Gtrde.
1. A photograph made by Van Vechten of Romaine Brooks’s portrait of him.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 25 May 1936] [Bilignin par Belley Ain]
My dearest papa Woojums,
Everything came and I wrote you about it and nobody will act in Listen to me if not you, but wouldn’t you like best perhaps to be the epilogue and the prologue, anyway I am so pleased that you like it, the Four Saints is not coming off this spring they really got started with the idea too late but the idea now is to have it next spring for the Paris Exposition1 and that would be a much better idea so perhaps that will be that, the Picabia and me listen to me is still bright with hope and now [Lord] Berners writes:
I am getting on with they must be wedded to their wife and have nearly finished the first act. Various people I have played it to have xpressed approval it is for six voices and orchestra. The voices may be doubled and trebled or more into a large chorus if necessary without destroying the balance. The voices are part of the orchestra and on the stage miming and dancing. There is a possibility of producing it in London at the Sadler Wells Theatre.2
So you see it may be done and you would come over for that wouldn’t you papa Woojums I think it would be lots of fun all of us in London and P. W. photographing us all. And we were so xcited about the moving, we don’t much like your being where we have not seen you, but it is better and just the same as Connecticut and there can’t be any floods, did you do any photos of Macbeth in Harlem, I would like to see them,3 we are gardening madly and are very pleased and happy and we do I do so love papa Woojums.
B. W. and M. W.
1. An international exposition, Exposition of Arts and Technique in Modern Life, scheduled to open in Paris in May 1937.
2. An undated letter, Berners to Stein, in YCAL.
3. Note by Van Vechten, 23 January 1941: “Macbeth produced with a Negro cast at the Lafayette Theatre. I didn’t photograph this, altho’ I tried to arrange it.” The cast included Edna Lewis Thomas as Lady Macbeth, Jack Carter as Macbeth (he was later replaced by Maurice Ellis), and Canada Lee as Banquo. See also Van Vechten to Stein, 9 January 1936, note 4.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Postcard: Der Volkskanzler Adolf Hitler]
[postmark: 31 May 1936] [Bilignin par Belley Ain]
Dear p. W.
Thanks for putting everything in the safety deposit room, it is not too much of a nuisance I hope, but papa Woojums is like that, and if you are to be away so much in the summer why not come here, the Easter Lilies will be out soon, and they would like to be photographed, and Pepe, he seeing me write came right over and said he would pose among the lilies, love and much love
B. W.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Self-portrait of hands with rings. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten]
9 June [1936] [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
No, dearest Baby Woojums, I have done no pictures of Macbeth in Harlem. It got complicated & when things get complicated I leave em alone. . Of course if I had made any you would get some at once. We’ve been to Georgia at the Eugene O’Neills and we don’t move till October. So maybe I’ll go to Russia. So excited about your play in London. Papa W will be there with his Leica snapping Mama W. Baby W. & Lord B[erners]… And the mss are safe
in a kind of Kremlin!
Love,
Papa W.1
1. In Stein’s hand, written on the card in reverse under the address, is the following list of names, presumably of persons to be written to: “Carl [Van Vechten], Kiddies [Mr. and Mrs. W. G. Rogers], Thornton [Wilder], [Wendell] Wilcox[,] Janet [either Janet Flanner or Janet Scudder].
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 29 June 1936] [Bilignin par Belley Ain]
My dearest Papa Woojums,
We have been having a hectic time, Bennett [Cerf] and Jo Davidson were with us for 48 hours and we moved around, but we had a good time, Bennett was very sweet and he is going to in the spring do an anthology for the modern library of all the things we like, Tender Buttons and As a wife has a cow, and 400 pages of it, The Flowers of friendship, if there is anything particularly you want in will you tell us, we will make it up in the fall when we get back, it will be about 400 pages, I am awfully happy about it, I can’t tell you papa Woojums how grateful I am to you for having given us such a lovely publisher,1 he will also do a cookbook when Alice gets it written and she is thinking of calling it Eating is her subject,2 we are full of projects, and in between thunder showers we garden, and Papa Woojums can’t you fly by us and to us on the way back from Russia, we can get you in Lyons which is central for all aeroplanes we can almost get you in Russia. And sometime if you can will you send to Pere Bemardet, Abbe d’Hautcombe par Chindrieux St. Pierre de Cuirtille Savoie a copy of St. Ignatius, he wants dreadfully to see it, and have it, the black one with him praying, against the black back ground,3 and 1 have done a chapter of the new Autobiography,4 and I guess it is perhaps going to be good, as soon as more of it is done I’ll send it but don’t say anything about it to anybody because it may not get written it might get stuck, but anyway we love you so dear papa Woojums we do and love to Fania and a pleasant time
Always
Gtrde.
1. This is the first mention of a project that did not see fruition until October 1946, when Random House published Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein, edited and with an introduction and notes by Van Vechten.
2. Toklas had from time to time discussed the idea of writing a cookbook. In 1953–54, while suffering from an attack of jaundice, she wrote The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book.
3. Père Edmond Bernardet (1903–1978) was born in St. Martin d’Arc (in the Savoie, France). On 19 December 1926 he entered the Abbaye d’Hautecombe and took monastic orders on 3 September 1928. He became the chief hôtelier of the abbaye, and it was probably in this way that he came to know Stein, who had often visited the abbaye from her home in Bilignin. Père Bernardet left the abbaye in 1958 and became a diocesian priest until shortly before his death.
In YCAL there is a letter from Père Bernardet, 9 March 1931, written to Van Vechten while he was visiting New York. Whether they actually met at this time cannot be confirmed, but it is probable that they did (see Van Vechten to Stein, 10 July 1935).
4. Stein’s Everybody’s Autobiography.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Postcard: Maison de France, Famille Royale]
[postmark: 8 July 1936] [Chambery, France]
My dear Carl p. W.
They are doing the Identity Marionette play first time in Detroit 8.30 P.M. The National Puppetry Conference, if you hear anything about it will you let me know, they say the music is very interesting, do you know anything about Owen Haynes1 lots of love, it rains and rains every day but we don’t mind and lots of love Romaine [Brooks] was here and we talked and talked about you lots of love lots of love
Gtrde.
Donald Sutherland wrote me a long letter but no address, do you know it.2
1. Donald Vestal had written Stein on 27 June 1936 (YCAL) to tell her the details of the first performance of the play. See Stein to Van Vechten [28 November 1935], note 1.
2. Sutherland to Stein, undated letter, YCAL.
To Gertrude Stein
10 July 1936 150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York City
Dearest Gertrude,
I am more excited than I can tell you about the Anthology in the Modern Library. May I ask for a lot of things. Historically I should like Mabel Dodge at the Villa Curonia because it is the first thing I ever saw of yours. Then certainly those first portraits of Matisse and Picasso. More than anything else I crave:
Kisses can kiss us
A duck a hen and fishes, followed by wishes
Happy little pair.
Might I have this, please.1 Then something from Lucy Church Amiably, please and Susie Asado and Miss Furr and Miss Skeene [(]Pu-leese!), As a Wife has a Cow, DEAR BABY WOOJUMS, Capitals, Capitals! I could go on and on. . And I think Alice’s cookbook is a marvellous idea and Mama Woojums must get to work on this immejate. . Unfortunately all my photographs are packed now and will be till I MOVE (After October 1) and so I can’t send Pere Berna[r]det (Bless him) a picture of St. Ignatius till later. Anyway his address is particularly illegible: so please will you print this out again. . I’m sure the new autobiography is going to be GRAND, it should have more about the method and raison d’être of your work than the old one. . But there is Plenty to write. . I read in the paper last night that a play of yours was being given by marionettes in Detroit. . Did you read Bravig Imbs book? He doesn’t write very well and he left out so many things I was dying to know and put in so many DULL places, but nevertheless the book interested me because it was mostly about Baby and Mama Woojums. . But, my gawd, Pavel [Tchelitchew] and Virgil [Thomson] simply shriek for characterization and he has done them so sloppily2… I am not going to Russia after all. The latest idea is MAINE (in a car). . There is so much to do at home on account moving. . The new place is going to be pretty beautiful. When will you come to see it?. . Fania has just done Mrs. Frail in Congreve’s Love for Love.3. I understood Ettie Stettheimer4 to say one night she had just read something by you in the Saturday Evening Post. Do you suppose I dreamed this? She now denies all memory of this and I can’t find anything in the Post. Could it have been the New Republic?. .5 Getting ready to go to Russia I read a lot of books and I got MORE and MORE bored with the idea. It must be very exciting however if you are excited about it the way Muriel Draper is. Meanwhile your precious manuscripts are buried in the Manhattan Pyramids. They should survive even an air-raid. . Love and kisses to you both!
Papa (and how!)
Gertrude Stein at Lucey Church, 13 June 1934.
PHOTOGRAPH BY CARL VAN VECHTEN. PRIVATE COLLECTION.
1. See Van Vechten to Stein, 10 January 1936, note 3.
2. Bravig Imbs, Confessions of Another Young Man (New York: The Henkle-Yewdale House, 1936). Imbs (1904–1946), after two years at Dartmouth College, left for Europe on a cattle boat. He worked in Paris on various newspapers including the Chicago Tribune. Imbs published a number of volumes of poetry, novels, and critical studies.
3. Marinoff played in a production that opened at the Westport Country Playhouse on 29 June 1936. The play starred Eva La Gallienne.
4. Ettie Stettheimer, the sister of Florine Stettheimer, who had designed the costumes and scenery for Four Saints in Three Acts.
5. The Saturday Evening Post printed five pieces by Stein: “Money” (13 June 1936), 208(50): 88; “More About Money” (11 July 1936), 209(2): 30; “Still More About Money” (25 July 1936), 209(4): 32; “All About Money” (22 August 1936), 209(8): 54; “My Last About Money” (October 1936), 209(15): 78.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Madame Gautreau Drinking a Toast, John Singer Sargent 1856–1925, The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, Massachusetts]
19 July 1936 [Boston, Massachusetts]
No, I don’t know anything about Owen Haynes,1 dear Baby Woojums, and the only address I have for Donald Sutherland is: Nassau Inn, Princeton, New Jersey. I am sure that will reach him. I have seen all about Paul Revere’s Ride & Amy Lowell’s grave, & Mrs. [Mary Baker] Eddy’s grave,2 and now I am going to Maine, but will be back in New York soon to pack
and to move. Love to you both
Papa Woojums!
Did you ever see Mrs. Gardner’s house?3
1. Owen Haynes composed the music for Donald Vestal’s production of Stein’s “Identity.” See Stein to Van Vechten [28 November 1935], note 1.
2. Van Vechten, while in Boston, had visited the graves of Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910), the founder of Christian Science, and Amy Lowell (1874–1925), the poet. “Paul Revere’s Ride,” the narrative poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, describes the midnight ride of Revere from Charleston to Lexington and Concord to warn the inhabitants of the approach of British troops at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War.
3. Isabella Stewart Gardner was a wealthy Boston matron who had amassed a large collection of old master paintings. In 1898 she built a Venetian Palace (now the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) in the Fenway in Boston to house her collection. When the building was finished, in 1903, she began admitting a limited number of people who had applied for tickets to view her collection.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 20 July 1936] [Bilignin par Belley Ain]
Dearest papa Woojums papa,
I [have] been writing to you over and over again about the Saturday Evening Post they have bought 4 little pieces of mine, the second one about Trac is I think very good and the fourth one I like too but I cannot tell what numbers they are in because as they pay me for them they do not send me the magazine, but they seem very pleased and they are printing them and I am doing two more and then that will be enough.1 Why instead of Maine do you not fly to go and see Francis Rose in Indo China, it would not take long one day to S[an]. Francisco], one day to Honolulu and another day to China and Indo China, I just had a twenty page letter of description from him and it sounds lovely and he has a house there and he would love to see you he lives 20 rue Ngu Vien Hué Ammam we would rather like to go ourselves but anyway you go, I wish we could all go.2 Lord Berners writes that [Frederick] Ashton is to do the choreography of our piece and that the music is almost done, there is a fugue a waltz a tango and a very moving adaggio on the theme Josephine will leave. He is coming here the end of August and then we will know more, and he is going to do the decor and costumes himself, it will be fun,3 if you hear any more about the Marionettes do let us know. Yes we had decided to put P. W. out of Geography and Plays One into the Anthology, can you think of a good title for the whole of it, I am thinking, of course but nothing definite yet, what does Kisses can kiss us, come out of,4 and we thought of including Accents in Alsace, Tender Buttons, Miss Furr and Miss Skeene, do in a leisure moment make a list, it is to be for next spring, the marionette play is out of Geographical history it is called identity, if you hear any more about it let us know, have not seen Bravig [Imbs]’s book yet, we’ll keep the rest of the ms. until you move, oh Papa Woojurns come over to us by way of China or some way
