Rest your feet and set a spell.
In a 1970’s journal Jeana wrote about the importance of simplicity.
After my brother Philo had returned from being a prisoner of war, mother planned a picnic. The bustling was noisy and lengthy. Suddenly Phil said, “Prison was so uncomplicated. I had forgotten all of this.” For a moment he almost looked unhappy.
The following is a draft of a precious letter I discovered among the many journals Jeana kept over the years.
To Lalu on becoming 20 –
Lalu, my lovely daughter,
Someday you will know I hope a mother’s heart. It is so deep and wondrous a thing as not to bear description. It is so full of love and pride and hurt and forgiveness as to encompass the universe in its constancy. And its viewpoint can only be reached by being. The years it takes to love a grown daughter are its measure.
The day you were 20, I stood on the heights and opened my palm and a spirit flew full blown into the way beyond me. I stood, an artist of life and saw my work move out into that fresh experience, twirl her skirts, and laugh that wonderful laugh which is my Lalu. I thought, “How terrible and how divine to be twenty. How awful and ecstatic and heavenly.”
Oh, my dear, growing older is very, very, nice. But have a wonderful time now. Savor, taste it, hold it, give it the best you have, don’t dare hurt it too deeply. Because its like a Venetian glass chandelier, it can only be blown by Venetians in Venice to be that beautiful. That’s what the 20’s are – live them, feel them, and know them, it can only be had by you once. Be aware of every moment of them. They are your citadel, your castle for a fine life after.
I do not agree entirely with the authorities that childhood is so great an experience, that it shapes all our destinies. I think the 20’s do. They are such “aware” years.
Don’t hurry and become frantic searching for the way. Pace it and breath deeply, and see it all. It’s full of burning desires – make them cooperate with your time. The burning flame of the arts are all around you. Hold them like a torch in front of your eyes – and give your best to the one that makes you most sincerely expressive. But remember, inspiration must have honest endeavor and application. Nothing does itself.
Last, but not least, when it’s time to have fun – angel – have the best time of your life. There is no better time to have it.
Here’s to you – and Got Bless my girl.
Love – Mother
Wilmer and I have just returned from Alpine. He had occasion to try a case in Marfa, Texas. The courthouse there throws one back into time. A huge, Victorian, spiraling staircase erect but swirling up – up and up. The courtroom commodious, last century with tall windows up in the trees: This was the fine business reason for my traveling westward. My reason was a new grand-daughter. Her brother Philo, a wonderful Italian angel image, jestful, unrestful and [as] square as a wedge. His new sister delicate as a fine teacup and as ladylike. Mother Barbara, a red-headed sweet, as untouched by pregnancy as though babies were air blown rather than animal birthed.
But poor Grainger -big beautiful, falcon riding on his wrist – His eyes steel blue and hurt. Asthma riding him like a cat on his back. And after none for four years. He caught a virus riding 400 miles and back from Padre Island to trap birds: He’s writing his master’s thesis for graduation.
Barbara’s dear, life-long friend Linda Paterson came all the way from California for the birth and has remained to take full charge of Philo and help cook. What beautiful kindness she has bestowed.
I tried to paint – no room – Wilmer and I went up the Fort Davis Canyon and I attempted to sketch the gold cotton woods marching up the dry, white peppered creek bed and rimming the rocky foothills. But nothing would work.
Sunday. Christened the sweet, girl in a tiny windowed room at the Catholic church. Grainger in a blue suit – was beautiful and I loved hm. Wilmer held the baby and looked beatific! All the young girls Barbara and Linda and Mary Kendall and some other your thing were darling.
Afterwards we had champagne at the Gate to Heaven and Tede Brown DeBarbarie came over, and she is an inspiring person. I must have time for her when I go back.
The pries was Italian, and he read the service in broken English – and Philo looked like those wonderful Florentine children I saw when I was 19 in Italy [1929] – 2one34rul, robust urchins!
1949 was the year Jeana was the president of the Houston Art League, was planning the Alpine house, had a one-year-old (Sperry), and, with her sister-in-law Lennie, drove her nine-year-old son Grainger to Moye Military School in Castroville. (Moye Military Academy)
All y’all.
I have a cache of Jeana’s journals. This account is from a steno book she wrote in San Francisco and Marin California in the early 1960’s. Sperry
It was in the middle of a dry, freezing winter we first came to Alpine. It was in Jan. of 1945. Robin and Grainger had been ill in Houston. Lalu was healthy excess baggage and Annie, our beloved housekeeper, came with us. Mother came along because we had been relegated to a wild, high, uncivilized spot. The fact that it was on route route of the South[ern] Pacific Railroad, highway 90 to California and had a state teacher’s college, had no bearing on the matter. Mother had never heard of Alpine. Mother [Nancy Flewellen Howard] had never seen Alpine. Those facts took it out of the civilized world. So along she came. Gasoline rationing for war times made five hundred and fifty miles too many for our gar ration books. We traveled by train. My father [Dr. Alfred Philo Howard] was chief surgeon of the Missouri Pacific. That lent further primitive attributes to this foreign spot. As the six of us alighted in the onslaught of a dust-laden Alpinian winter night. I though mother was going to turn “The Sunset Limited” around on the tracks and return us all to Houston. The wind lashed at us with an icy ferocity – and skin, mouth and eyes dried out on that moment.
Not a living creature was in sight. Our heavy grips, a round dozen of them, were sitting between the tracks. I can’t remember a lighted spot. I’m sure there was. Here came a car, a lovely Spanish-speaking couple alighted, and helped us to the hotel, just out of gracious kindness. But their Spanish accent terrified Mother who thinks anyone who doesn’t speak southern Texas is a suspect who is intent on immediate murder. Any foreign language spoken in her presence is a silly pretense. She feels they are shutting her out from something she definitely know. She feels the same way about scientific discussions. She will not put up with it. She makes fun of anyone who is interested in something she is not. She feels she is absolutely normal and that on one else should be otherwise.
She is adorable once you understand these facts.
[To read more of Jeana’s excellent letter click on the Read More link below:]
Continue reading “Eugenia Howard Hunt’s memory of Alpine, Texas – January, 1945”
In a journal entry dated June 21, 1974, Jeana wrote:
Sperry is living in Mill Valley [CA]. He and Spring have a baby Christopher Austin Sperry Hunt. He is walking and talking his own language with a happy cheery disposition. He laughs at his own jokes, which have many inflections understandable to himself alone.
An account from Eugenia Howard Hunt about …
Thanksgiving – Nov. 22 ’62
There were too many covers and a bird was singing full notes. I knew it was warmer before I opened my eyes.
Wilmer was yet asleep as I put my coat on, after turning the fire on under the kettle for coffee, and went on. It was brisk, and no paper- I saw it half-way down the street. I slipped my coat sleeves on and went after it – wondering what a sight I was – but no one was out. The dog [Sam, a Boston] dashed through the crackling leaves for her early morning exercise through the tall trees.
Sperry cooked our breakfast. I made up the beds, bathed, gathered the wooden salad bowls and dressing, my specialty. Wilmer got the icebox. We all swished back and forth, gathering our things for the day. Putting out the dogs and etc.
Wilmer bought an arm rest for the car which is in reality a shaped box to hold the comforts, which usually float about the car.
Off with our wonderful salad bowls ?? for lettuces then the highway, bright and golden all the way to the farm. A day, like a rose with every petal full out. The lawn around the old house was lush and deep. Everybody looked so happy. Mary Howard, Mary Mize, Frita (?), Philo, Georgia, Brother, Ryland, Robin, Rosa (?), Malcolm Jr., Mother, Daddy, Cousin Ike, Mary Lily and Dolly Ann, Jano and David Howard, Wilmer and myself ah – and Eric, the French boy living with Robin.
Click here to download a note Jeana left to card playing visitors and a poem for peace.
The message reads:
Friends, Romans, etc.
Please replace the cover and ?? when the game is finished!
Please empty ash trays in non-flammable spot –
Please check all tables for wet spots so no rings will ensue! –
This house is my love –
I love you – love me accordingly
Madame Queen
This is the judge’s Certificate of Baptism from September 6, 1903 at the tender age of twelve days. Below he is forty years later in his prime. He was every-inch a good man, father and judge. I miss him, as we all do. Happy Birthday, Dad.
Note: John Howard, Matilda Thomas Howard’s husband, is not listed among the dead at Prospect Park, but his body should have been moved there. The alternative is that his remains (God forbid) are beneath Whole Foods on Houston Street.
Sperry Hunt
The following is from a Huffington Post article referenced at the bottom of this page.
[The first Quaker burial site was] Liberty Place (at Maiden Lane)
Late 17th century -1820s
This burial ground served New York’s first Quaker congregation and is sometimes referred to as the Little Green Street Burial Ground of the Society of Friends (Liberty Place, a tiny alley today, was once known as Little Green Street). Its location is near the New York Federal Reserve.
In the 1820s, the Quakers sold this property, exhumed their dead, and moved to the new Houston Street Burial Ground (105-107 East Houston Street) [This would be where John Howard was buried in 1826.]
Approx. 1820s-1848
This remained the principal cemetery for Quakers in New York during a period of incredible prosperity for New York City, thanks to the opening of Erie Canal and the planned formation of streets and avenue from the Commissioner’s Plan of 1811.
In 1848, the bodies were moved again to a private cemetery, where they remain today, located in today’s Prospect Park.
———-
Sources:
1.Matilda Thomas Howard’s diary in which she states that his funeral was “My husband’s remains were respectably attended to the Friend’s Burying ground in New York, North America in the year 1826 11th mo. Nancy Harris, of the Utica, NY Howads transcribed the diary.
2. “Manhattan’s Forgotten Graveyards,, Under Public Parks, Famous Hotels and Supermarkets:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-young/manhattans-forgotten-graveyards_b_4171691.html
