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Alma writes a nice chatty letter to Will in the Philippines, and helpfully gives him suggestions as to what he can write home about.
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Oberlin O. Feb. 7 1904
Dear Will;
I have just returned from church and I am exceedingly hungry so I probably won’t write very intelligibly.
Oh dear! I never will have time to do anything. I did not intend to work very hard the second semester but alas! I will have to work harder than ever. Professor Grover is giving a new course in Dendrology (trees) and he has been very much rushed preparing for it. He has been making a key to identify the buds of trees. He tests it on me. I am a very good subject for I am absolutely unprejudiced and unbiased, for I knew only one kind of buds when I began - beech buds. He consults me on all the points on which he is in doubt just as if I were an intelligent person. I copied part of it for the press. I am going to copy the rest of it tomorrow. I made a magnificent effort to write legibly and I almost succeeded. Any way I wrote as well as Professor Grover would have done it. We were working on it one day this week - we began at eight o’clock and got so much interested that we both forgot to go to dinner until a quarter of one. Dinner at Talcott was over and laboratory work was to begin at one o’clock so I intended to go to the pie shop but Professor Grover took me to the hotel and I had a fine dinner. My only regret is that I was not hungrier. That reminds me of a story see the other side.
I have a nice little story about Benjy and the bear. Once there was a boy named Benjy and there was a bear named Bulgy and the bulge was Benjy. Isn’t that a sad tale?
Do you remember Jessie Gaylord? Lil wrote to me that she had received an announcement of her marriage to a man named Wright somewhere in New York. I always knew Jessie would get married. She hadn’t enough ambition and energy to be a singer.
One of the boys here at the hall - Henry Funk - was talking to me about you last night. He has a friend named Halstetter who graduated from West Point in '99 and is now an instructor there. He knew about you taking the Engineer exam in N.Y. I think he said Halstetter had something to do with it. Henry Funk is one of the mathiest man here - he is bright in most things too. A brother of one of the girls in our class, Anna Fulton, graduates from West Point this year. There are three Fultons in school here two sisters + a brother and if the other one is half as nice he must be a pretty fine man. He is coming here in June to see Anna graduate. I wish you would be here to see me in 1905 but I suppose you won’t.
Dr. Luce - the Dean of Women has resigned. She has bought a very aristocratic girls school in Berlin. I imagine she will be more successful at that than she is as Dean. She took her doctor’s degree at Heidelberg and she likes Germany. We are not inconsolable. We are curious about her successor.
I am going to take ten hours college work next semester ⅔ regular work. Botany 5 hr Dendrology 2 hr Bible 2 hr + English composition 1 hr. The latter is my thorn in the flesh. I am doing it from a sense of duty. I am going to have a course in reading German botany. I have done a little of it this semester and it goes pretty well.
Questions What kind of climate have you in Guimares? How long are you likely to be there? What kind of things do you have to eat? etc. etc. Your last letter was very good.
Write soon and at length.
Alma
P. S. When I was at home Eva read me a fragment of a magnificent epic that she had begun in accordance with an agreement she made with you. I am afraid she won’t finish it unless you urge her. It is howlingly funny. It is the story of her early aspirations.
A.
Dear Will;
I have just returned from church and I am exceedingly hungry so I probably won’t write very intelligibly.
Oh dear! I never will have time to do anything. I did not intend to work very hard the second semester but alas! I will have to work harder than ever. Professor Grover is giving a new course in Dendrology (trees) and he has been very much rushed preparing for it. He has been making a key to identify the buds of trees. He tests it on me. I am a very good subject for I am absolutely unprejudiced and unbiased, for I knew only one kind of buds when I began - beech buds. He consults me on all the points on which he is in doubt just as if I were an intelligent person. I copied part of it for the press. I am going to copy the rest of it tomorrow. I made a magnificent effort to write legibly and I almost succeeded. Any way I wrote as well as Professor Grover would have done it. We were working on it one day this week - we began at eight o’clock and got so much interested that we both forgot to go to dinner until a quarter of one. Dinner at Talcott was over and laboratory work was to begin at one o’clock so I intended to go to the pie shop but Professor Grover took me to the hotel and I had a fine dinner. My only regret is that I was not hungrier. That reminds me of a story see the other side.
I have a nice little story about Benjy and the bear. Once there was a boy named Benjy and there was a bear named Bulgy and the bulge was Benjy. Isn’t that a sad tale?
Do you remember Jessie Gaylord? Lil wrote to me that she had received an announcement of her marriage to a man named Wright somewhere in New York. I always knew Jessie would get married. She hadn’t enough ambition and energy to be a singer.
One of the boys here at the hall - Henry Funk - was talking to me about you last night. He has a friend named Halstetter who graduated from West Point in '99 and is now an instructor there. He knew about you taking the Engineer exam in N.Y. I think he said Halstetter had something to do with it. Henry Funk is one of the mathiest man here - he is bright in most things too. A brother of one of the girls in our class, Anna Fulton, graduates from West Point this year. There are three Fultons in school here two sisters + a brother and if the other one is half as nice he must be a pretty fine man. He is coming here in June to see Anna graduate. I wish you would be here to see me in 1905 but I suppose you won’t.
Dr. Luce - the Dean of Women has resigned. She has bought a very aristocratic girls school in Berlin. I imagine she will be more successful at that than she is as Dean. She took her doctor’s degree at Heidelberg and she likes Germany. We are not inconsolable. We are curious about her successor.
I am going to take ten hours college work next semester ⅔ regular work. Botany 5 hr Dendrology 2 hr Bible 2 hr + English composition 1 hr. The latter is my thorn in the flesh. I am doing it from a sense of duty. I am going to have a course in reading German botany. I have done a little of it this semester and it goes pretty well.
Questions What kind of climate have you in Guimares? How long are you likely to be there? What kind of things do you have to eat? etc. etc. Your last letter was very good.
Write soon and at length.
Alma
P. S. When I was at home Eva read me a fragment of a magnificent epic that she had begun in accordance with an agreement she made with you. I am afraid she won’t finish it unless you urge her. It is howlingly funny. It is the story of her early aspirations.
A.
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1.
Alma must have gotten the Oberlin Review stationery from her friend Sara Grant Laird, who is on the letterhead. She used it in other letters at well around this time. Sara Grant Laird is listed in the Non-Family page for Ohio folks.
2.
I have just returned from church and I am exceedingly hungry so I probably won’t write very intelligibly.
So Alma went to church. Was it required at Oberlin? Or did she choose to go? I don't know, though I suspect that her choice would be to go, whether or not it was required. I figure the reason she didn't eat before writing was that she was getting her meals at Talcott - see later in the letter.
3.
We were working on it one day this week - we began at eight o’clock and got so much interested that we both forgot to go to dinner until a quarter of one. Dinner at Talcott was over and laboratory work was to begin at one o’clock so I intended to go to the pie shop but Professor Grover took me to the hotel and I had a fine dinner.
Here's the mention of Talcott meals that I mentioned before. Aside from that, I'm confused. If Alma was supposed to be in the lab at one - and it may be that this was her lab job - then how did she have time to go out for lunch?
4.
One of the boys here at the hall - Henry Funk - was talking to me about you last night. He has a friend named Halstetter who graduated from West Point in '99 and is now an instructor there.
I did a quick google for Halstetter and Henry Funk and got nothing.
5.
That reminds me of a story see the other side.
What other side? Again I am confused. Surely Alma is talking about the Benjy-Bulgy story (which I liked) but that story was on the same side of the paper.
6.
Do you remember Jessie Gaylord? Lil wrote to me that she had received an announcement of her marriage to a man named Wright somewhere in New York.
Lil was Lily Love, who is in the Non-Family page for Mabel, Lil, Steenie, and Orestes.
In a genealogical website I found that Jessie Cordelia Gaylord 1880-1961 was married to Frank Clark Wright on December 30, 1903, in Binghamton, New York.
7.
He is coming here in June to see Anna graduate. I wish you would be here to see me in 1905 but I suppose you won’t.
As it turned out, Alma participated in the 1904 graduation with her class, even though she still had coursework left to do because of her lab job.
8.
Dr. Luce - the Dean of Women has resigned. She has bought a very aristocratic girls school in Berlin. I imagine she will be more successful at that than she is as Dean. She took her doctor’s degree at Heidelberg and she likes Germany. We are not inconsolable. We are curious about her successor.
I found Dr. Alice Hanson Luce 1861-1840 in the Find A Grave website, whose memorial said:
She became the second dean of women at Oberlin College, after Adelia Field Johnston. She was concerned about women students’ financial needs, and attempted to institute the merit-based Oberlin Scholars awards. Not an alumna of Oberlin herself, she struggled to understand the close community as an outsider, this challenge and ill health caused her to resign after only four years. She later became the principal of Willard Home School for Girls in Berlin, Germany.
In newspapers.com I found a 1904 article about Dr. Luce's resignation in German (the old-fashioned Gothic kind) in Der Deutsche Beobachter, a newspaper in New Philadelphia, Ohio. Sort of unexpected.
9.
P. S. When I was at home Eva read me a fragment of a magnificent epic that she had begun in accordance with an agreement she made with you. I am afraid she won’t finish it unless you urge her. It is howlingly funny. It is the story of her early aspirations.
The poem must be:
Alma must have gotten the Oberlin Review stationery from her friend Sara Grant Laird, who is on the letterhead. She used it in other letters at well around this time. Sara Grant Laird is listed in the Non-Family page for Ohio folks.
2.
I have just returned from church and I am exceedingly hungry so I probably won’t write very intelligibly.
So Alma went to church. Was it required at Oberlin? Or did she choose to go? I don't know, though I suspect that her choice would be to go, whether or not it was required. I figure the reason she didn't eat before writing was that she was getting her meals at Talcott - see later in the letter.
3.
We were working on it one day this week - we began at eight o’clock and got so much interested that we both forgot to go to dinner until a quarter of one. Dinner at Talcott was over and laboratory work was to begin at one o’clock so I intended to go to the pie shop but Professor Grover took me to the hotel and I had a fine dinner.
Here's the mention of Talcott meals that I mentioned before. Aside from that, I'm confused. If Alma was supposed to be in the lab at one - and it may be that this was her lab job - then how did she have time to go out for lunch?
4.
One of the boys here at the hall - Henry Funk - was talking to me about you last night. He has a friend named Halstetter who graduated from West Point in '99 and is now an instructor there.
I did a quick google for Halstetter and Henry Funk and got nothing.
5.
That reminds me of a story see the other side.
What other side? Again I am confused. Surely Alma is talking about the Benjy-Bulgy story (which I liked) but that story was on the same side of the paper.
6.
Do you remember Jessie Gaylord? Lil wrote to me that she had received an announcement of her marriage to a man named Wright somewhere in New York.
Lil was Lily Love, who is in the Non-Family page for Mabel, Lil, Steenie, and Orestes.
In a genealogical website I found that Jessie Cordelia Gaylord 1880-1961 was married to Frank Clark Wright on December 30, 1903, in Binghamton, New York.
7.
He is coming here in June to see Anna graduate. I wish you would be here to see me in 1905 but I suppose you won’t.
As it turned out, Alma participated in the 1904 graduation with her class, even though she still had coursework left to do because of her lab job.
8.
Dr. Luce - the Dean of Women has resigned. She has bought a very aristocratic girls school in Berlin. I imagine she will be more successful at that than she is as Dean. She took her doctor’s degree at Heidelberg and she likes Germany. We are not inconsolable. We are curious about her successor.
I found Dr. Alice Hanson Luce 1861-1840 in the Find A Grave website, whose memorial said:
She became the second dean of women at Oberlin College, after Adelia Field Johnston. She was concerned about women students’ financial needs, and attempted to institute the merit-based Oberlin Scholars awards. Not an alumna of Oberlin herself, she struggled to understand the close community as an outsider, this challenge and ill health caused her to resign after only four years. She later became the principal of Willard Home School for Girls in Berlin, Germany.
In newspapers.com I found a 1904 article about Dr. Luce's resignation in German (the old-fashioned Gothic kind) in Der Deutsche Beobachter, a newspaper in New Philadelphia, Ohio. Sort of unexpected.
9.
P. S. When I was at home Eva read me a fragment of a magnificent epic that she had begun in accordance with an agreement she made with you. I am afraid she won’t finish it unless you urge her. It is howlingly funny. It is the story of her early aspirations.
The poem must be:
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LINKS TO OTHER RELEVANT PAGES IN THIS WEBSITE
DOCUMENT LISTS FOR PEOPLE:
- WILL: DOCUMENTS ----- Incoming
- ALMA: DOCUMENTS ----- Outgoing
- EVA: DOCUMENTS ----- Related
- NON-FAMILY: OHIO FOLKS ----- Sara Grant Laird
- NON-FAMILY: MABEL, LIL, STEENIE, AND ORESTES ----- Lil
RELATED DOCUMENTS/PAGES:
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