1921-03-31: ​​~TOUR STOPS~---images---audio---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
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1921-03-31​: ​tour stops---~IMAGES~---audio---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
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1921-03-31: ​tour stops---images---audio---~TRANSCRIPT~---notes---links---site navigation
Wakefield Thursday

Dear Eva,

Here goes for a birthday letter.  As I haven’t heard any response to my affectionate inquiries, about your needs or desires I am enclosing a small check - (or a check for a small sum) so that you can spend it ad lib.

The chief event in my life is that I have bought a pair of REALLY COMFORTABLE SHOES.  Three cheers for Fred.  He lead me into it.  When he was out a month ago he asked about my feet and my shoes.  He said he had been doing a good deal of orthopedic work on feet and he thought the Walk-over would be the best for my special brand of foot.  He told me to go to the Tremont St. store and ask for Mr. Grebel, who is the expert fitter.  He said he had never met him but he knew about his work.  Fred told me an interesting bit of psychology about prescribing shoes.  He said he never told a patient to go to either of two places even if both were equally good but he gave just one name and said to go there, because he had noticed that one of the doctors who gave two or three names had trouble with the patients sticking to his orders.  When he gave two or three names the patient was just as likely to go to a department store as to the places given.

At the Walk-over place I asked for Mr. Grebel and was told that he as in the office and “wouldn’t some one else do.”  I said “No,” so they sent up my name with the addition of “Mrs.”  When Mr. Grebel appeared he asked me if my husband was a doctor, and I told him it was my brother.  He tried on just two pairs of shoes - black oxfords and brown tramping boots and I took them both.  I also ordered a pair of white shoes.  They look like Ground Grippers but have a better shaped arch.  Fred said my arch is a little weak - not enough to matter if I didn’t walk so much.

I hope to buy a hat before I go back.  I am wearing the one I wore last fall but with different trimming.  I want something gayer.  I don’t want to look like one of the old ones.

Yesterday Ethel came in and met me and we went to see Ben-Ami in “Samson and Delilah,” a translation from some Scandinavian writer.  He is a young Jewish actor who has made a great reputation in New York last year.  He hasn’t been run after as he is playing tragedy.  There was a very small audience yesterday.  He plays the part of a poet and it is a wonderful performance - it doesn’t seem like acting.  You think he must really be like that.  I can’t see why it isn’t more popular.  It isn’t unrelieved tragedy like “John Ferguson.”  There is considerable fun in the first act and a little in the second.  Be sure to see it if it goes to Philadelphia.  I'll get tickets for you and Gladys.  I wish I could take you.  I don’t think Ethel liked it nearly as much as I did, but I think you and Gladys would like it.  I’ll take you in absentia if it comes to Philadelphia.

To go back a little farther in history, Fred met me Tuesday at 6:30 and we both went to Eunice’s for supper and had a good supper of fried onions, baked potatoes and a baked meat and vegetable concoction.  Eunice and her mother inquired affectionately for you.  Yesterday after I did my shopping I went to the Medical Mission and had lunch with Fred.  The mission is just across the street from the Copp’s Hill Burying Ground.  We went over there to look at the inscriptions - they run from 1678 to about 1800.  It is just in front of the Old North Church and the man who hung the lantern for Paul Revere is buried there.  I asked a policeman down in the shopping district to direct me to the Old North Church (Fred said that was the easiest way of finding Hull St.) and the policeman said, “Where is it?”  A man who was talking to him said “It is in the north end near Salem St.”  Do you suppose all the policemen in Philadelphia know where Independence Hall is?

Jennie Jerome is coming today to stay over the week-end.  Ethel is having a party - a dinner party - Saturday night for Ernest and Dorcas.  They were married in February and are living in a flat in Somerville.  I can’t imagine Ernest fitting into a flat.  Ethel says Pearl’s children are both very well - Henry began to pick up after we were here and is plump and lively.  I hope to see them today.

I hope to cut and fit my gingham dress while I am here so I must get at it.

I would send this for Sunday “special delivery” if I wasn’t afraid you might miss it altogether.

Ethel sends her love.

With much love and best wishes for many happy returns of the day,

Alma
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1921-03-31​: ​​​tour stops---images---audio---transcript---~NOTES~---links---site navigation
1.
Seems to me that if I look at some of Alma’s earlier letters I’ll find out whom she was staying with in Wakefield.  Sounds as though it’s Ethel Jackson.

Later note: yup, it was Ethel Jackson.
2.
Here goes for a birthday letter.
Eva turned 36 on April 3, 1921.

​3.
Three cheers for Fred.  He said he had been doing a good deal of orthopedic work on feet and he thought the Walk-over would be the best for my special brand of foot.

Wikipedia says:

Walk-Over shoes is a historic shoe brand in the U.S. It was founded in 1874 by George Eldon Keith under the name George E. Keith Co. He donated land to Brockton, Massachusetts and Keith Park was named for him.

And they still exist!

4.
Yesterday Ethel came in and met me and we went to see Ben-Ami in “Samson and Delilah,” a translation from some Scandinavian writer.

Wikipedia says:

Jacob Ben-Ami (November 23 or December 23, 1890, Minsk, Russian Empire – July 2, 1977, New York City, New York, United States) was a noted Belarusian-born Jewish stage actor who performed equally well in Yiddish and English.

[...]

Ben-Ami's first English-language production was the 1920 Broadway play Samson and Delilah. According to biographer Alan Gansberg in Little Caesar: A Biography of Edward G. Robinson, Ben-Ami earned fellow cast member Robinson's disdain by allegedly trying to upstage the other actors and overacting.

IBDB says 
Samson and Delilah 
​Written by Sven Lange; Translated by Samuel S. Grossman

5.
To go back a little farther in history, Fred met me Tuesday at 6:30 and we both went to Eunice’s for supper and had a good supper of fried onions, baked potatoes and a baked meat and vegetable concoction. 
I think this is probably Eunice Miller, a friend of Alma's from Oberlin, but I'm not sure.

​6.
Ethel says Pearl’s children are both very well - Henry began to pick up after we were here and is plump and lively.
So were Alma and Eva visiting Ethel before?  Maybe the previous summer?
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