1924-01-30: ​​~TOUR STOPS~---images---audio---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
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1924-01-30​: ​tour stops---~IMAGES~---audio---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
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1924-01-30: tour stops---images---~AUDIO~---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
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1924-01-30: ​tour stops---images---audio---~TRANSCRIPT~---notes---links---site navigation
South Hadley, Mass.

January 30, 1924.

Dear Eva:

I shall enclose a program of Rachmaninoff and you can see that we also had the English Suite.  It was beautiful - the best things on the program according to my taste.  I thought he played it wonderfully.  I thought that the program as a whole was rather weak - I was much disappointed that he did not play a sonata or something of consequence.  Does he give programs like that in Philadelphia?  Kreisler does the same thing in Springfield - he usually plays just a lot of sweet little things or other short trifles.  Paderewski played the same Mendelsohn number last year; I was more interested this time, that wasn’t all Paderewski’s fault.  The whole time he was playing I was trying to decide whether it was wise for Mother to come down to see “Abraham Lincoln” the next day after having been sick all week.  I was sitting beside Dr. Underhill and I had talked it over with her.  I thought it rather monotonous to have two sets of variations last night, especially as they were rather of the same type.  I liked the two Chopin numbers very much - the nocturne was one I had never heard.  I liked Rachmaninoffs own pieces very much, especially “Hopak” whatever it means; it sounds like a dance.  I wasn’t very keen on the Liszt - I heard Hofman play it last year and wasn’t very enthusiastic then.  I have decided that Liszt is apt to sound like a medley.  That may be appropriate in a rhapsodie but I prefer other forms of music.

Ellen Riggs was here on Sunday; She came Saturday at 5 and was almost frozen from standing on cold streetcorners in silk stockings.  It was stormy in the evening but we wrapped up and went up to see the dancing at S.A.H. and then went through Rocky.  We met two of my advisees and they showed us some of the students rooms.  Sunday morning we did HIllside and Cornelia Clapp Laboratory.  Then we went to hunt up Miss Dickenson after chapel as Ellen wanted to see her.  In the afternoon we went to a tea at Miss Greene’s for Margaret Shaw who is teaching with my enemy at Vassar.  She seems to be on good terms with me, however.  Ellen left on the 6 o’clock car.

We had our dancing class Monday night.  The floor felt like ice when we first put our feet on it but by the time we began frisking around we round it plenty warm; we did some Chopin preludes and learned some more parts to the “March militaire.”

I must tell you a funny remark by Mr. Sault.  He was fixing a radiator in Miss Foss’s room and as he got up he bumped his head.  His comment on it was “What ain’t got no sense can’t have no feelings.”

Yesterday I went down to the Hospital to see Ellen.  She is at the Chapin Memorial Hospital, in Springfield.  She is getting along very well but does not sleep well and is very tired of bed.  She hopes to get away by next Wednesday.

Mr. Tucker gave a recital Wednesday and played two pieces by a senior, Gertrude Ross.  They were very interesting - not at all amateurish - a Russian Barcarolle and a descriptive piece “An Elf at the Fountain.”  Helen Blyth had told me about her.  Helen hasn’t been very well; she has been overdoing.  She has been doing too much accompaning and probably too much work for the junior show as she had charge of the music.  

Now it is time to join the game.

With love,

Alma

​I went on a picnic today.  Steak and coffee.  We had a beautiful time.

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1924-01-30​: ​​​tour stops---images---audio---transcript---~NOTES~---links---site navigation
1.
I liked Rachmaninoffs own pieces very much, especially “Hopak” whatever it means; it sounds like a dance.
Yes, a hopak is a dance.

2.
The whole time he was playing I was trying to decide whether it was wise for Mother to come down to see “Abraham Lincoln” the next day after having been sick all week.
"Abraham Lincoln" is probably this:
In 1923, de Forest and Dawley produced a short Phonofilm, Lincoln, Man of the People, with Edwin Markham reading his poem of that title.
The quote is from a Wikipedia article about a 1924 short film also entitled "Abraham Lincoln", but since this letter was written in January, I doubt that that 1924 film was out yet.  Either way, I can see how Alma would hesitate to take her not-necessarily-recovered mother to see just a short film.  Mama Margaret lived through the Civil War so the subject might have been of absorbing interest to her, but her letters don't suggest that.

3.
Ellen Riggs was here on Sunday
I don't know who Ellen Riggs is.

4.
It was stormy in the evening but we wrapped up and went up to see the dancing at S.A.H. and then went through Rocky.
S.A.H. and Rocky - I don’t know what S.A.H. is, but Rocky must be the building for which Rockefeller donated the money - there’s something about it in another letter, probably from Mama Margaret, not yet uploaded.

5.
In the afternoon we went to a tea at Miss Greene’s for Margaret Shaw who is teaching with my enemy at Vassar.
“my enemy at Vassar” - so far I have no idea who this is.  And I don't know who Miss Greene and Margaret Shaw are.

​6.
Yesterday I went down to the Hospital to see Ellen.
This might be Ellen Hinsdale, who is in the Non-Family South Hadley folks page.  But there were other Ellens in Alma's life, and I think she very likely would have referred to Ellen Hinsdale as Miss Hinsdale.  So probably not.
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