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

WW2 BOOKS | HvS Classic Jumps to #6 from #11 on Go... Dec 23, 2015

PATSY AND THE PUP | "My Favorite Book," says Hachi... Mar 31, 2016, 4 comments

HvS | Eleven Poems Oct 2, 2016, 1 comment

HvS | Links to Her and Sibs, Ancestors Jun 7, 2016, 1 comment

HvS | Nov. 1–10th Anniversary of Her Death Oct 30, 2016

HvS | RHA Exhibitions, 1990-2000 Sep 16, 2016

HvS IN VERMONT | Painting, Trapp Family Lodge, 195... Dec 21, 2016

ART | HvS Collections, Exhibits, Sales (Updated No... Oct 25, 2015

BOISSEVAIN | John Charles van Hall Jan 29, 2017, 2 comments

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

HvS | WW2 1944 to ERM, OSS Jan-Nov

HvS>ERM 1944-1-4

From: Hilda Marlin

3728 Northampton St.

Washington, DC

To: Mr. E.R. Marlin

O.S.S. Detachment

APO 887

Postmaster New York City

Jan. 4, 1944

Dear Husband, 

Your letters came on New Year’s Day and were much appreciated by all the children. It was a lovely surprise. 

I agree with you about the photographer but he could only spoil me so it didn't matter. I had to take one nearby since I couldn't go far with that crowd in our overfilled busses.

It doesn't sound as if you are very enthusiastic about "Gerrit" [Gerrit and the Organ]. Anyway, I feel rather tired of writing books and need to have a year off, even if it has disastrous financial consequences. 

Mr. Melcher has given me another [painting] commission and I have another commission for a painting. Mrs. [Kate] Coblentz wants me to illustrate her new book [Bells of Leiden?]. It seems that all reviews have highly praised my pictures (one saying it was more than half the worth of the book!!).

Daniel Melcher told me that he had criticism from the P.T.A. about the anti safety elements of the poster. He seems to think it only funny but I can't help seeing a dangerous lack of proportion in American social welfare tendencies. If they're going to pull Santa Claus off the roof, what's going to become of the world? Might as well object to Hansel and Gretel because children might take to shoving objectionable adults in the fire, or the princess on the pea because it might give them notions. 

Let's hope that American children aren't quite as humorless and stupid as all that! 

However it has given me a feeling that these same people will […next page missing]

HvS>ERM 1944-3-21

From: Hilda Marlin
3728 Northampton Street NW
Washington 15 D.C.

To: Mr. E.R. Marlin
c/o Commanding General European Theatre No. 1
APO 887
Postmaster New York City

March 21, 1944

Dearest Husband.

I am having frightful trouble with my back, can hardly sit up and have to go to bed ever so often. I'm going to Dr. Schwartzman tomorrow. We had no oil for two days during the blizzard. It was rather unpleasant. 

Gordon and Rita expect their first baby in October, Gordon is all flustered over it. 

Sheila told me "Not to put up that stick" and it turned out she meant my frown. 

Randal did a message for Mother and came back saying he was "dead, simply dead."

"You must understand," he explained carefully, giving her back too little change. "That when I do a thing like that after working all day it is very tiring. So I went to the drugstore and took an ice cream." 

The neighbor children were scandalized because he made an airplane out of his honor certificate. He gets very many of them and I fear he does not value them as he should. 

Johnny is getting more charming every day, his eyes are getting brown but his hair is very blond still. 

Sheila is beautiful. She has the real Irish eyes. 

One of Uncle Charles' [Boissevain] grandsons is in Germany on labor [young men in Holland were taken away to Germany for factory and other work] and they haven't heard from him for a year.

Love,

Hilda

HvS > ERM in London, 1944-11-8 [Typed by Jay]

USA Votes in FDR for
4th Term

Hilda Marlin

3728 Northampton Street, NW

Washington D.C. 15

November 8, 1944

Dearest Husband,

Thanks for your last interesting letter. You may imagine that we're happy Roosevelt is elected [his unprecedented 4th term]. That is because an electoral landslide is due, I think, to the evenly divided percentage of intelligence in America. Don't you think so?

I hope you heard Dorothy Thompson when she repeated her speech. Randal and I were the first in the family to know who won. I had gone to sleep at the usual time but Johnny woke me at one-thirty and then Randal cried because he had a stomach ache so I put him in your bed with a hot water bottle and we heard the Republican foreman's speech with the comments afterwards of a roundtable of reporters, and finally [Thomas E.] Dewey’s farewell speech, a handsome one, I must say. I don't think it hurt him as much as [Wendell] Willkie [who was the GOP candidate against FDR in 1940]. He might have liked the honor but he had no real vision and plans; Willkie had.

I forgot to tell you that on Hallows Eve [Halloween] Mother ate with Mr. Smith and his clergyman at Barnhards. I sat at home with a bag of sweets, opening the door all the time to give handouts. Mother and Mr. Smith and the Clergyman dressed themselves up with paper bags and gave the fright of my life, pushing into the house after I had given the clergyman his hand out. (He was the same one you met the first day you came.)

Rita expects her baby any day now. I bought a new hat. I need clothes, Montgomery Ward was sold out on Maternity wear so I bought a nice pattern of a jumper and am going to make my own [Liz is on her way.]. Jumpers always look nice with fresh blouses under them and I'll buy a pretty smock to wear over it when I get too big. Nothing elso really hides you.

Randal is in bed with his stomach. He had to have an enema and may not eat. It's colic or something. I have changed Sheila's hours at school. She goes in the afternoon now. The morning class is too big, Sister Tarcinius couldn't give her enough attention and complications developed with Eddie. Rivalry or something. Sheila refused to go to school. Now she is happy.

I have aired your clothes in the sunshine and when I have time I'll clean out the closet, but I've been very busy. Shopping for Olga's birthday takes a lot of time. She is getting a buffet supper with chicken soup (a whole chicken in it), frankfurters (five pounds of them) with rolls, sandwiches, potato salad, cider and cake. I hope it is a success. Olga is very excited. Mr. Smith will be there too, it s on Sunday.

I haven't heard from May [Massee] yet, which is disappointing. If she doesn't want it now I'm going to send it to another publisher. Enough is enough.

Perhaps it is mean of me, but I suddenly wonder whether May's decision about my Santa Claus story [Kersti and St Nicholas, for which the illustrations meant to be landscape were in portrait position] was influenced at all by having two other Christmas Story books on her list? I think perhaps we writers underrate those factors. That's why it is really much better not to be tied too much to one publisher. Not that the Saint Nicholas story was perfect.

One evening after you were gone Sheila cried: "I want Daddy, why isn't Daddy home?" She sobbed. I explained that you would come back. She loves you very much. I am not going to hunt moths. If it spoils your evenings, what would my life be if I had them cheating me all the time with last year's insects or something?

Love, Hilda

P.S. You are giving Olga a female canary. It only cost three dollars and fifty cents as against fifteen dollars for a male, but she doesn't know that. She'll give you credit for a huge present. I got a nest too and the pet shop has promised to buy the babies when they're nine months. The female took possession of the cage briskly. Our Pete's heart thumped visibly and interest in life went up one hundred percent. But he is already henpecked. Mrs. shoves him into a corner and orders him around with shrewish pecks. Yet he adores her. Aren't men fools!

Hilda

BLOG VIEWS | 60K—10 Most-Read Posts

Hilda van Stockum as a
Young Woman.

This blog on Hilda van Stockum is being read! As of the end of March, 60,000 page views. 

Dank je wel (thank you) for reading!

Here are the top ten most-read posts since 2015. 

Entry

WW2 BOOKS | HvS Classic Jumps to #6 from #11 on Go... Dec 23, 2015

BRAM VAN STOCKUM | Expedition 1902-03 May 8, 2016

HvS | Eleven Poems Oct 2, 2016, 1 comment

PATSY AND THE PUP | "My Favorite Book," says Hachi... Mar 31, 2016, 4 comments

HvS | Links to Her and Sibs, Ancestors Jun 7, 2016, 1 comment

HvS | Nov. 1–10th Anniversary of Her Death Oct 30, 2016

HvS | RHA Exhibitions, 1990-2000 Sep 16, 2016

ART | HvS Collections, Exhibits, Sales (Updated No... Oct 25, 2015

HvS IN VERMONT | Painting, Trapp Family Lodge, 195... Dec 21, 2016

KIN | Boissevain Reunion, April 16-17, 2016, Amste... Oct 8, 2015

WW2 BOOKS | HvS Classic Jumps to #6 from #11 on Goodreads (Study Guides at End)

December 23, 2015–I have been asleep at the switch. I have not been following the Goodreads "Best Books for Kids on WW2" list closely since 2013.

If I had been, I would have heralded the jump in the ranking of Hilda van Stockum's The Winged Watchman's before now.

• It used to be #11 out of 88 books. 
• Now it is #6 out of 193 books.

Meanwhile, The Borrowed House has held its own at #8, which is good given the fact that the number of books on the list has more than doubled.

If you, dear reader, are one of the people who voted for either of these books, thank you.

You may not know the history of The Winged Watchman. It was published in 1962 by Farrar Straus (which once wanted one of my books; I regret not having signed with them). It went through many editions and eventually went out of print. It was picked up by Bethlehem Books, which has sold about 51,000 copies in reprint.

My mother's estate, of which I am the executor, has retained movie and television rights. The Winged Watchman has been optioned twice for a movie and is currently being reviewed for a possible television miniseries.

The Winged Watchman I think is now the top-ranked book on Goodreads that has not yet been made into a feature-length or television movie.

A number of study guides seem to have sprouted up. I have discovered these for the first time. Here are four of them and a review with many comments.

Love2Learn
Study Questions for The Winged Watchman by Hilda Van ...

www.love2learn.net/literature/studyquestions/watchman.htm
Discussion/ Essay Questions: We are unable to supply an answer key to these study ... 

Teachers Pay Teachers Mini-Guide
Mini-Guide for Middlers: The Winged Watchman... by ...

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/.../Mini-Guid...

 Rating: 4/4 - ‎2 votes - ‎$4.00

This is a mini-guide (a two-week literature study) for the book titled The Winged Watchman, by Hilda van Stockum.

Seton Home Study School 

[PDF] SECOND QUARTER - Seton Home Study School

www.setonhome.org/pdf/g6_reading6lp_s.pdf

Apr 9, 2002 - Seton Home Study School ... BOOK REPORT: The Winged Watchman ... give you the topic sentences for the five paragraphs to guide you.

Two Kid Schoolhouse

Two Kid Schoolhouse: Learning from, and learning to love ...

2kidschoolhouse.blogspot.com/.../learning-from-and-learning-to-love.ht...

Feb 1, 2009 - Using a study guide can add to your child's enjoyment of the book and ... Recently my boy read The Winged Watchman, a story about the Nazi ...

Classic Children's Literature Event (Review of the Book and Many Comments)
2015 Classic Children's Literature Event: The Winged ...
journey-and-destination.blogspot.com/.../2015-classic-childrens-literatur...
Jan 20, 2015 - The Winged Watchman by Hilda van Stockum and Bambi by Felix Salten .... to be very helpful in choosing the appropriate books for our study.

Order a copy of the new (October 2016) edition of The Borrowed House.

HvS BIO | Outline and Links to Chapters

Here is a first draft of an outline of a biography of Hilda van Stockum. A significant beginning has already been made through the typing up of letters and their posting. The website www.hildavanstockum.com also has many useful links and posts. Ideas appreciated - teppermarlin@aol.com.

1. Olga Boissevain and Her Family - The Boissevains and the MacDonnells.

SEPARATE FILE NOW: 
http://hildavanstockum.blogspot.com/2014/07/my-mother-olga-boissevain-by-hilda-van.html
http://www.boissevain.us/charlesboissevain.html

Charles and Emily Boissevain, My Mother’s Parents

Olga Boissevain, My Mother

2. Bram van Stockum and the van Stockums.

http://hildavanstockum.blogspot.com/2014/05/hilda-van-stockums-spiritual-journey.html

My Father’s Naval Career

World War I

My Father’s Teaching 

Blockade, 1916 

My Father in USA

Father Returns from USA

3. Hilda's Childhood - Java.

Mother Leaves for Switzerland 1912

The Great War

Mother's letters from Java.

4. Growing Up in Holland - Religion

Finding Religion in Hans Christian Andersen

Aunt Teau

5. Art School in Amsterdam.

Her Emergence as an Artist

6. Art School in Dublin.The van Stockum family went to Dublin when Hilda was 16, i.e., in 1924, because of the connection with the Jameson family. Billy Kirkwood, a famous polo player, was married to Harriet (Harrie) Jameson. They lived in Clontarf/Clondarf.

7. Marriage to Spike Marlin.

8. The 1930s.

1934 - Olga born and A Day on Skates appears

Brigid and Randal born

Irish books - May Massee her editor

9. World War II and Its Aftermath.

Sheila, John, Lis born

Kersti and St. Nicholas

Winged Watchman and Borrowed House

Willem's letters, death in France

Hilda van Stockum - www.hildavanstockum.com/‎ News, July 24, 2007: Book Featuring HvS's Brother

Willem Jacob van Stockum. David Toomey's book, New Time Travelers (New York: W.W. Norton, 2007), has ...

HvS from ERM 1943-46 - BOISSEVAIN NEWS USA
www.boissevain.us/hvserm1940s/hvsfromerm194346.html‎




DUBLIN. February 2, 1943. Dearest Hilda,. Your letter No. 15 arrived to my great ... Last night I had dinner with Harry and Billy [Kirkwood], Eric and Monica ..... Then Willem moved around the corner to the room with the lovely view over Clontarf.

10. The 1950s. Europe.

See www.boissevain.us

Ireland. Beulah

France

Ampleforth

Visit to Laval to Willem's gravesite

Olga joins Opus Dei

Montreal

Randal at Princeton

Brigid, Sheila,Lis in Hemel/Berko

Harvard

11. The 1960s.

See www.boissevain.us

12. The 1970s.

See www.boissevain.us

13. The 1980s.

See www.boissevain.us

14. The 1990s - Spike's death

See www.boissevain.us

15. Her Last Years and Death in 2006. Her funeral and Guest Book.

16. An Appreciation of Her Art.

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