A Woman of Independent Means (39 page)

I have some very sad news to report. Arthur Fineman died yesterday of a heart attack. He was only forty-five. Though he has been in poor health for the past year, his death came as a complete shock to all of us—but can be counted a casualty of the stock market crash as surely as any suicide. The sense of responsibility he felt toward his family, which would never have allowed him to take his own life, killed him in the end. He not only watched his past savings disappear, he foresaw little hope for future income from his chosen profession.

I stopped trying to make sense out of the stock market some years ago and began to buy land, but Arthur continued to chide me and insist there was logic to the buying and selling that was his livelihood. When the crash came, he felt he had not only been lying to himself but also deceiving people who trusted him.

You were too young to realize how much I profited from Arthur's advice after your father died. He took the place of a husband at a time when I was very much alone in the world and even after each of us married someone else, his wise and cultivated presence continued to be an important part of my life. Life in Dallas will be desolate without him.

I am buying a seat in his name in the new civic auditorium so that in spirit at least he will continue to be part of the performances that meant so much to him. My contribution carries with it the stipulation that the seat be reserved for me during the opera season. I cannot bear to think of attending alone, but neither can I imagine anyone else sitting beside me and visibly trembling at a piece of music the way he did. If there is indeed a choir of angels in heaven, I am sure Arthur is applauding even now.

I think it would be very nice if you wrote to Totsie, not a letter of condolence—what a mournful phrase that is—just some acknowledgment that Arthur touched your life in a way no one else did. Try to describe some incident that will make him live for her again, if only for a moment. Life is our only defense against death. I know.

All my love,
Mummy

April 16, 1931
Dallas

Dear Lydia,

It was a joy to spend Easter with you in Denton. With Andrew at Yale and Eleanor getting ready to go to Vassar, I feel our life as a family is coming to an end—or at least changing form. How fortunate you and Manning are to be teaching where Marian is learning—to be joined in a continual process of give and take and spared the estrangement that so often occurs when a child starts college.

I am giving an afternoon tea at the country club on May 10 in honor of Eleanor's graduation from Hockaday. I hope you and Marian will be able to attend. I expect the occasion to receive full coverage in
The Dallas News
now that Totsie Fineman has become a society reporter. When she was first widowed, she refused to consider going back to work, feeling it would reflect unfavorably on Arthur's provisions for her in his will. But I insisted she join us one night when our neighbors the Perkinses were here for dinner and she had a job before we had finished our lemon soufflé.

I look forward to seeing you at the tea.

Love,
Bess

September 10, 1931
Dallas

Mr. Richard Prince
Greenhill Estate
Atlanta, Georgia

 

My dear Richard,

I know you will be surprised to hear from me after a silence of three years. The letter you wrote me from Fiesole the week after we parted enabled me to relive more than once all the sunsets we shared. Forgive me for waiting so long to reply, but I was not in a position to provide you with the answer you wanted and anything less would have seemed a reproach to the tender expression of affection offered freely on your part and embraced wordlessly by me.

I think of you often and of your handsome son. When we met, he was planning to attend Princeton after two more years of prep school. My daughter, Eleanor, leaves next week for Vassar. I am sure she would enjoy seeing your son again, and I hope he will be pleasantly surprised to learn of her proximity.

It would give me great pleasure to think our relationship could continue through our children. But whatever the future holds, the past survives, and souvenirs of my last trip furnish my memory more richly than my home.

With abiding affection,
Bess

NOVEMBER 8 1931
DALLAS

ELEANOR STEED
VASSAR COLLEGE
POUGHKEEPSIE NEW YORK
SHALL I SHIP YOUR BLUE CHIFFON FOR PRINCETON
COTILLION PLEASE ADVISE IMMEDIATELY

LOVE
MOTHER

 

 

NOVEMBER 15 1931
DALLAS

ELEANOR STEED
VASSAR COLLEGE
POUGHKEEPSIE NEW YORK
BLACK VELVET HIGHLY INAPPROPRIATE EVEN FOR
PRINCETON BLUE CHIFFON ON ITS WAY

LOVE
MOTHER

 

 

June 10, 1932
Dallas

Miss Eleanor Steed
S.S.
Statendam
Pier 24
New York City, New York

 

My darling,

How strange it feels to be saying “bon voyage” from Texas. In fact, how strange it feels to be saying “bon voyage” at all. I am used to being on the receiving end of such sentiments, bravely waving good-bye and writing warm letters of reassurance to my loved ones left at home. Now that I know what a bereft feeling it is to be left behind, I marvel that either of my husbands allowed me to travel to Europe without them.

However, I know you will enjoy touring the continent in the comfort of a private automobile, and I am sure “Europe on Wheels” will enrich your education as much as any course you could take in college.

I trust the past weekend in New York with Henry Prince was everything you hoped it would be. I know how disappointed you are that his mother's illness will prevent him from joining you in Paris as planned. But there will be many young people traveling abroad this summer, and you will be pleasantly surprised to learn how fast any English-speaking stranger can become a friend in a foreign country.

I miss being there to share a final glass of champagne on deck before hugging you good-bye, but I hope the roses I ordered for your stateroom will be a constant reminder of my love and pride in your continuing growth. You are somebody I would look forward to knowing if we were just meeting for the first time. What greater compliment can a parent pay a child?

I have bought a scrapbook which I hope to fill with your letters and photographs, so please write often. Your letters will sustain me now—and you in years to come.

Bon voyage, ma petite. Amuse-toi bien.

Au revoir,
Mummy

July 6, 1932
Dallas

Miss Eleanor Steed
c/o “Europe on Wheels”
München, Deutschland

 

My darling,

Just received your first epistle from abroad and went straight to my desk to pen a reply before the post office closes.

I am happy to hear you did not lack for male companionship on the crossing, and I can tell your young sculptor friend laid siege to your imagination as well as your heart. Little wonder your college escorts seemed dull by comparison. But do not be disappointed if you do not hear from him again. For an art student newly arrived in Paris, the present is everything. Faces from the past, even a face as pretty and trusting as yours, soon fade from memory. Though Paris lovers are legendary, an artist at work there quickly becomes the prey of the intellectual passion that pervades the city and finds little time for personal sentiment. In France it is ideas that set men on fire. So beware of losing your heart there—it may not be returned to you intact.

I was enthralled by your description of the lovers bicycling side by side along the canals in Amsterdam, the man touching the woman's handlebar. That is an image to remember as you choose the man to accompany you on your journey through life—two figures advancing through their own efforts, neither propelling nor impeding the other, simply reaching across the space that separates them for reassuring proof of the other's presence.

I imagine you now traveling through Germany, seeing through suddenly adult eyes the sights we shared four years ago. I hope there are other shared excursions ahead of us but for now I delight in every description you provide.

All my love,
Mummy

July 20, 1932
Dallas

Miss Eleanor Steed
c/o “Europe on Wheels”
Villa d'Este
Cernobbio, Italia

 

My darling,

I had to write a letter to this address, which holds so many happy memories for me.

I trust your green Franklin phaeton made a successful passage through the Dolomites. Crossing those mountains by car must be an undertaking filled with suspense.

I am glad you are getting along so well with your traveling companions. I am now firmly convinced that a long trip abroad should precede an engagement. Travel is certainly the test of any relationship. If the honeymoon came before the wedding, I suspect there would be a considerable reduction in the divorce rate.

As soon as I read your last letter, I went to the music store in search of a recording of Albert Schweitzer playing the organ. I am listening to it now and the whole room resounds with the music of Bach. Schweitzer plays as if God were listening to every chord. What joy a man must take in a talent so immense. I am so happy you were able to hear him play in person.

How I envy the afternoon you spent exploring the Deutsche Museum in Munich. It must have been like taking a trip into the future—seeing machines most of us have never even imagined in operation. I wonder how long I will have to wait to see television.

I have been reading newspaper accounts of Nazi activities and I am glad I did not know at the time you were attending a rally. I can understand your curiosity about Hitler but I for one would not pay one pfennig to hear him speak. I find him such a ridiculous figure it is hard to believe anyone takes him seriously and I would be troubled to hear a crowd cheer him.

It gives me such pleasure to think of you in Italy. Enjoy every moment. Each new experience will be enriched by time. The best dowry a woman can bring to a marriage is a set of memories she acquired alone.