by Edward Burns
The weather is divine, we both have good health and Fania is letting her hair grow grey and is most distinguished … We love you both and talk about you a lot.
[Carl Van Vechten]
xI have arranged for Prof. John Lyon to write you about it.
1. Knollenberg wrote Van Vechten on 11 April 1941 (NYPL-Berg) enclosing a letter of Mr. Williamson, director of libraries at Columbia University, New York. Knollenberg wrote Van Vechten that he had replied that Yale would be delighted to let Columbia have the material from the exhibition if Van Vechten gave his approval. Van Vechten replied to Knollenberg on 12 April granting his approval.
Van Vechten had been contacted by Charles M. Adams, assistant to the director of libraries, Columbia University. Pearson was persuaded to come to New York and mount the exhibition in one day, 17 April. The exhibition was on view from 18 April until 17 May 1941 in the Low Memorial Library. The official opening was 29 April.
2. Stein wrote two thank-you letters to Pearson, one postmarked 8 May 1941, the other postmarked 23 May 1941 (both YCAL).
3. As part of its “Coffee Concerts,” the Museum of Modern Art, New York, presented Four Saints in Three Acts on 7 May 1941. The performance was called a public rehearsal and was conducted by Thomson from a piano. Alexander Smallens conducted a concert revival, presented by Louise Crane, at Town Hall, New York, on 27 May 1941.
4. Thomson’s Second String Quartet was performed at Town Hall, New York, on 20 April 1941.
5. Van Vechten had received a typescript of The First Reader, with its dedication, “To Carl Van Vechten who did ask for a First Reader.” McCullough eventually decided not to publish the book.
To Gertrude Stein
20 [i.e., 30] April 19411 [101 Central Park West
New York]
Dear Baby Woojums,
Prof. [John] Lyon of Columbia just telephoned and last night was a HUGE success. Bennett [Cerf] spoke and Virgil [Thomson] brought 35 singers and gave all the first act of Four Saints. They did one of your records. [Alfred] Stieglitz on account of his heart hadn’t been out one evening for three years, but they got him up to the foot of the stairs leading to the library (they are terrific, you will remember) and he couldn’t go farther. . Fortunately he had written out his little talk and Prof. Lyon read that. It seems to have been a very lively and sentimental occasion. . Lyon says he has written you and asked somebody else to too!2 NOW this morning I hear from Mr [Bernhard] Knollenberg that he has discovered Pomona College at Stockton is okay and he is sending the mss out there, SO, we don’t have to worry any more about [Robert] Haas.3. . This morning the second copy of GERTRUDE STEIN’S READER arrived ([John] McCullo[u]gh still has the first) and your letter, saying at long last that the Christmas card and everything else got through. So the weather is divine and Fania flew to Washington (the first time she has been in the air) this week and is now an addict and so she joins us in the CLOUDS.
jonquils, marigolds, lilies of the valley, and forgetmenots to you and Mama Woojums!
Papa Woojums!!
1. The date was a typographical error by Van Vechten. The special Stein evening was held on 29 April. Van Vechten did not attend the ceremony.
2. Professor Lyon’s letter is not in YCAL.
3. Haas was teaching at the College of the Pacific in Stockton, California. Knollenberg sent Van Vechten a copy of the letter he had written, 25 March 1941 (NYPL-Berg), to A. C. Gerould informing him that he was willing, with Van Vechten’s approval, to have the material Haas needed sent to the University of California at Berkeley.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Postcard: Porte Bonheur (muguets)]
[postmark: 5 May 1941] [Bilignin par Belley Ain]
Dearest Papa Woojums,
Everybody is writing about the show and about the photographs and everybody is so happy about it all and so are we, it does sound lovely as lovely as can be, and now I am waiting to hear about the reader and Bennett [Cerf] says Ida is selling nicely,1 and we love Papa Woojums so much and there have been lots of lilies of the valley and nightingales and lots of love to you both.
B. W.
1. Cerf to Stein, 25 March 1941 (YCAL).
To Gertrude Stein
8 May 1941 [101 Central Park West
New York]
Dearest Baby Woojums,
Here is the program of FOUR SAINTS and it is to be repeated on May 27 at TOWN HALL. . There was no orchestra. Virgil [Thomson] sat at the piano, and there were no costumes or sets. The work was given like an oratorio but it was very effective indeed and we all cried with joy to hear “How many saints are there in it?” and “Pigeons on the grass alas,” once more. And it was wonderful seeing [Edward] Matthews and St Therese and Miss [Altonell] Hines and all the others once more as big as life and looking just the same and so happy to be singing FOUR Saints Once again.1 . . I saw Henry McBride and his eye shone with pleasure and the whole house was sold out the day the concert was announced … [John] McCullo[u]gh called up this morning and he seems to be looking very favorably on the Reader and I am to meet with him and a lady who knows about children and “readers” on Monday and talk over the situation with HER. I HOPE this will lead to something indeed.2. Did I tell you Fania now has white hair and looks like a Marquise?
All love to you and Mama Woojums, from us both
Papa Woojums!
BOTH copies of the reader arrived.
1. Beatrice Robinson-Wayne sang Saint Theresa I, Bruce Howard Saint Theresa II, Edward Matthews Saint Ignatius, and Altonell Hines Commère.
2. McCullough wrote Stein on 11 June 1941 (YCAL) regretting that he could not publish The First Reader. He felt, as a result of testing the book out in several private schools, that it was “far too old for a first reader.”
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 15 May 1941 Bilignin par Belley
(Ain)
Dearest Papa Woojums
Your letter all full of xcitements just came, and Alice said the most xciting was Fania’s hair, do send us a photo, quick at once, and I did say the Christmas card came, it took longer to come than anything else perhaps because the censor liked to look at it and did not want to part with it but it did come, and it is all so xciting, I just can’t wait to hear how the Four Saints sound like an oratorio, I have just written to Virgil [Thomson] care of you, I am awfully pleased that he is so successful, he always said he believed in longevity and he is beginning to have it at last which is a pleasure. And the First Reader you do like it, I know you do, and [John] McCullough is always long-winded, he always has to ask so many people. And you did just right about Bobby Haas, I have not heard from him for a very long time, I think that his father has been ill and I imagine that has changed all his arrangements. I am inclosing a little thing I did of Sherwood [Anderson] for Whit Burnett they are going to do a memoriam for him in Story.1 The Algerian Paris France will be out the end of this month I think. Mama Woojums has just lost her poppy seeds in many colors that she was going to plant, they were little envelopes in a big envelope and where is it, well anyway the potatoes are growing up and up and that is the principal thing, up and up, bless you papa Woojums bless you bless you, and love to Fania and all the hair, bless you both always all loving,
Baby Woojums.
1. Stein enclosed a typescript of her “Sherwood’s Sweetness,” which appeared in Story (September/October 1941), 19(91):63. This was an Anderson memorial issue.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 23 May 1941] Bilignin par Belley
(Ain)
My dearest Papa Woojums,
All the Columbians have been writing and they were so sorry and we were so sorry that you were not there because there does seem to have been a nice party and a good time was enjoyed by all. Frances Steloff of the G[otham]. B[ook]. Mart wrote about it too, and she said that the records sell very well to the teachers all over the country, one of whom said that the Picasso record helped the pupils to understand Hiawatha. I liked that.1 It also made it seem pos
sible that schools would like a Gertrude Stein First Reader and that Papa Woojums like always is right. It would be fun to be read in the schools of the U.S.A. We feel an enormous tenderness these days for the U.S.A. Bless Papa Woojums. I am glad it is alright about the ms. and Bobby Haas, perhaps some day some industrious young man will make duplicate copies of the ms. and there will be less danger in their wandering around, there are so many industrious young men only they will go and be in the army, well there is no hurry, bless Papa Woojums, bless him,
Always
Baby Woojums.
[on back of envelope] Have written to [Norman Holmes] Pearson and all the Columbia professors who took part.2
1. Steloff to Stein, 30 April 1941 (YCAL). It was Frances Steloff, owner of the Gotham Book Mart in New York, who, after seeing the Stein exhibition at Yale University, contacted Alfred Barr, Jr., about the prospects of bringing the exhibition to the Museum of Modern Art. When this proved impossible, Columbia University was contacted and agreed to mount the exhibition.
2. See Van Vechten to Stein, 24 April [1941], note 2.
To Gertrude Stein
30 May 1941 [101 Central Park West
New York]
Dearest Baby Woojums,
With all that is going on in the world, it would seem safer to have you HERE, but I guess you have reasons for being THERE. Anyway if you no longer hear from me why you will know I can no longer get letters through. Your letters so far come through in fine style. You were asking about Lord Berners and I’ve just received word that he is about to have another book published: Far from the Maddening World.1 Fania went to a “baby shower” for Phyllis Cerf yesterday. . Everybody brought a present for the baby which is not born yet2 and as soon as I take Fania with grey hair certainly you’ll have a picture. MY BOOKS go to the Public Library SOON and then my Negro books to Yale and this is a wonderful collection with pictures and phonograph records and letters included. And then YOUR books to the Public Library. . I hope to live to get all these things and more DONE … Four Saints at the Town Hall was a knockout. The Two Saint Theresas were done up in black satin capes with mantillas over their heads, the rest in evening clothes, the chorus in beige uniforms. The orchestra under [Alexander] Smallens was twenty men from the Philharmonic. The performance was terrific, the best I’ve ever heard of this little masterpiece.3. A letter came from you to Virgil [Thomson] yesterday and I have forwarded it to him. By the way Virgil told me the first night he hadn’t had time to write you but he was going to NOW. The Askews gave a party after and the Saints came and St Theresa’s eyes filled with tears as she recounted how happy it made her to sing in Four Saints.4 This has certainly been a Stein winter. . I loved your piece about poor Sherwood [Anderson] and thanks for sending it.5 Did you know Jo Davidson is married again? I’ve forgotten to whom.6 [John] McCullo[u]gh still is mooning over the First Reader. He is a Slow Boy. I’ll talk to Margot Johnson whom I KNOW presently about To Do. She is a manly and most amusing gal. I photographed her once.7 Fania is talking about going to Hollywood, but I am so busy photographing dancers and getting my effects ready for posterity I won’t have time to go. . I’ve just run across the name of Jo’s new wife. It is Florence G. Lucius and she is a sculptress. I hope to receive the Algerian Paris-France soon.8. . I am sorry about the poppy seeds and I hope more are available. And I am happy the potatoes are coming up … It is Decoration Day and lots of sailors and soldiers and flags, but we are not being BOMBED YET. I dare say that will come later. You are a Baby Woojums and Mama Woojums is a Mama Woojums and I am a Papa
WOOJUMS!!
Fania and I both send heaps of LOVE.
1. Lord Berners’ Far from the Madding War, with three illustrations by the author (London: Constable & Co., 1941).
2. Cerfs first son, Christopher, was born 19 August 1941.
3. A concert version of Four Saints in Three Acts was presented at Town Hall, New York, on 27 May 1941. This performance was presented by Louise Crane. Alexander Smallens conducted a chamber orchestra and a cast of thirty. The cast was the same as the original 1934 production. Beatrice Robinson-Wayne sang Saint Theresa I and Bruce Howard sang Saint Theresa II. Stein wrote Thomson how nice it was that they were going on together again [postmark 15 May 1941].
4. Constance and Kirk Askew. Askew and Thomson had known each other while students at Harvard University. Askew was an art dealer in New York. Their home on East Sixty-first Street in New York was a gathering place for musicians, writers, artists, and filmmakers.
5. Stein’s “Sherwood’s Sweetness,” in Story (September/October 1941), 19(91):63. This was an Anderson memorial issue.
6. Davidson’s first wife, Yvonne, had died in 1934.
7. Van Vechten and Johnson probably met through William Seabrook in 1936 (see Johnson to Van Vechten, 26 July 1936, YCAL).
8. Stein’s Paris France (Alger, Algeria: Collection Fontaine, E. Chariot, 1941).
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 31 May 1941] Bilignin par Belley
(Ain)
My dearest Papa Woojums,
Thanks for everything, I kind of wish I could have heard the Four Saints, I think it might be very good as an oratorio, and am most anxious to know how it went in Town Hall, because that is a pretty big place isn’t it. I was never in it but I remember there was some question of my speaking there and we heard it was enormous so we didn’t, do you remember, or something, and it would be wonderful if the First Reader was read in the public schools, I’d like that better than anything, I have been asked to do a little thing in french on the french language, for a new review called Patrie, an official thing under the patronage of Marshal Pétain, and now they have just telegraphed that they want a photo of me so I sent them the frontispiece of Everybody’s Autobiography, as everybody always admires that so much, I do not know just how they mean to use it but I thought you would not mind, I like us to be together,1 and someday when photographs can travel again there are so many new people and more old who are crying for one of me by you, is there any way do you think of sending them. The Yale Library ones have not come yet, and we love you both so much, Alice wants to know what effect Fania’s white hair has on her eyes in relation, dear Papa Woojums
always
B. W.
1. Stein’s “La Langue Francaise,” Patrie: Revue Mensuelle illustrée de l’Empire, 10 August 1941, pp. 36–37. Patrie’s Vichy editor was Jean Masson; the editor in Algeria was Paul Bringuier. Masson had cabled Stein that he had received the typescript on 29 May 1941. On 30 May 1941 he cabled again asking for a photograph (both cables YCAL. They did not use Van Vechten’s photograph of Stein. They labeled the photograph they did use, one of Stein at Bilignin, as Stein “dans sa maison de Long-Island, près de New York.” The error may have been a deliberate one.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard] Fania Marinoff [and] Rollo Peters in The Academy of Music Scene [from] The Streets of blew York
[postmark: 2 June 1941] [101 Central Park West
New York]
Dearest Baby Woojums,
I am sending To Do to Margot Johnson today. I telephoned her & she instructed me to. Good luck to To Do!
l[ove] & k[isses]
Papa Woojums!
To Carl Van Vechten
[Postcard: Environs de Belley—Le Pont de Lucey]
[postmark: 6 June 1941] [Bilignin par Belley
Ain]
Dearest Papa Woojums,
the photos have just come of the show and they are perfectly lovely, we are so xcited, we xamined them carefully with a magnifying glass and there is one of your photos, we cannot make out what it is, all the others are very clear, tell us which one that is, and since these photos came through please send us copies of those we have never seen, please,1 so much love, so much to you and Fania, always and always
Baby Woojums.
1. Van Vechten’s photographs of the Yale University Library exhibition on Stein.
To Gertrude Stein
16 June 194
1 [101 Central Park West
New York]
Dearest Baby Woojums,
With all that is going on in the world, I hate to have you on the other side of it. But maybe you are happier and more comfortable there than you would be here. … I forwarded John McCullo[u]gh’s letter to you, not very hopefully.1 If you were both on the same side of the sea perhaps something could be done about this but I doubt it. Said young man is very slow and plodding and unadventuresome. Of course your instructions were to wait for instructions before you wrote a first reader, but after all he hasn’t sent you any to this day and probably never will. Well, there are some instructions in his letter but I don’t think they will help you much. However, if you want to try again that is for you to decide. In the meantime Gertrude Stein’s First Reader exists and is a beautiful book! Let’s wait a minute or two to see what Margot Johnson can do with To Do. If she is successful with that I’ll turn the First Reader over to her Would you mind, Baby Woojums, if I present your first editions to Smith College, instead of the [New York] Public Library!. I don’t know that I want to but they are planning (and Mrs Dwight Morrow may give them the money for it) to build a Treasure Room exclusively for books by great women, and it seems to me that even with Jane Austen and Sap[p]ho this room would be very bare without the works of GS and where can we find another complete collection. Also Smith at Northampton is very near Yale at New Haven and the collections could occasionally be exhibited together. But nothing is decided and unless they toe all the marks they won’t get the books. But let me know what you THINK, please.2
Love to you and Mama Woojums and love to you both and Love,
