A Woman of Independent Means (13 page)

MISS JOSEPHINE FARROW
2514 ELM STREET
SYRACUSE NEW YORK
ADVISE AGAINST DELAYING CLOSE OF ESCROW AM AR-
RIVING THIS WEEKEND TO HELP YOU MOVE PACK ONLY
WHAT YOU WILL TAKE WITH YOU

BESS

 

 

March 18, 1918
Syracuse, New York

Dear Papa and Mavis,

I am spending the night in the house where you spent so much of your childhood, Papa. Even here I cannot imagine you as a carefree little boy, but perhaps it is because you never were. I am filled with sadness imagining what it was like for you to lose your mother at the age of eight, and I understand fully for the first time the debt you feel to Cousin Josie and her family. But you have carried it long enough. Now it is my turn. Tomorrow I am accompanying Cousin Josie to the convalescent home where a very comfortable room awaits her. I was there today making the final arrangements.

She was extremely reluctant to put her house on the market and even as late as yesterday had to be coaxed like a child into signing the final papers. I feel she was very fortunate to find a buyer who would meet her price. The house is in need of extensive repairs (a fact I had to point out privately to Cousin Josie). She had always lived here like a tenant, leaving the responsibility and expense of maintaining the house to someone else: first her parents, then you. However, it is solidly built and, with a little work, should provide a splendid home for its new owners and their children, of whom there are five with another on the way.

The furniture is even more magnificent than I remembered. I am having it all shipped to St. Louis, where I trust it will help transform our new house into a home with a sense of family history.

Cousin Josie absolutely refuses to consider making a will. It is an admission of mortality she will not even discuss. However, it is no longer necessary, since, with the furniture, she is repaying all debts, past and future, to me and my family in advance of her death.

You must plan a visit to St. Louis soon to see us in our new home.

Much love,
Bess

March 20, 1918

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

On this date Josephine Farrow of Syracuse, New York, turns over all title to furnishings contained in her former residence to her cousin, Elizabeth Alcott Steed, in grateful acknowledgment of the continuous financial and emotional support provided her by the Alcott family.

 

SIGNED: Josephine Farrow

WITNESS: Abigail Saunders
Director
Riverview Convalescent Home

 

Addendum:
The four-poster bed, which formerly occupied the master bedroom of the Farrow home, will be moved to the Riverview Convalescent Home and remain in the possession of Miss Farrow for as long as she wishes, or until her death, at which time it will become the property of her cousin Elizabeth Alcott Steed.

March 20, 1918
Syracuse, New York

Dear Heart,

I have seen the future and it frightens me. Shakespeare was right about old age. Cousin Josie was as terrified as a child on her first day of school when I left her at the convalescent home this morning. Her room is sunny and comfortable, though not nearly as large as it looked in the brochure. But perhaps that is because it is so completely dominated by the four-poster bed she insisted on bringing with her. The bed has been in her family for generations. She was conceived in it, born in it, and intends to die in it. I would hate to think that my life ended in the same place where it began.

I know now one must plan one's old age as surely as one plans any other stage of life. The tragedy of Cousin Josie's life is that she never knew what she wanted at any age—only what she did not want. She never wanted to marry nor to pursue a career, and in life, unlike grammar, double negatives do not produce an affirmative.

I have never been more grateful for my family than I was this morning when I told Cousin Josie good-bye. I tried to convince her that I will always care about her but she just shook her head and continued calling me Mrs. Steed. She has never called me “Cousin” and now I suppose she never will.

I am spending the weekend with the Davises in Connecticut and then Totsie and I are going into New York City for a few days. We plan to share a hotel room, see plays, and pretend we are still schoolgirls with all the world ahead of us. Having begun this trip by facing old age, I shall end it by remembering my youth—an attempt to balance the future with the past before coming home to you, my beloved present.

All my love,
Bess

June 20, 1918
St. Louis

Dearest Totsie,

I came home last March and planted a garden as close to yours as I could manage in our Missouri climate. Everything is in bloom now and I can proclaim the effect a triumph. I became a member of the St. Louis Garden Club in April on the basis of my design for a new garden (though to be frank, membership is based more on social standing than on horticultural talent). I invited the entire membership to an outdoor tea last week, and as a result my social life is now in full flower also.

Rob still spends more time traveling with the war bond campaign than he does at home. Victory appears close but there are still battles to be fought—and financed—and Rob is finding it increasingly difficult to convince people to contribute to a cause that seems so nearly won.

We receive many invitations and I accept all of them, with the warning that my husband's acceptance is only conditional. If Rob is out of town when the day arrives, I go alone. Fortunately, with so many men away at war in one capacity or another, a woman alone is not the social anathema she once was, and I trust this attitude will not disappear when the war is over.

To be truthful, even when he is at home, Rob prefers to be closeted with a few associates, working for a good cause, than to lend his presence to any social event. Sometimes I wonder what our life will be like after the war. We have traveled in such different directions in the last few years.

Forgive the smudges on this page, but I have just bought myself a typewriter and I am teaching myself how to type. I began by typing only my business correspondence but I have grown very fond of the sound of the keys clacking to accompany my thoughts and now I even type my laundry list. I feel I am functioning as my own secretary and suddenly see my whole life very objectively as an ambitious and well-planned enterprise. I now make carbon copies of everything I write and last week I bought a filing cabinet so that I can keep a permanent record of all my correspondence. It may sound silly, but somehow as a result of my new typewriter, my life has acquired a sense of order and importance it never had before.

Darling Totsie, it is so good to feel as close to you again as I did at college. Since marriage, I have made very few friends purely on the basis of my own delight in them. We must try to see each other more often—and preferably without our husbands.

It is nearly 4 A.M. now. I must end this and try to sleep. With Rob away, there is never any immediate reason to turn out the light, and I have been surprised more than once in recent weeks by an early sunrise.

Je t'embrasse,
Bess

June 29, 1918
St. Louis

Mr. Marvin Hamilton
Vice-President
Midwestern Life Insurance Company
921 Olive Street
St. Louis, Missouri

 

Dear Marvin:

Rob will be out of town at the time the next stockholders' meeting is scheduled so I will be representing both of us.

Enclosed is the proposed agenda you sent me, with an addendum I drew up yesterday detailing some other matters which I feel should be discussed by the entire board. I have not had much to say at meetings since I became a major stockholder but I have listened—and learned. Now in Rob's absence, I feel I should speak out when the occasion demands and the fall dividend is a topic that greatly concerns me.

Best,
Bess

cc: Robert R. Steed

July 7, 1918
St. Louis

Dear Cousin Josie,

I am glad you liked the lap robe. But you should not have been surprised that I remembered your birthday. There is tangible evidence of you and your family throughout our home now. We eat at the table where you shared so many meals with your mother and father. I am writing this letter at the desk where you so often sat to write me. Our lives have blended now and I would like to think that we are as much a part of yours as you are of ours.

At my insistence my mother-in-law has moved to St. Louis to share our home. She keeps your old piano in her room and gives daily lessons to the children. Their love for her makes them more diligent pupils than they would be otherwise, I am sure, and even little Eleanor, who is not quite five, goes dutifully to her grandmother's room every morning to practice her scales. In the afternoon the boys practice and it is only in the evening, when their patient teacher sits down to play, that recognizable chords can be heard coming from the room.