Helen Hunt Jackson Papers, Part 6, Ms 0353, Box 1, Folder 2, miscellaneous
letters, including letters from Ruth Odell (HHJ's biographer) to Helen
Jackson (HHJ's great-niece), 1930-1970
Transcribed by Gloria Helmuth, September 2002
June 2, 1930
My dear Mrs. Davenport -
The intended biographer of Mrs. Jackson will drop her project.
It is a great pity that Hamilton Mabie did not write an authentic life. If Mrs. Jackson was responsible for its never appearing he deserves no one's thanks! Ultimately her life will be written, of course; but now it will be left to the sensationalists and Polletts of another generation. J.F. Cooper authorized no life but one has been written many times and less well than if he and his descendants had taken another attitude?
How absurd it is that I have tried since November to obtain accurate dates for "H.H.'s" first and second marriage and tried vainly.
My friend would have written a dignified sympathetic account - of an academic not popular character - submitted to you for your approval. I am sorry that she could not have cooperation. Those Victman [1 inch blank space] of feminine publicity for a person of distinction belong to a past era. If living in this era "H.H." would have entered the essential details of her life in Who's Who without hesitation. To do so would inspire more confidence than to suppress them.
Sincerely,
Louise Pound
on the reverse of above:
June 22, 1930
My dear Mrs. D.
That is good news. That the younger generation of "H H's" relations may reconsider & approve the composition of an accurate biography or biographical sketch. She was an important figure in late 19th century American Literature! The piecing together of an accurate life of her ought not to be left to chance biographers or investigators of a later generation. The life should be made while there is yet time to check on its accuracy.
My former pupil & colleague here still hopes to test the subject. There is no hurry concerning your decision. Aug. or Sept. will do.
My address after July 4 will be Hewitt Hall, Columbia Univ., N.Y. I give courses in Old English & the history of English pronunciation in the summer session there.
The editor of the Dictionary of American Biography writes me that I will have ample time to insert the accurate dates for Mrs. Jackson's first & second marriage, when I learn them.
Sincerely,
Louise Pound
1505 North 33rd
Lincoln, Nebr.,
Sept. 12. [1931]
Dear Miss Jackson:
I surely meant to write before this to thank you for your great kindness to me while I was in Colorado Springs, but immediately upon my arrival here I plunged into freshman placement tests and interviews with delinquent students who simply had to have conditions removed before registration, so that I've hardly had a moment to think - much less to write.
As soon as the excitement of registration is over, I shall get back to "H.H." In the meantime, accept my assurance of gratitude for your kindness, and of the real pleasure it was to meet you and your brother and the members of his family.
Sincerely yours,
Ruth Odell.
Envelope:
Return address:
Ruth Odell
1505 No. 33,
Lincoln,
Nebr.
Addressed to:
Miss Helen Jackson
228 East Kiowa
Colorado Springs,
Colorado
Postmarked:
Lincoln 2, Nebr.
Sep 12
1931
October 22, 1932
Dear Miss Jackson:
Please don't feel any necessity for haste in returning the manuscript, and if you think your brothers would enjoy reading it, send it on to them.
I am getting together photostats and letters and manuscripts that I have been able to assemble from various sources and will send them to your sister when, or if, she decides she wishes to see them. And next summer, I shall make every effort to get back to New Hampshire to meet Mrs. Avery.
Like you, I am finding myself exceedingly busy with school work. Our decrease in registration is less than we anticipated - happily.
Seeing you was a real pleasure, and thank you for making it possible and for the pleasant hour at lunch.
Sincerely,
Ruth Odell.
I always send manuscript material by express. It is less costly than registered mail and, I believe, equally safe.
Once again - don't hurry to return Elspeth Dynor.
Envelope:
Return Address:
Ruth Odell
Hotel Cornhusker
Lincoln, Nebraska.
Addressed:
Miss Helen Jackson
222 Parker Street
Newton Centre,
Mass.
Postmarked:
Lincoln Nebr.
Oct 2
1932
University of Nebraska
Lincoln
November 8. [1932]
Dear Miss Jackson:
Your letter arrived on the day I decided to change my living quarters and has lain in my desk every since.
I am eager to have Miss Davenport's opinion of the novel - if she has time to read it - and it is entirely satisfactory for you to give it to her.
My new address will prove only a temporary one I fear, and so perhaps you will find it safe to address mail in care of the University.
By eight o'clock this morning some little town in your state had all its ballots counted - according to dispatches received here. I am what is rather unintelligibly known as all agog over the election. It has been exciting, don't you think.
Sincerely,
Ruth Odell.
Envelope:
Return address:
Ruth Odell
University of Nebraska
Lincoln
Nebraska
Addressed:
Miss Helen Jackson
222 Parker Street
Newton Centre,
Mass.
Postmarked:
Lincoln, Nebr.
Nov 8
1932
Hotel Cornhusker,
Lincoln, Nebraska
January 5. [1933]
Dear Miss Jackson:
Your very kind Christmas greeting was waiting for me here when I returned after a very restful two weeks spent in Omaha. While there I got in touch with the family of Bright Eyes, one of the two Indians responsible for interesting "H.H." in the problem of Indian wrongs.
I am sending a very belated reply today to a letter I had received weeks ago from Miss Davenport and am telling her to keep the manuscript as long as she likes.
I enjoyed a book review in a recent New Republic by your brother; I assumed that it was your brother. Have you read Mark Twain's America by De Vato?
Sincerely,
Ruth Odell.
Envelope:
Return address:
Ruth Odell
Hotel Cornhusker
Lincoln
Nebraska
Addressed:
Miss Helen Jackson
222 Parker Street
Newton Centre,
Mass.
On The University of Nebraska, Lincoln, The Department of English letterhead
(carbon copy)
August 5, 1933.
Mr. William S. Hunt,
368 Hillside Place,
South Orange, New Jersey.
My dear Mr. Hunt:
Your letter sent to 411 West 116th Street in New York City has finally reached me.
I have been working for three years on a study of Helen Hunt Jackson, which has been approved as a subject for a doctoral dissertation by the graduate faculty at Columbia.
At the outset I was so fortunate as to secure the cooperation of Mrs. William Church Davenport, a niece of Mrs. Jackson's. Sine her death two years ago her daughter, Miss Edith Davenport, and the Misses Helen and Edith Jackson have very generouly [sic] aided me in my study, which very regrettably, from my point of view, at least, has been languishing the past year for lack of funds.
Very sincerely yours,
[not signed]
Penned note at bottom: Will you let Miss Jackson see this and the Enclosed? R.O. [Ruth Odell]
Envelope:
Return address:
Ruth Odell
2740 R Street
Lincoln, Nebraska
Addressed to:
Miss Helen Jackson
222 Parker Street
Newton Centre, Mass.
Postmarked:
Lincoln Nebraska
Mar 29, 1934
2740 R Street,
Lincoln, Nebraska,
September 25. [1933]
Dear Miss Jackson:
It would be a gross understatement to say that I was interested in your communication about Brittle Heaven. I rushed at once to Miss Pound with your letter, who said that if I didn't write an article in refutation of the Pollitt-Pohl theory she would. I agreed to attempt it, and she is confident she can get Canby to run it in the Saturday Review.
My very slight acquaintance with Miss Pollitt will certain not deter me. I have always been amazed and a little bewildered by her interest in me and my project / (Shades of teachers' training classes!) & have long yearned to attack her thesis and have been merely biding my time until I had something tangible to fire at her. Your aunt, Mrs. Davenport, told me she remembered distinctly E. B. Hunt's frequent disparagement of Emily. He regarded her, she said, as an "uncanny person." I have always felt, while yielding E.D. her full measure of praise for her poetry, that she was psychopathic - much in the same manner that Blake was - but that's a dangerous field into which to stray, of course. I never believed for a minute in Miss Pollitt's fantastic hypothesis & have always hoped I could refute it. If only we could unearth even one document to prove us out!
While at Columbia I did a paper for Dr. Rusk, in which I listed all the inaccuracies in Miss Pollitt's book and established, I hope conclusively, that she proved nothing. But of course I cannot either. These inaccuracies are legion, however, and might be of some value, if pointed out, in establishing the fact that her book is not scholarly and not to be relied on. I can get this material organized and send it off to Canby. If you like I'll send you a copy before I submit it.
I've asked my book dealer to get me a copy of Brittle Heaven if possible and shall read it at once if it's available in print.
I wrote Miss Davenport after the Pohls' visit here & said I believe Mr. Pohl was the person responsible for the keen interest in E. B. Hunt. (She, by the way, is doing a life of him) And that brings me to Mr. Hunt of Newark, from whom I found a letter awaiting me, along with your own lost one, when I returned to Lincoln. He is a newspaper publisher, has a Ph.D. in English from Yale, & has generously offered to help me in preparation of my dissertation. He feels he has rather thoroughly covered the California period, having there a semi-invalid brother, who has been following up clues for some time.
I finished the paper on Elspeth Dynor yesterday and turned it over to Miss Pound. I am confident it is too late for the M. L. A. Meeting, but she is hopeful that she can still get it accepted. It's a dull piece of work, bristling with dates and bibliographical data, but that seems to be what's wanted.
I hope you decide to take up the matter with Miss Davenport, and if you do, will you send this letter on to her?
I'll keep a watchful eye out for any mention of the play and report to you at once. Many, many thanks for your letter.
Sincerely,
Ruth Odell.
Were you able to judge of the reactions of the audience to the play? On those, I should think, would depend the probably future success or failure of the work.
Return Address:
R. Odell
2740 R
Lincoln
Nebraska
Addressed:
Miss Helen Jackson
222 Parker Street
Newton Centre
Mass.
Postmarked:
Lincoln, Nebr.
Sep 26
1933
2740 R Street, Lincoln, Nebraska,
March 28, 1934.
Dear Miss Jackson:
How exactly like me to write niece for aunt! I trust that Mrs. Keyes is as kindly and charitable as her letter leads one to assume that she is. I have had a second note from her, which I enclose, with a request that you will forward it to Miss Davenport. I trust you two do not mind too greatly this unending relaying of letters.
If my plans work out as I hope I shall give the summer to research, driving East in June with a friend who lives in Maine and teaches here at Nebraska. I am hopeful that if I do I shall be able to see Mrs. Avery.
Mr. Hunt has been generous indeed. He has contrived to amass a considerable amount of material, dealing for the most part, with the California period. He seems a charming person, with a keen sense of humor, evidenced most delightfully by his comment on his brother, who lives in California and who is, he says, "relatively literate for a Cornell man." He himself has his doctorate in English from Yale.
You doubtless saw the Emily Dickinson letter in Dr. Phelps' department in the April SCRIBNER'S. I was struck by the fact that the name of the person who submitted it to him was Tyler, and at once wrote her, in the hope that she might have some connection with the Tyler family in Amherst, mentioned so frequently in the D. V. F. letters. It's a futile hope, probably, but as I mark time out here, I am slowly accumulating some interesting data. I have recently come to know a very close friend of Mary Brown Humphrey, a granddaughter of President Heman Humphrey of Amherst College, who wrote the life of Nathan Welby Fiske. Some day, if I am fortunate, I may stumble upon some documentary evidence which will destroy the Pollitt thesis. You will be interested to know that Mr. Hunt rejects it, but like everyone else, seems to have no direct proof.
Thanks once again for your interest.
Sincerely,
Ruth Odell
Did you see in THE NEW YORK TIMES the barbarous notice about my work?
[No envelope]
2740 R Street,
Lincoln, Nebr.,
May 6, 1934.
Dear Miss Jackson:
I am writing to you rather than to Mrs. Avery, since I do not wish to disturb her unnecessarily.
If all goes well, I shall leave here June 4 for Amherst, arriving there about the ninth or tenth. Will you say very frankly whether she will wish me to drive up to Wolfboro to call upon her or whether she will find it simpler to meet me in Boston or any other place she may designate? My plans at present are to spend two weeks in the neighborhood of Amherst and then go on to Boston. From Boston, I'll go to New Haven and thence to New York. After summer school I hope to get to Washington D.C. Columbia opens July 6 and any time between that date and June 9 or 10 I can arrange to see your aunt.
All goes well. I am carrying on a flourishing correspondence with the major portion of persons in these United States and acquiring much valuable data, all of which you must see if you have time.
Sincerely,
Ruth Odell.
Envelope:
Return address:
Ruth Odell
2740 R Street
Lincoln
Nebraska
Addressed:
Miss Helen Jackson
222 Parker Street
Newton Centre
Mass.
Postmarked:
Lincoln, Nebr.
May 5
1934
[empty envelope]
Return address:
Ruth Odell
Hotel Lindell
Lincoln
Nebraska
Addressed:
Miss Helen Jackson
222 Parker Street
Newton Centre
Massachusetts
Postmarked:
Lincoln, Nebr.
Aug 16
1937
Mrs. Jasper D. Ward
Alstead
New Hampshire
22 August 1953
Miss Helen Jackson
228 East Kiowa Street
Colorado Springs
Colorado.
Dear Miss Jackson,
It was a great pleasure to hear yesterday from Jay Leyda that you had found two more of the Emily Dickinson letters. He wrote very happily of the opportunity you and your sister have given him, and Dr. Johnson and I are equally grateful.
I understood from Mr. Leyda's letter that you would be willing to let us have photostats of these manuscripts and to include the letters with all the others we are preparaing [sic] for publication. If we may have these photostats I assume you would prefer to have them made yourself, though some owners have found it easier to send the manuscripts to Houghton Library and let us attend to it. In any case we should be glad to pay for having it done. May we have photostats of the envelopes as well, and of the enclosure which I understand one of them contains?
At present I have the photostat collection with me here, but since I shall be returning to Cambridge toward the end of September it might be best to send yours to me in care of Houghton Library.
Very sincerely,
Theodora V. W. Ward
[no envelope]
27 Nov 54
Dear Helen Jackson,
That was extremely kind of you to remember me when you came upon this letter - it turns out to be another example of a document that contains more information than it seems to, at first glance.
It is from Jane Hitchcock to Anne Fiske, and the Emily mentioned in it is Emily Hitchcock. It is mistakenly dated 1853, for it is * actually 1854, according to all the circumstances it describes; Charles Hitchcock's Sophomore class, John Sanford's term as Tutor at Amherst, and Vinnie's return to Amherst. This last x contains the hidden surprise, for this is our first information that the Dickinson family had returned from Washington by so early a date as May 24, and earlier, as Jane says. There is no other documentation on this detail, of so much concern to Emily's biographers. So you may imagine how grateful I am to you.
For a time - several months - I had to put ED aside in order to make a living (you see, we've survived), but I have been able to return to her - with the help of a stay at Yaddo, and with more co-operation from Mrs. Bingham. I can report much progress, and many surprising developments - I hope you have seen Mrs. Bingham's surprise, published earlier this month. No, I don't believe I've been in Cambridge since I left you, but I expect to be back there in the Spring.
You do not tell me enough about yourself, and how are your sister and brothers? Please give them my greetings.
Yours, sincerely,
Jay Leyda
91 Pineapple Street
Brooklyn 1, N.Y.
* May 24 fell on Tues. in 1853, but on Wed. in 1854.
[No envelope]
letterhead Yale University New Haven, Connecticut 06520
DEPARTMENT OF THE HISTORY OF ART
Box 2009, 56 High Street
6 March 70
Dear Miss Jackson,
It was a delight to open an envelope from the Press and to find your letter. I'm very happy to have heard from you, and I hope you will let me know of anything I can do for you here.
We were twelve years away from America but the figures of Emily & Herman & all their friends stayed remarkably clear. Even now I would have more trouble trying to form an image of the Hoover period (that I lived through) than of the Polk period!
My work here is as interesting as I could wish. They allow me to try out experimental seminars, mostly in the field of comparative arts, and some encouraging results are already visible.
You will be pleased to hear that an excellent biography of Emily Dickinson is half written, by Richard Sewall, my best friend at Yale. By the way, have you thought of a biographer for H.H.? She was too alive an artist and woman to be neglected by this generation. Would you allow me to propose her life and work as a subject in American studies?
With warmest greetings,
Jay Leyda
Envelope:
Return address:
Leyda
Yale University
Department of the History of Art
Box 2009, 56 High Street
New Haven, Connecticut 06520
Addressed:
Miss Helen Jackson
P.O. Box 579
Colorado Springs,
Colorado
80901
[Postmark torn off]
