BIRTH | Feb 9–Hilda van Stockum (110 in 2018)

Hilda (73) and Spike (70) in
1971.

February 9, 2018–Hilda van Stockum was born 110 years ago.

She died in 2006, at 98.

Her obituary was in The New York Times and many other newspapers. 

Her family still misses her.

AUCTIONS | Hilda van Stockum Art to Be Sold

Image © by the Estate of Hilda van Stockum, shown here by
special permission.

The art-pricing site askART has just announced that one or more items of Hilda van Stockum art will be auctioned in the near future.

For more details go to the askART site. Full information will require a subscription.

Meanwhile, 33 pieces of art by Hilda van Stockum have been collected together on the Arcadja art-pricing site. To see the prices, a "Pro" subscription is required, but several pieces of art are shown with prices attached.

Here are some recent HvS art works that have been auctioned:

Hans Brinker drawings for the World Publishing edition. Ironically, the artist in this case was a Dutch native, but the author of the famed book (which invented the legend of the boy with his finger in the dike) never even visited Holland. Auctioned by Susanin's, Chicago, March 19, 2016, Lot 7072.

Wildflower with Beech Leaves (1992). Leslie Hindmin, Chicago, March 19, 2014, Lot 2712.

Pears in a Window. DeVere's, Dublin. November 27, 2013, Lot 2. These pears look a lot like the ones in the HvS Europa stamp, although the background is different. Could pears last through two sets of "sittings"? DeVere's auctioned another HvS art work on May 14, 2013.

Another auction house that deals in HvS art: Adams (Dublin).

Another art pricing site: Artprice.

Related Post: Archives and Galleries of Hilda van Stockum

ST NICHOLAS | It's His Day – Buy "Kersti and St Nicholas"! (Updated Dec. 6, 2017)

"Kersti and St Nicholas" – slightly modified by the author's
children to make the book accessible to another generation
of families. The illustrations are classic.

December 5, 2017 – It is St Nicholas Eve, my mother's favorite day of the year when we were growing up. She would put up a Christmas tree and then get out her St Nicholas costume.

With great fanfare at dusk she would arrive as St Nicholas, meting out appreciation for all the good things the children did and remonstrating, in a stern but kindly way, about some example of deeds less admirable.

She did such a good job of it! I remember being so impressed with the deep knowledge St Nicholas had of our family. How could he know so much about so many families?

The next morning we would find our stockings hanging full of small gifts, and sometimes a piece of coal with an explanation, a reminder of some egregious malfeasance or nonfeasance. I was stunned. St Nicholas kept track! Who knew?

Hilda van Stockum herself is full of morality. She came down hard on her evil characters, like Leendert in The Winged Watchman. Some librarians found it disconcerting that Kersti managed to persuade St Nicholas to deviate from his normal mission of giving presents only to good children. In Kersti we find a St Nicholas who listens to pleas and can be merciful. The question of the librarians is where mercy ends and injustice begins.

The unexpected turn of the plot surely reflects the impact on van Stockum of Hitler's ruthless invasion of the Netherlands in May of the year of publication, 1940. 

That was van Stockum's country of birth and most of her relatives were deeply threatened. Many would die because they worked in the Resistance. Some died of hunger. One of her two brothers died during the war piloting an RAF plane to fight Hitler. The other brother died of an illness contracted in Holland during the war.

This is a "Speculaas Moulin" – a Dutch windmill 

cookie, with almond and ginger spices. In 

Belgium they are called "Speculoos" cookies. 

They are a specialty of St. Nicholas Day.

One can understand why at that time van Stockum was yearning for benevolence from those with the power to dispense mercy. 

The book Kersti and St Nicholas was originally a hard-cover book published by Viking. The reprint edition is a paperback. Her children edited the text slightly to ensure that the good children did not suffer from the mercy shown to naughty children. 

The illustrations in the book are universally admired, and every year the products offered by Boissevain Books get a little better as reprint technology improves and our ability to ensure quality increases.

Here is a review of the reprint edition:

A beautifully illustrated book for the Holidays about Kersti, a mischievous little girl who is always misbehaving, much to the dismay of her six older sisters and parents. As St. Nicholas Day approaches, Kersti worries that she won't receive any gifts and sets out on an adventure. First published in 1940, this new edition has been abridged and adapted by the author's family to make it more accessible to young readers today. – Fantastic Fiction.

The book has a rating of 4.8 out of 5 on Goodreads and 4 out of 5 on Amazon. So:

• Read three chapters free (with our permission) at the St Nicholas Center website. 
• Then buy the book from Amazon or from us, the publisher (and get on our email list).

More about St Nicholas

St Nicholas is the patron saint of millers and sailors, Holland and New York City. St Nicholas appears the evening before his feastday, i.e., the evening of December 5.

Above is a photo of a cookie my wife Alice Tepper Marlin purchased in Belgium. It is a St Nicholas Day specialty. It has a windmill on it because it's a specialty of Holland and other low countries threatened by floods.

First published in 1962, The Winged Watchman
 has sold 55,000 copies in reprint since 1997.
 It has been optioned for a movie and a 
television mini-series.

Hurricane Sandy a year ago shut down much of New York City and reminded us of the Dutch skill at keeping out water. Much of Holland is at or below sea level and the windmills pump out the "polders", the areas surrounded by dikes (Dutch embankments).

The Port of Rotterdam is a great example of Dutch engineering to keep water at bay. It is also where my Hilda van Stockum was born. Her father was a naval captain and she grew up near ports and naval bases. Her book, The Winged Watchman (1962), was republished in 1997 after 20 years being out of print. It has sold 55,000 copies in the reprint version, has been optioned for a movie, and is currently under option for a television miniseries. The book by my mother has special relevance in light of Hurricane Sandy, which caused most of its damage because of flooding and caused most of the lost economic activity because of the electricity outages.

The story is about a family that lives in an old windmill during the Nazi Occupation. Two boys aged 10 and 14 join the Resistance. The book shows how the windmill did their work when the electric mills were starved for fuel during the Dutch famine.

New York City has lost the skills of its Dutch colonists and Hurricane Sandy did major damage to the areas of NYC near water. If the Dutch were still in charge this might not have happened. Bring 'em back!

Seal of the City of New York. Note windmill 
"wings" and two beavers.

The Dutch first came to New York when the Dutch East India Company in 1609 sent English navigator Henry Hudson to explore the river now named after him. He went far north into what is now Canada and wrote back to his sponsors that beavers lived on the river in abundance. A Dutch settlement, New Amsterdam, was founded in Manhattan largely to support trapping beavers and sending them to Europe for women to wear. The New York City coat of arms has two beavers on it as well as a four windmill wings in honor of the Dutch settlers.

The Dutch have been facing these flooding problems for many centuries. Their world preeminence in building windmills to pump out water also made them experts in making sails for the mill wings and this helped make them a global naval power for a time.

After the English took over the Dutch colony in 1664, they renamed it New York. The city grew most rapidly when the Hudson River became the gateway not only to upstate New York but also, after the Erie Canal was built, to the Great Lakes.

The Dutch have developed many kinds of technology to deal with today's challenges to their flood-threatened system of polders. New York needs to get their advice. The Winged Watchman provides both a history of the importance of windmills in Dutch history and an education in the ways to deal with flooding.

HENRIETTE VAN MARLE | Ireland, 1953

L to R: Hilda van Stockum and
Henriette van Marle.

I ran across this photo of Hilda van Stockum, looks like Ireland, probably Blackrock or Dalkey.

Brigid just reported back to me who it is standing next to  HvS:

That's my cousin Henriette van Marle! It could be Dublin. She visited us there when we were teenagers. I was 15 and she was 19 or 20. I wrote about her in my book, A Meaning for Danny. We were great friends when we were in Holland after the war. I was 11 and she was 16. 

Yes, I remember that summer. We were at De Leemküle in Hattem, near Tante Hessie [van Hall] and her Kolkhuis. It was a holiday camp in the woods, with common cooking facilities and little cabins.

Brigid reminded me that Henriette's mother and sister traded names within the family. Hilda Boissevain de Booy and Olga Boissevain van Stockum were the middle two of daughters of Charles and Emily Boissevain. Charles was the editor of the Algemeen Handelsblad, now the nrcHandelsblad. 

Henriette's older sister was called Hilda and her Mother was called Olga. This Olga /Hilda exchange was started by our granny Olga, and our great-aunt Hilda Boissevain [de Booy]. They agreed to name their daughters after each other. Their daughters did the same. The tradition stopped then because our Olga didn't have kids, I didn't have a girl, and Sheila gave her girls Irish first names to go with their O'Neill surname.

This an opportunity to provide an update on family news:

• My sister Sheila Marlin O'Neill, sadly, died in September, a month before her 78th birthday. Her funeral in England was last month.
• HvS's cousin Tom de Booy (son of Hilda and Han de Booy) recently died at 93. Our cousin Charles Boissevain is writing Tom's obituary for the nrcHandelsblad.

DEATH | November 1 – HvS

Spike, 1909-1994 (L) and Hilda van Stockum
Marlin, 1908-2006. Photo taken in NJ in 1971.

November 1, 2017–Hilda van Stockum died this day, All Saints Day, in 2006. This is the 11th anniversary of her death.

Sadly this year, the main news is that Sheila died of cancer on September 25, a month before her 78th birthday. Now the living siblings are five. Olga, Brigid, Randal, John, Lis.

Sheila's life was celebrated last month in Watford at her funeral and family lunch.

The tenth anniversary of HvS's death last year was celebrated with the re-issue of a new (2016) edition of her 1975 book The Borrowed House, originally published by Farrar Straus. The family HvS Remembrances post has recently been updated.

Here are some of HvS's many obituaries and appreciations:

Reissued in 2016.

USA
New York Times, Nov. 4, 2006, New York Sun, Nov. 3, 2006, Children's Literature Network, Bethlehem Books, Publishers Weekly, Horn Book, Ana Braga-Henebry's Journal, Love2Learn Mom, Top Ten Sources - Children's Media, Hiram Library, Karen Edmisten Blog, Mailgate.
CANADA Toronto Globe and Mail, Nov. 2, 2006, National Post, Nov. 9, 2006.
IRELAND Irish Times, Nov. 18, 2006.
UK Books for Keeps, Jan. 2007, Berkhamsted Gazette, Nov. 8, 2006, World People's Blog, Achockoblog (Achuka).  
NETHERLANDS (in Dutch) Het Parool (Amsterdam, WWII Underground Resistance Newspaper), Nov. 9, 2006, Leesplein. 
GERMANY (in German) German-Language Wikipedia.  
KENYA Daily Nation, Nairobi, Nov. 14, 2006, p. 38. 
NEW ZEALAND Dorothy Neal White Newsletter. 

Related Posts: HvS English-Language Wikipedia Entry . HvS Dutch-Language Wikipedia Entry . Her brother Willem . European Pilgrimage 1954-55 . New Purple House Press Edition of The Borrowed House . Remembrances by Her Family (Updated to 2016)

CONTEST | Winner

The Prizes Are Presented to the Winner at the Oxford
Home of Brigid's Son Chris Oakley, Who Looks On.
September 20, 2017. Photo by Alice Tepper Marlin.

The results of the first Hilda van Stockum contest are in.

The prize was for finding the most error in a short biographical sketch of Hilda van Stockum.

The winner is BRIGID MARLIN of Berkhamsted, Herts.

ERRORS CAUGHT BY THE WINNER

1. "Dutch children’s book" writer. Ambiguous. She wrote in English. Only two of her books have been translated into Dutch.

2. Olga should be Hilda. 

3. Hilda had six children (Olga, Brigid, Randal, Sheila, John, Lis), wrong birth order.

4. In the photo the order of names is unclear and Mother is left out,

5. Below the photo, the name of the organization is wrong the "Society of Art of Imagination" -should be "for" Art of Imagination.

6. Society name again wrong – in "Art Imagination" the OF is left out.

7. Inaccurate –"Psychic Subjects"? Does he mean Psychological Subjects? We didn't deal with ghosts & other phenomenon

8. Firsthand – she didn't know the war stories firsthand. She was in the USA during the war. Her sources had information firsthand; for her it was secondhand.

9. Dihon?

10. "A Day on Skate"- missing the final "s".

OTHER ERRORS (To be added at leisure.)

1. John Tepper Marlin is called John Boissevain twice.

SHEILA MARLIN O'NEILL | R.I.P., Sept. 25, 2017 (Condolences)

Sheila with Trusty,
Montreal, 1951.

September 26, 2017 – Sheila Marlin O'Neill, the youngest of my three older sisters, died at 8:30 pm yesterday at the Peace Hospice in Watford, England. It was a month before her 78th birthday.

A funeral service is planned in Watford for Friday, October 13.

Shane O'Neill and Sheila Marlin at their
wedding.

Sheila was the calm center of us six children. As her siblings were bent on shorter-term quests of various kinds, she made long-term plans, and she carried them out.

For many years she headed a group of Montessori Schools in the Watford and Berkhamsted areas of Hertfordshire. At one time there were eleven schools. 

The High Elms Montessori School, near Watford has been operating in a building on the 23-acre High Elms Manor where she has lived for many years. 

In July 2017, she retired because of ill health from teaching and educational administration after a career spanning 50 years.

She was well enough to see visitors just five days before she died.

L to R: Lis, Sheila, Art O'Murnaghan (1875-
1953), Brigid, John. Ireland, 1952.

She was, like her mother and older sister Brigid, a writer as well as an artist. 

In her later years she became a proficient author and illustrator of books for children, typically involving animals such as seals or a goose.

Sheila is the first of the six children of Hilda van Stockum to join her parents in the next life. She is survived by her four daughters Roisin, Catrine, Liadain (Lili) and Ailise, and seven grandchildren. Her late husband Shane O'Neill, who grew up in Waterford, Ireland attended Trinity College Dublin with the late Ben Oakley, who married Sheila's sister Brigid. 

Notes of Sympathy

Olga Marlin, Nairobi, Kenya. Photo by
Lis Paice, October 6, 2017.

Sept. 26, Olga (Sister, in Nairobi): I have just opened my mail to find John's message, followed by all of yours.

Dear little Sheila – I have been praying so much for her – that God take her straight to Heaven. It is a great comfort to know that the priest was there to give her the Anointing of the Sick. Masses will be celebrated for her here: three in my Centre, Samara.

We shall miss her!

My special love to all at this difficult moment, with a big hug to each from Olga.

L to R: Sheila, Brigid, Lis.

Sept. 26, Alice (Sister-in-Law, in Geneva): Sheila worked so hard and lovingly for her family, caring for daughters and grandchildren. 

She reaped a precious reward: her daughters, Brigid and Lis were with her almost constantly near the end.

Sheila was always grateful for even the smallest attention. I am sure your presence and the prayers of the siblings unable to be at her side meant the world to her.

John and I are grateful to have had a bit of time with her recently.
She bore the painful curse of cancer so bravely. Warm smiles and appreciation even over that.

We shall all miss her. Love to all, Alice

Sept. 26, Jay (Nephew, in New York): Her laugh, her smile, her concentration while painting, all the big family meals, and skits, or just hanging out with everyone enjoying a sunny day will always be remembered. Condolences to all. Love, Jay

See also: Visit to Watford . Daughters and Grands

I am told that to comment on this post now seems to require a Google account and password etc. I'm really sorry about that. If you wish to send a correction or comment, please write to the blogger at teppermarlin[at]aol.com. I have substituted [at] for @ to thwart bots that look for email addresses embedded in messages.

HvS FAN CLUB | 70K Views

The HvS Fan Club has had 70,000 page views.  Thank you for visiting. Here are the most-read posts as of September 23, 2017. BRAM VAN STOCKUM | Expedition 1902-03 May 8, 2016

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HvS | 1946 – Dublin, Montreal

[Links to other years]

By 1946, ERM was working for U.N.
agency I.C.A.O, to be based in
Montreal.

Hilda Marlin

3728 Northampton Street NW

Washington D.C. 15

Feb 25, 1946

Dearest Husband.

I have already written you what I think about going to Ireland. [This plan worked out, five years later. The Marlins lived in Europe 1951-1955, after several vacations in Europe. –JTM]

I'll be able to pay for it and I think it is the right thing to do, considering the fact that Mother [Olga van Stockum] isn't getting any younger and she really should see her relations. I even thought if we could leave the children in good hands, Mother and I could take two weeks off to go to Holland and see Jan [her younger brother, who died soon after]. But of course, there are drawbacks too.

For:

It is almost as expensive to send the children to camp as to go there. I'd have to send four this year. You don't know whether you'd find a house – you've been promising a house for the past nine months, and it is unfair to leave us another summer in Washington. The maids are getting later and less efficient every day, it is high time we went. We'll have to go to Europe sometime and it may as well be when we have no house so we save that. Also, you can claim either the equivalent of our Washington-Montreal Trip, or passage from Dublin-Montreal out of your organization [ICAO], since they can't have it both ways - they owe that to us and it will lessen expenses. Then, in this initial stage you'll be free to do all the traveling you want and you'll have plenty of time to look for a house in Montreal. And if the organization meanwhile decides to move it has saved us a lot of fuss. For the children it will be a very broadening experience and they are wild with delight over it. So is mother.

Against:

Providing I get passports and a place on a boat it is possible that it wouldn't be so easy to go back. The troop movement to America is terrific and so are the wives. Miffy seemed to doubt the likelihood of our getting back. Cook's was less sombre. But of course I'd hate to travel with all these children during crowded condition. Would you be prepared to have us stay away, say, till the following spring? Because I am bound in honor to say that's what might happen. I personally wouldn't mind that, since I don't believe you'll be around much anyway and I feel I'd probably see you as often in Dublin as anywhere else. 

It would also make it easier for me to pay if I had only to worry about one trip at the time. (They don't issue return tickets.) Of course then the problem remains what to do with the furniture – you'd have to put it in storage and you know what the Wagners got into when it came to storage. It would have to be well tabulated etc. and you'd have to do it. And I'd have to have my bank deposit transferred to, I guess, Montreal and another safe deposit box. You'd simply have to help. I couldn't do it all alone. I would take enough stuff with me for a year, in case.

You see, it isn't by any means as simple as it sounds, but I can't help feeling that it is the right thing to do. I shall tell you exactly how we stand financially. I have at present one thousand dollars on the bank with one thousand dollars more expected from The Junior Guild. You got a check of about four hundred and fifty dollars of which I sent one hundred dollars to your mother who has had an awful time, a doctor, cleaning her ear, pierced her eardrum and it abcessed and she had to go to a specialist. She suffered terribly. Also, I took money for the girls’ trip to New York, which was about twenty dollars, counting taxis etc. (They are coming home today.) So you have now three hundred twelve dollars and fifty cents.

Then we have in War bonds:

– of the children’s bond value $300.00, present value $221.11

– of us    "                     "               $3475.00,  "                        " $2971.15

I hope to buy with February's money another one hundred dollars which would bring it up to $3046.15

I am in bed with grippe, the second time. Haven't been at all well. It sort of struck me as funny that if someone died here we wouldn't even know how to notify you.

Well, it was you who suggested going to Ireland but you can understand how the idea delights me. I am so sick of Washington. It would be good for the children too. 

I should like to send Johnny to the Montessori School in Blackrock. Mother and I were just saying he is the perfect Montessori child and it is a shame that he doesn't live where he can get that kind of training. And it wouldn't be fair to Harrie [Jameson Kirkwood, in Dublin] to deprive her of Mother when she is so sick. Couldn't you manage to get more work in Ireland so we could stay there for a year? I promise not to ask for any more. As a matter of fact, I should like to see Montreal and it would be a disappointment if that didn't come off. But Paris would be even better. I am going to the passport office as soon as I am better. Please forgive the scribble. And write oftener.

Love, Hilda

P.S. Olga's Sister instructed them on sex. She said if they wanted to know anything to go to their parents. So Olga said: "Of course, I'd go to you. I'd hate to go to Daddy, he isn't the type!!

HvS | WW2 1945 to ERM Jul-Aug, ICAO

1945 Other years 1943 . 1944 . 1946

HvS > ERM 1945-7-12

Hilda Marlin

3728 Northampton Street NW

Washington D.C. 15

July 12, 1945

[From April to June, a conference in San Francisco created the United Nations. ERM was there, having left the O.S.S. and now representing the U.S. Budget Bureau. He served as the Secretary of the Provisional International Civil Aviation Organization in Chicago. He is being asked to join the newly created ICAO at their new headquarters in Montreal  as an officer. On July 10 the Louvre reopened in Paris; on July 11 the Soviet Union handed over control of Western Berlin to U.S. and U.K. forces.]

Dearest Husband -

So glad to get your letter with your views on world affairs. You misunderstood my remark about the vicar of Christ, I only meant that Miffy [Mr. Smith, WW2 roomer from London], not willing to concede to the right of one person who decides spiritual matters in Christ's place, is of course equally unwilling to see someone assume that power in worldly matters. I would never recommend the Pope as arbiter of worldly affairs – not even in an ideal society (which, according to my views, would be a society spiritually united under the Pope). Only it should be guided by the laws of justice indicated by the church. 

As for the atonement – I only meant that it had been a mystery to me for so long why Christ only could pay the debt of sin in the world. They had only been empty words to me which I accepted on the authority of the church, but which I never visualized, having even a faint distaste for the whole thing as utterly unjust. And it is my feelings about the criminals in Europe that makes me approach the meaning – just a faint inkling of what it might mean. It isn't that I recommend that the criminals be let off – it is only that one feels that their state is already so miserable (though they don't know it) that whatever fate befalls them makes hardly any difference and certainly does not constitute a payment for what has been done. You might as well punish flames for devouring a house. 

Only the sufferings of good people seem to have any spiritual value – Which reminds one of the fact that animals brought to the altar always had to be without blemish. And for that reason of course, only the sufferings of Christ, being without sin, would be perfect. 

Another way to approach it would be to say that to exact retribution from the Germans we would have to act like the Germans and be like the Germans. Which would make everything worse all around. And from a loving God we might imagine that the alternative to Christ would have been to give us over to the Devil, only He didn't do it because He is a loving God – just as we don't want to imitate the Germans because we are still civilized. These are only approaches, mind you, but it helps a lot, all the same. 

Meanwhile I agree about the loss of valuable lives, from a worldly point of view. But so you might have said: "A pity that Christ had to die so young." Which is manifestly absurd. The worldly point of view is usually a travesty of the truth and God. Who could raise men from dead bones can raise gifted men from fools, if necessary.

I was interested in your account of the unfortunate little boy. You have the same feelings about him I had about the Peters boy. I felt it was sinful to have wished Elisabeth to be a boy when she is so strong and normal. But I think I would prefer a brilliant boy with an abnormal body than the other way around, though his suffering is much greater. I believe a great saint was just like that – I remember reading about him. He was useless anywhere, so he was stuck in a monastery and he became one of the wisest writers and saints of the Medieval Church. 

Are his parents Catholic? I believe the Church has great consolations for children like that.

As for going to Montreal [with ICAO, which the family did do], I would think it a delightful adventure if it weren't for my "healthy stream," I really quail at a a new household without help. I know that comfort is often opposed to happiness – but somehow the confusion of six children without help seems to me a happiness I can do without. All the same I leave the decision to you. Jane Gorman is heartbroken at the idea of my leaving.  She was telling me a funny thing – her daughter Susan said to her:

"Mother, if Mrs. Marlin gets to Heaven before you, do you think she'll help you in?"

Shows you the hero worship going on in that family!

Randal would love you to visit his camp for a week-end. Mother didn't tell him about Montreal because she is afraid he'd be too upset. Richard and Gilroy are the world to him at present!

Love, 

Wife

HvS > ERM 1945-7-25

From: Hilda Marlin

3728 Northampton Street NW

Washington D.C. 15

July 25, 1945

Dearest Husband.

We are the last ten days in The Toils of Birdie's Vacation, so I'm just as glad you didn't come. It makes me less than eager to start existence without a servant. 

I have those two interesting communions and I manage to keep on working, did two and a half drawings the first Birdieless week, but of course the even monotony of the days suffer and the house runs down. 

The children quarrel in the rain, Mother is in bed with rheumatism and my only vice is cherries. I buy too many for the budget and I excuse myself that it's about all I eat (no meat since you left) that I don't spend money on myself in any other way and have no other relaxation. 

Still, I am myself down to one pound a day and then I went to Mrs. Gorman and brought her the pound I had "saved." She was so pathetically glad – she had looked at them all summer, she said, but couldn't afford them. I felt like a filthy Croesus and wished I'd brought her two pounds. I am really being a help to her – she has difficulties with her husband and I help her straighten herself out but I might use my own advice sometimes, I think. Only I do think it's hard for a woman never to have any money of her own and I know I am terribly lucky to be earning and to have a husband who allows me free use of my own money. 

I think there is something essentially unjust in an arrangement by which a woman works as [hard], or harder, than a man (she does all the washing and cleaning with only some help for the ironing) and always has to feel she has to account for every penny she spends without any money ever for her own. 

Now her husband accuses her of wastefulness and is taking the management of the money himself, only allowing her money for food. And food prices have gone up so she can't manage and she is at her wit's end. I told her some economies she could make, but she says she has done that already, and she doesn't want her children's health to suffer. 

Of course, they haven't managed things as well as we. She isn't a member of a coop and hence she hasn't got the saving in milk and spends ten dollars more a month. She isn't a member of Group Health, and though she has a garden she didn't fertilize it so she hasn't got a crop. Those things are a matter of foresight and knowledge and in these things they are a little hobbledehoy. 

Then she has a passion for reading and buys a book occasionally to her husband's disgust. I think he ought to be pleased to have a wife with only that extravagance, but of course I don't tell her that. I tell her that I can see his point of view, that he wants to save for emergencies and that if he got a cut in salary she'd have to manage too. I tell her simply to buy less of the expensive food; but as she says, you can't always get it. 

Corn costs a dollar for a dozen ears now! I have ceased to buy it, cherries are cheaper. Even without meat and vegetables (I have my own now, plenty of beans, carrots, squash, cucumber, onions, parsley and spinach) I spent almost three dollars a day just on bread, butter, melons, oranges, cherries, peaches and, occasionally, ice cream. And not extravagantly either. Fruit for one meal at a moderate quantity, comes to almost a dollar. Prices are terrific. I am glad I don't have to buy meat. I was able to give the Gormans almost eighty red points [ration coupons]. They were so glad. But, you see, they do spend it on meat and so they can't buy the fruit. 

The garden is a lifesaver, for vegetables are almost as expensive as fruit this summer and I couldn't have melons or cherries if I hadn't labored over my beans. [The victory garden is featured in The Mitchells, which is about WW2 Washington, D.C.]

The weeds are terrific on account of the rain. And the squash is up to my head almost with a profusion of blooms. I had to spend three dollars on insecticide too, but it will last me the rest of the summer.

I told Miffy about Jane's problems and he said: "But they have a good salary and they ought to be able to manage. Some people have to live on two thousand seven hundred dollars a year." I agreed, it is what has been worrying me all along, but I don't think it is possible in Washington. That's why all these women are working and children are neglected. Unless you put up your own food from a large garden, keep your own chickens and bees and own your own home you can't do it, certainly not with six children. 

That's why people won't have children any more and it's all wrong. But it's no good saying: "It must be possible," because it isn't. Though they don't have a maid more than once a week they have a car and a house to pay for and clothes and doctor's bills and a tonsil operation, etc. He took his vacation camping out with his two boys, to do it cheap, but that didn't benefit her, did it?

Meanwhile this increase you were going to get boils down to four dollars less a payday, and I suppose the same goes for them. A queer increase!

Meanwhile I did a little article for Literary Guild and got the choice of eight books for it. So I thought of your birthday and got two for you – a six-dollar book in two volumes by [Alexis Charles] Henri de Tocqueville called "Democracy in America" which is supposed to be excellent and probably the sort of book you'd want to own and "The Mechanics (or something) of Peace," by somebody else, also supposed to be very good. 

I'll send them as soon as I get them, or perhaps I'll just send the peace and keep democracy in the bookcase for you, for that's more a thing to dip in than to read, I imagine. I hope you're glad – they were the only titles worthy to be kept I thought, the other things on world affairs seemed sort of temporary, like books on how to deal with three hundred photographs on New England and a book on contemporary American painters. 

For mother I got a new biography of Tolstoy and a light novel by Elisabeth Corbeth whom we both enjoy. For the children I got "All the Mowgli Stories" by Kipling and "The little book about God" by Lauren Ford. I think, considering the amount of ephemeral tripe there was, that those are not bad choices. And they amount to about twenty-five dollars. Of course I could have gone to town on picture books for the children but they have enough already and will get more from Viking. I felt they should only have their fair share, and classics are most hard to get at present. Most of them are out of print.

Father Gorman saw the picture I did of the sacred heart after being infuriated with the one I had to hang in my room. (I then dropped it "accidentally" behind the bookcase and had to retrieve it for father Gorman to compare it with my own. Luckily I could then make him a present of the old one and have it off my conscience.) He is going to write to the promoter of the sacred heart about it.

Love to you -

Wife

HvS > ERM 1945-8-3

Hilda Marlin

3728 Northampton Street NW

Washington D.C. 15

August 3 (?, n.d.), 1945

Dear husband.

Enclosed is Olga's last letter and a comb case which she made for you with your initials on it. She looks stunning. 

Both girls look well and brown but Brigid [7] is all teeth and hair still. But Olga [10] has a radiance that takes your breath away. She has brushed her teeth regularly and they are sparkling white, her hair is long now and bleached golden. She is much thinner, her legs are beautiful and she is almost as tall as I am and has gained in "poise." She and Sister Petra got on famously this time.

Pop Polak came to see me yesterday, though her husband is in London. She was left behind.

Love,

Hilda

HvS > ERM 1945-8-27

Hilda Marlin

3728 Northampton Street NW

Washington D.C. 15

August 27, 1945

Dear Husband.

Just got your notes. Please realize that whatever you decide will be all right with me. Your wistful wish to see the pictures has made me hang on to them until you see them. Though I don't know whether you'll like them if you do. The only thing I can say is that they're not like other people’s Bible pictures. I saw some in Woodward & Lothrop's bookstore and it is just as if people were scared to draw natural when they are doing it for the Bible. 

They, the promoters of the sacred heart, sent back my sacred heart picture with a nice letter saying they didn't like the face and I agree with that. I realize you need a model and there is someone I can use beautifully, Father Blaise of our parish, a young Franciscan monk with a beard. I'm trying to get Father Gorman to persuade him to sit for me. Mrs. O'Sullivan who lives down the street has a plant which was used for the crown of thorns so I can get that straight too.

I have got into a fight with Mr. Dougherty about LendLease but he is fair and granted me some points. The funny part is that the American grievance is so illogical.

a) England should have known and she can get credit. 

b) England won't take credit which is terrible because she never pays her war debts.

It sounds absurd, but that is the way they reason over here. Also:

a) England is finished and she may as well realize it and all this protest is insincere because 

b) We all know she is much richer and more powerful than she pretends to be and she only pretends because she won't face the fact that she is finished.

You won't believe it, but that's the way they argue. 

Randal will be at your mother's on the twenty-ninth and you can pick him up there. I'm afraid your mother and Ruth would want to come with him. Otherwise and at present I have no place and I am curiously tired – I don't want any more fuss than is necessary.

Love, 

Wife