by Edward Burns
Papa Woojums!
Fania is going to Marblehead for a couple of weeks, but I stay here and read proofs and work on my Collections.
1. Van Vechten means 1913. The reference is to the shirt he wore to a performance of Le Sacre du Printemps which Stein described in her first portrait of Van Vechten.
To Gertrude Stein
8 July 1946 101 Central Park West
New York City 23
Dearest Baby Woojums,
Brewsie and Willie reads even better the second time. I am tremen dously impressed by your ear for the vernacular and hope the future will give us more evidences of this supernal gift. But these boys and girls in their struggle towards truth and solutions for problems are both typical and touching and you have nailed them to the cross to be gazed at and studied permanently and to be worried about and to be loved too. . I won’t say it is your best book, but I don’t know why not! Your letter with the addition to YES came too and I called the Johnsons at once. Montie had gone to Westport to act in some plays there and Toni wasn’t sure whether or not he had received his copy, but I haven’t heard from him; so I guess he did… I am very much interested in what you write about Richard Wright… You see I never think of whether any one is Negro or NOT Negro; I only think of whether I like anybody or not. Or does he interest me? Or do I like his work, and as far as Dick is concerned I answer all these questions in the affirmative… but races as races mean very little to me I know so many, and I get them all mixed up. . Only Indians stand out like sore thumbs and I knew one splendid Indian who didn’t!1 I am working on the proofs of the notes for Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein, and I think these will amuse YOU and educate the others. They are informative, but they are not dull, I believe. That you liked the preface is a great joy to me and everybody else who has read it so far has been most enthusiastic. If I write enough introductions to your work I’ll really learn in the end how to write about you to perfection! . . We all loved the “message” you sent us and of course that is going into the book too! In the meantime I burn for the Irish edition of the FIRST READER and I hope you can get me one before I completely burn up! Edward Waterman writes me frequently and usually mentions your name and sometimes even quotes you and that is a pleasure. How does the opera go? I haven’t had a line from Virgil [Thomson].
Fania and I send lots of love to you both.
Carlo
1. It is difficult to know to which “Indians” Van Vechten is referring. He may be alluding to the Indian dancer Ram Gopal and his sister, of whom he took several photographs. He might also be referring to American Indians. During the 1920s he knew Chief Long Lance, a Native American, who lived in Manhattan and who was a popular figure (and not in feathers and warpaint). I am grateful to Bruce Kellner for this suggestion.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Cablegram]
27 July 1946 [Paris]
DEAREST PAPA WOOJAMS
BABY WOOJAMS PASSED SUDDENLY TODAY YOUR LOVING MAMA WOOJAMS
MAMA WOOJAMS.
To Alice Toklas
[Telegram]
[postmark: 28 July 1946] New York
DEAREST MAMMA WOOJUMS
OUR DEEPEST SYMPATHY AND LOVE TO YOU
FANIA AND PAPA WOOJUMS.
Coda
To Alice Toklas
28 July 1946 101 Central Park West
New York City 23
Dearest Mama Woojums,
Your telegram was heartbreaking. It came to me early this morning, brought in by a young girl. I hadn’t had the slightest preparation for this. Only Montie Johnson told me a few days ago that some one just back from Paris reported Gertrude hadn’t been well. But Baby Woojums’ letters to me were full of health and cheer and I am so happy she received the preface to Selected Writings and approved. Also she probably knows that YES is going on this fall, altho Montie only knew himself last Tuesday. But he cabled and wrote at once and we HOPE SHE KNEW.1 . It is wonderful to remember I have known you both since 1913 without a break… but it is horrible to realize that her part of the communication can no longer exist. Those who knew her only through the greatness of her work will never know how great she could also be in friendship! . . It seems as if Selected Works had been arranged for by Divinity to appear at the exact moment when they are most needed… but much more will eventually be revived. However, I always had it in mind to preserve as much as possible of the most important pieces in this one volume so that any reader might form his own conclusions of her work from a study of this book alone. I hope you will write us as soon as you can to tell us as much as you can. You have our very deepest sympathy and love and if you need assistance on any details of all the thousand and one things that will come up now and in the future you can always turn to Fania and
Papa Woojums!
1. Lamont Johnson had cabled Stein on 24 July 1946 that arrangements had been completed to present Yes Is For a Very Young Man in a New York production. This plan, however, fell through. Johnson and Robert Claborne did not realize their hopes for a New York production until the play opened at the off-Broadway Cherry Lane Theatre, New York, on 6 June 1949. See Gallup, The Flowers of Friendship, p. 401.
To Carl Van Vechten and Fania Marinoff
[31 July 1946]
Wednesday [5 rue Christine
Paris]
Dearest Fania and dearest Papa Woojums—
When I came back Saturday evening I sent off the wire and put out the envelope and paper and now I’m trying to tell you every thing. For us who loved our Baby Woojums so completely it should be easy to say it all—but the emptiness is so very—very great—and more intensely when I am with you. But there are many many things you must know and gradually you will know them all. Baby told me all over again about a week ago how you had been her most loyal friend from the beginning and how wonderful it was that you had done the perfect introduction. It was one of the three last pleasures Baby was given—it and the two first copies of Brewsie and Willie and the telegram from Montie saying the play was going on. It was a miracle that everything happened in time. I must wait longer but try to tell you at once everything that happened. After the trip to Belgium just before Christmas Baby complained of being tired and said she wouldn’t go about so much and we’d see fewer people—it had been too exhausting—the occupation and seeing nearly the whole American army.1 But in April the doctor said she needed to be built up and then an operation. And Baby said she wanted to feel strong again but refused the operation—and then she felt better but was growing very thin. And finally she consented to go away from Paris to the Sarthe to a lovely house a friend was lending us.2 But there suddenly the day after our arrival there was a short but very painful attack and when it was over Baby felt better and we stayed on until Thursday when she finally consented to go back to Paris—and we went to the American hospital at Neuilly—both of us full of hope—planning to return to the Sarthe in September.3 All the great specialists were called and said that Baby must be given a treatment for several days to insure success—and then last Friday morning they refused to undertake it. Tired suffering Baby dismissed them all and said she never wanted to see any of them again. She was furious and frightening and impressive like she was thirty years and more ago when her work was attacked. And then we got Valerie-Radot and Leriche and they consented because she implored them to. And Leriche told me that three years ago the risk would have been very great.4 And he said never had any one been so sick and not suffered a hundred times more—just two weeks of suffering—that her body was as strong and as sane as her mind. And oh Baby was so beautiful—in between the pain—like nothing before. And now she is in the vault of the American cathedral on the Quai d’Orsay—and I’m here alone. And nothing more—only what was. You will know that nothing is very clear with me—everything is empty and blurred. Papa Woojums—she said it to me twice you are to edit the unpublished manuscripts and I am to stay on here and the Picasso portrait goes to the Metropolitan Museum—and on Sunday Jo Barry takes me down to the Sa
rthe to bring back Basket and the trunks. There are many things more to tell you but they fade off and perhaps any way I’ve told you. All the manuscripts and letters got off to Yale three weeks ago—but a lot of printed matter is still here. Ι’ll tell you about that next letter. Later too I’ll send the wires and things for Fania and you. And they want photographs for a Homage the good friend Jean Denoël is doing for Fontaine and if if’s one of yours he wants he says it is will you forgive me if I give it to him.5 J[anet]. Flanner said she would keep the French papers—and I’ll send you them all. Forgive me and give me a little of the great affection you had for our darling Baby Woojums. Ever your loving but so very loving and lonesome
Mama Woojums
1. Stein had lectured in Brussels, Belgium, on 21 December 1945. See Stein to Van Vechten [? December 1945], note 1.
2. Bernard Fay, although in prison, had arranged to loan Stein his house, Le Prieure St. Martin, Luceaux, in the department of Sarthe, France.
3. Stein and Toklas left Paris on 19 July in a car driven by Joseph Barry. After arriving at Fay’s home, they took a drive to Azay-le-Rideau, where Stein and Toklas once considered buying a home. While there, Stein suffered a severe attack and they took a room at an inn in Azay-le-Rideau. A local doctor informed them that Stein needed to be cared for by a specialist. The next day Stein, Toklas, and Barry took a train back to Paris. At Paris Stein’s nephew Allan Stein, whom Toklas had telephoned, had arranged for an ambulance to take Stein to the American Hospital at Neuilly.
On 23 July Stein made out her will. She bequeathed “the portrait ot myself by Picasso… to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.” She gave and bequeathed all her manuscripts, correspondence, and photographs to the library of Yale University. Stein instructed her executors to pay Van Vechten whatever sums of money he, “in his own absolute discretion, deems necessary for the publication of my unpublished manuscripts.” The rest and residue of her estate was bequeathed to Alice Toklas:
... to use for her life and, in so far as it may become necessary for her proper maintenance and support, I authorize my Executors to make payments to her from the principal of my Estate, and, for that purpose, to reduce to cash any paintings or other personal property belonging to my estate.
Upon the death of Toklas Stein’s estate was to pass to Stein’s nephew Allan Daniel Stein and upon his decease to his children.
4. Valery-Radot and Leriche were the two doctors who operated on Stein for cancer at the American Hospital in Neuilly. Valery-Radot was a member of the Académie de Medicine and head of the French Red Cross.
Specific information on the location of Stein’s cancer and just how long she was aware of it is difficult to obtain. There is no doubt that the return to Paris, the long visits from American soldiers, and her various speaking engagements tired an already ill Stein. In his introduction to Stein’s volume Painted Lace, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler wrote:
We met again in Paris after the liberation. Then my wife died [15 May 1945], and Gertrude and Alice climbed the four flights of stairs to bid her a last farewell. I cannot say that I suspected the existence of the illness which was wasting Gertrude away, but I remember that this visit touched me very much, for it seemed to represent a great effort for her (p. xviii).
5. Stein had published a number of things in Fontaine, a French revue. Denoël was not able to arrange for a memorial issue
Alice B. Toklas at the Cathedral of Chartres, 8 October 1949.
PHOTOGRAPH BY CARL VAN VECHTEN. PRIVATE COLLECTION.
To Alice Toklas
4 August [1946] 101 Central Park West
New York City 23
Dearest Mama Woojums,
It was comforting to receive your letter in which in this sad time (which must be an extremely busy one for you) you have set down so much of what happened and how, I am appreciative. I am VERY VERY appreciative too that Baby spoke of my loyalty. In the letter I wrote you last week you will recall I spoke of how wonderful it was that we had known each other, the three of us, for over thirty years without any kind of break! I am so happy too that she got the news about the play. Montie [Johnson] was worried about that; he was afraid she hadn’t known until he got Mrs [Jenny] Bradley’s cable which told him that she DID know and had replied to his . . Brewsie and Willie, as you know, I am sure, was held up by a binder’s strike for two months and just got done in time. Did she ever see the Irish First Reader? I am afraid she didn’t, afraid she didn’t have time to get it and send me a copy; so I have ordered one from Ireland… Will she be buried in Père Lachaise? I have had this hope in mind ever since I learned Baby was lying in a vault at the American Cathedral.1 But perhaps you have thought of even a better place of repose. ... I cannot remember the American Cathedral at all and Sarthe, too, is a departement unfamiliar to me, though I think some time or other I must have been in Le Mans. . You write “ALL the manuscripts and letters got off to Yale three weeks ago.” Does this actually mean EVERYTHING. . ? Are these letters from all and sundry or special letters or what? I am of course deeply touched that she has entrusted the editing of the unpublished manuscript to me. As you know I gave Yale over 300 of her letters SEALED several years ago. They were not to be opened until her death. If it is all right with you, I see no reason why these letters should not be unsealed now. Write me about this?? I still have a couple of hundred letters from her which will go to Yale later. Everybody has been so kind, so full of feeling. Montie has been wonderful. His GOD has died. He says he has sent you some clippings of Brewsie etc… I am honored to have one of my pictures used in the Homage; be sure to send this to me… Julian Sawyer telephones that he has loaned his private material for a window at Brentano… I am thrilled and thrilled that the Metropolitan gets the Picasso portrait. So I can see it any day and every day. This is a wonderful think [i.e., thing] for Baby to do. Alice, I am reading proofs on the Introduction and Notes and I feel that she saw the manuscript or proofs of A Stein Song and I feel definitely it should be published as she saw it and so we are publishing this note after it: “My introduction to this volume was written, and sent to the printer, a little over three months before Gertrude Stein’s death in Paris, July 27, 1946, but I feel that it is wiser, for both sentimental and practical reasons, to let it stand unchanged. C. V. V.” Of course you have always had our love as Gertrude had our love (Fania is writing you herself) and if we can help in any way, you know it will make us happy. It is almost a miracle that Selected Writings can come out so soon. Bennett [Cerf] will push it ahead. The play is definite, it appears. Is Virgil [Thomson]’s opera started. . ? I’ll be glad to see anything you care to send me; happy to learn anything you care to tell me… but I know how much you will have to do. Write when you can. … Perhaps Janet [Flanner] too would write me if you asked her to. Or St Christopher [Blake] or St Joseph [Barry]… Our love to you always,
Papa Woojums.
We are lonely too. ... It never occurred to me that Baby could die!
1. Stein was operated on in the late afternoon of 27 July. At 5:30 P.M. she lapsed into a coma. The doctors struggled to revive her, but she was pronounced dead at 6:30 P.M. Stein’s body was removed to the vault of the American Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity in Paris, where it remained until 22 October 1946, when the body was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris. Toklas wrote to Van Vechten on 22 October 1946:
We took Baby from the crypt of the American Cathedral out to Père Lachaise this morning. Dean Beekman whom Baby knew and liked, for years read prayers—three psalms and such parts of the service from the Book of Common Prayer as Baby would have subscribed to—with just Allan and his wife and ten of Baby’s intimates there—and then just Allan and his wife and me following to Père Lachaise. (See Bums, Staying on Atone: Letters of Alice B. Toklas, p. 24.)
To Alice Toklas
4 August 1946 [101 Central Park West]
New York City
Dearest Alice
I am thinking of the vividness, magnetism, the warmth, the charm
of our Baby Woojum’s smile, Her beautiful, vibrant rich, lovely luscious voice, Her great and special gift, in the very first moment of meeting her—whether it was a peasant, poet, painter, pauper or prince of making one feel completely at ease, natural. One felt instantly in the presence of a great woman, who at once possessed great knowledge of human frailty, and deep understanding of human quality—and so she helped and inspired people in their search to know and understand themselves. In this crazy cold indifferent, forgetting world it is certain she will be long remembered because she was true a wonder and unique! and which you dear Alice Woojums will remain for always her great glowing spirit, a living presence, a vital force all this you know, dear dear Alice. I repeat these truths because I loved her too, and I share your sorrow and your loneliness.
With my love
Fania
Undated Letters
To Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas
[Telegram]
[? December 1935–38]1 New York
LOVE TO BABY AND MAMA WOOJUMS
FANIA CARLO
1. The term Woojums used as a salutation is not found in Van Vechten’s letters before 1934. The telegram is addressed to Stein at 27 rue de Fleurus, thus setting a limit of 1938 on the date. In December 1934 Stein was in America.
