Gita Presents the Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Jacquie's Email 

“The weather has changed—twice—since I wrote you so gloomily. First to cool, sunny and dry and now to damp again—fog-horn going, humidity 95 percent. But in the meantime, it has been a better week. I think the weather has a lot to do with one’s spirits if one is on the edge.” — Anne Morrow Lindbergh to her sister Constance Morrow, July 16, 1955

Hello Literary Ladies! The sun is shining as I am writing this, lifting my spirits as I feel on edge, but unfortunately, I believe rain is forecast for the day of the penultimate meeting of The Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson on Wednesday, May 7th. But the day is always bright when we can be together, and it is always warm and cozy in Barbaraʼs beautiful yellow living room where we will be meeting. Yes! A change of location from our program book. Please take note! Barbara has graciously offered to host, while I will be providing lunch, which will begin at noon, as per usual.

   Joanna is once again in possession of the bell, which she will ring at 1 PM for our meeting. The sign-up sheet for next year will be available for those of you who haven't had the chance to pick a date or need to swap dates.

   And then to the main event: Gita will be presenting on the “Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh.” I did a tiny bit of advanced reading about the Lindberghs because I knew so little, and their story is a doozy! Anne herself seems to have been quite complex and sheʼs a very evocative writer, so Iʼm sure this is going to be a fun and interesting afternoon.

   Members, please let me know if you are unable to attend, and associates, please let me know if you will. I will forward that information to Barbara, so she knows how many chairs to put out. I will take no heed to the numbers and will probably make too much food.

   I look forward to seeing and feeding you all on Wednesday! x Jacquie

Frances' Minutes Twelve members and 2 associates met in Barbara’s sunny living room; most cheerful after 3 rainy days. We have unofficially resumed lunches, our not-lunches having grown robustly. President Joanna rang the bell at 1:05 PM. We began by considering our topic for 2025-2026, “High School Classics Reread or Classics You Wish You Had Read.” Joanna had sent us, from The New Yorker, how the New Criticism had changed high school English teachers’ concept of a classic. Did we think it true? Lori had asked the teens she works with what they read in class. Report: nothing like what we had read—except Shakespeare. Make of that what you will.

To our business:
    Lori’s treasurer’s report: $528.06

    We need to allot $175.00 to cover printing cost of our brochure. Joanna proposed we donate $150 to the Hastings Library to purchase books for the Yong Room (the renamed Children’s Library). We could purchase up to $150 of children’s books from the Barkin Bookstore to be donated to the Family Service Society of Yonkers’ literacy programs in Westchester summer camps. TBD.

An aside - from June 20, a report from Constance on the donation of children's books:

So you know, today the books we are purchasing from the Barkin bookstore were picked up, and will be taken to summer literacy programs in Ossining and Tarrytown run by the Family Service Society of Yonkers.  This year we donated 199 books to the program.   It is very gratifying to put those books to such a good purpose, and I always like to think that some of them may go to the children and grandchildren of the many hardworking people who wash cars, do yard work, and clean homes in our town and the surrounding areas.   

Thanks to everyone for your support, and especially to Mary, Carol, and Jacquie.  I really couldn’t have organized it without them!

Members’ recommendations: lots of plays. Carol loved The United States Versus Ulysses (at the Irish Arts Center). Christine and Sharon were floored by Sarah Snook playing 26 parts in Portrait of Dorian Gray (at the Music Box). Carol also recommends: Pirates! The Penzance Musical and The Mistake (about the development of the A-bomb). Books: Christine recommended The Tobaccionist by Robert Seethaler; Jacquie recommended The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt (note, do not confuse this with the film) and Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Lori recommended Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Gita began her presentation on “The Letters and Diaries of Anne Morrow Lindbergh” by passing around a photo of the young and beautiful writer. Anne Morrow Lindbergh was born in 1906 in Englewood, New Jersey. Her father, Dwight Morrow, a partner of J. P. Morgan, was immensely wealthy; the $1 M estate taxes paid upon his death moved the budget of the state of New Jersey out of the red. Her mother, Elizabeth Cutter Morrow, was a poet, a women’s education activist and a president of Smith College.

Anne was a student at Smith College when she met Charles Lindbergh in 1927; they were introduced at a Christmas party held in the American Embassy in Mexico City. Earlier that year, he had made his famous cross Atlantic solo flight. For her, it was love and hero worship at first sight.

(FYI – minutes will refer to him as Lindbergh, her as Anne)

Her life, first as Lindbergh’s fiancé, then his wife, changed completely. She had been bookish and shy; at his side, she stepped into the glare of celebrity. She learned to handle that, as well as to become an aviator and radio operator. She adored him, she adored the adventure of flying. She was 7 months pregnant when she and Lindbergh set a transcontinental flight speed record. Under constant scrutiny by the press, she learned to keep up a polite conversation without saying anything revealing; in addition to her other skills, she learned to be a savvy public figure. In her letters to her family, she said what she could not say publicly.

She and Lindbergh flew around the Pacific, starting in Long Island, going to Washington state, hugging the shoreline, landing in small towns from Alaska to Siberia to the Aleutian Islands to Japan and finally, China – where they crashed in the Yangtze River during a take-off. She rarely complained except for noting that after months of brushing her teeth with boiled water, she swallowed gallons of muddy Yangtze River water during the crash.

After the birth of the Lindbergh’s first child, they bought a house in NJ, near Anne’s parents. That house was where they became the victims of what the newspapers of 1932 called “the crime of the century.” Anne and Charles’ 20-month-old son, Charles Jr., was kidnapped. Waiting for news of their baby, pregnant with her second child, Anne wrote a letter every day to her mother-in-law. She tried to remain hopeful and to pass the hope on, by doing what had become her way of being: writing.

When the child was found, dead, she wrote that it was a finality, and that finalities can be accepted.

She may have found her special voice in the letters to her mother-in-law that she wrote during the terrible period between the kidnapping and the discovery of the child’s body. She re-read those letters years afterwards, noting how she tried to keep hope alive for herself and for her mother-in-law. The book of her essays, Gift from the Sea, is filled with hope fighting despair. It was received enthusiastically when it was published in 1955, resonating strongly with her readership. It remains in print.

Her style is confessional but never self-pitying. Writing from her heart, she revealed commonalities with women of her own generation and generations that followed. She wrote of certain “springs that are tapped when we are alone” and of the need to find “the still axis within the revolving wheel of relationships.” She acknowledged the “inevitability of change in love and marriage, devotion and companionship.”

The Lindberghs never divorced although the marriage was deeply troubled. They were no longer living together when Lindbergh died in 1974. Anne died in 2001.

Respectfully submitted,
Frances Greenberg, Recording Secretary

Kathy Presents Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz

Jacquie’s Email Hello Literary Ladies! Happy Easter, to those who are celebrating, and happy gorgeous it’s-finally-spring to you all!

    It’s field trip time again as the next meeting of the Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson will be held on Wednesday, April 23rd at Laura’s beautiful Ossining aerie. We will begin with lunch and a view at noon, and then Joanna will ring the bell at 1 PM to begin our meeting. Rumor has it we might even learn the results of our vote for next year's topic!

    Kathy will then present “Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz,” which is sure to enthrall. Members, please let our hostess know if you will not be able to attend, and associate members, please let her know if you will. 

     As parking is tight, car-pooling is recommended. Joanna still has one empty space in her car and Sharon has two spots, “if people don't mind two in the back.”

    I've also included the link to our blog, so wonderfully kept up by our new recording secretary, Frances. I, for one, am most thankful for this wonderful record of our meetings. It's a rabbit hole I go down happily and often.

    I look forward to being with many of you on Wednesday and to bask in the company of Georgia OʼKeeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. It looks like the weather will be quite fine to do just that! x Jacquie

Carla’s Minutes Our caravans to the north country arrived safely at Laura’s lovely Ossining aerie where 10 of us were treated to a bird’s eye view? Eye view of birds? and a delicious picnic lunch on the terrace.

    

Georgia O'Keeffe painting

During the business part of our meeting, the topic for 2025-2026 was announced: “Classics that We Haven’t Read (or Humiliation) or Books from Our High School Years.” Minutes of the last meeting were read. While new Recording Secretary, Frances Greenberg, wasn’t there in person, her minutes received applause and laughs—a fine beginning!

    On to the presentation, with Kathy telling us all about artist Georgia O’Keeffe and photographer Alfred Stieglitz, accompanied by visuals of their works. She introduced them as a “boy meets girl” story, except that it was the girl’s work at first. After her friend had shared some of O’Keeffe’s charcoal and pastel sketches with Stieglitz, the 23-year-old art student wrote to him. Her inquiry about her work was ingenuous and frank and his reply very positive—“surprise and joy” was his reaction. A promising beginning to what would become a long and complicated relationship.

    O’Keeffe was a Wisconsin-ite born in 1887 (d. 1986) to a large farming/business family. Talented at art, she took lessons starting at age eleven and won high praise and honors. Her parents both died in 1915, and she struggled to support herself, with some help and encouragement from her mother’s sisters. She attended classes at SAIC and the Arts Students League in NYC. O’Keefe became a teacher in 1911, taking courses at Columbia Teachers’ College, then taught in South Carolina, West Texas and New Mexico (1916,]

    

Alfred Stieglitz photo

Stieglitz was born 1864 (d.1946) in New Jersey into a German-Jewish family, the oldest of six children. After attending technical schools in Berlin, 1882‐1890, he became interested in the new photography. Returning to the U.S., he opened a gallery at 291 Fifth Avenue in 1892, which is where O’Keeffe’s work was first displayed—without her permission! While she was very pleased that Steichen liked her work, she was “appalled” at having her feelings exposed publicly. Her protestations were met with his reply that he had a “higher authority” to share her work. His 1907 photograph “Steerage” is considered a signature work, representing his first “modernist photograph.”

    Although Stieglitz had been married and had a daughter, O’Keeffe was attracted by his “energy and soul,” his good looks and his value of life. The correspondence between them over a two-year period reflected her view of “the terrible fineness and intensity of him” and his “value of life”. His was a combative personality. He believed that women had “spiritual superiority” but “intellectual inferiority.” After two years of correspondence, they moved in together, sharing work and living space (1918-1928). Kathy showed images of Stieglitz’s cloud photos and O’Keeffe’s abstract work of New Mexico from that period. She was his object of both adoration and control, noted Kathy.

    In 1905, the gallery (known as 291) was recognized for its role in legitimizing photography as a fine art, for bringing attention to unknown and talented photographers, and for introducing new artists including Matisse, Rousseau, Cezanne, Picasso. A 1921 exhibit of Stieglitz’s work was a great success. His work, which included innovative nude photos of O’Keeffe and drew acclaim for his “texture and shading” and notice of a “cult of personality.” It also brought comments of sensationalism. For O’Keeffe, it resulted in her distancing herself from critics and the public.

    Over their lifetime, they exchanged more than 5,000 letters, a sampling of which we read. Indeed, through the letters they started to fall in love before they had even met. O’Keeffe questioned whether using similar words really reflected similar feelings, experiences. Their letters were often rapturous and extravagant in mutual admiration. But life was to be lived on his terms. O’Keeffe made trips on her own, to Boston and to Maine, realizing she enjoyed her own company. They married in 1924, he not wanting children—she seeking new direction in art, both wanting “total devotion.”

    Their relationship changed in 1929 when Stieglitz began an adulterous affair with 21-year-old Dorothy Norman. O’Keeffe left for a 4 month stay in New Mexico which left Stieglitz “unhinged.” He wrote to her from Lake George, a family vacation home, decrying the situation, blaming himself for robbing her of her faith, but encouraging her to discover new things for herself. They did get back together but he had emotionally destroyed her. An incident involving murals she was to do for Radio City Music Hall ended badly and contributed to her hospitalization 1931-33.

    A new relationship developed with Jean King who became her lover, but Stieglitz was still in the picture. He was happy for her successes, including a show at the Museum of Modern Art. Deep and strong forces kept them together, concluded Kathy.

Respectfully submitted,
Carla Potash, Secretary for the day

Laura Presents Letters of Vincent and Theo Van Gogh plus Some Surprises

Jacquieʼs Email Hello Literary Ladies! When choosing my own subject to present this season, I ordered The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh from the library. But daunted by the sheer heft of the volume and the 500+ densely packed pages, I made a lighter choice (both literally and literarily). But how happy I was to see that Laura Rice did not shy away, and our program booklet notes that she will be presenting “Dear Theo: Letters of Vincent Van Gogh to His Brother.”

    Then I received an email from Laura in which she warned that “...my presentation, supposed to be about Van Gogh, includes him, but is not exclusively on his letters. It is kind of Van Gogh and others. In fact, I am trying to think of a name for the hodge podge it will be...” So now I'm even MORE excited for her presentation!

    With that in mind, this is a reminder that the next meeting of the Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson will be held this Wednesday, April 9th, once again at the spacious and gracious home of our president, Joanna. We will gather at noon for luncheon and chat, which is sure to include comparing notes on our various experiences at the empowering Saturday, April 5th “Hands Off” rallies many Lit Club members attended. (I saw Mary Lemons, Barbara Morrow, and Joanna in the huge and very polite crowd at the rally at the VFW in town before heading over to the Rivertowns Thrift at the Rec Center...) Joanna will then ring the bell to begin our meeting at 1 PM, after which we will finally learn what name Laura decided upon for her hodge podge presentation. It is sure to delight.

    Members, please let our host know if you are unable to attend, and associates, please let her know that you will be attending. 
    Stay warm and dry (and solvent??!!) and I hope to see many of you on Wednesday. x Jacquie

Francesʼ Minutes At noon, twelve members and two associates met at Joanna’s home. She had just returned the night before from a 36-hour round trip to Martha’s Vineyard. At the previous meeting she had warned us that lunch would be simple but I thought it was pretty substantial. Before leaving for the Vineyard, she made chicken soup & froze it; time in the freezer had only improved its flavor.

Laura, our presenter, and I, about to be nominated as Recording Secretary, arrived early.

Accepting the position of Recording Secretary was intimidating. I wish I had nabbed a spot on the nominating committee, which would have made me ineligible for the position. I was absent the day it was formed. If you’ve been reading this blog, you’ll understand my fear about following Christine and Barbara, our previous secretaries. Their minutes were really, really good.

Laura was getting out of her car when we met up. She wore a T-shirt with Van Gogh’s self-portrait. Adding interest to her talk was something you might expect of Laura, a retired, a beloved Hastings High English teacher. She had two heavy bags of books which I offered to help her with. Yes, I could, she said, but she also needed a favor. Sometimes I think I was born on April Fool’s Day for a reason.

bathing suit with paintings

Laura had bought a men’s swimsuit set printed with Van Gogh’s iconic paintings – including the self-portrait – and would I wear it? I had to put it on in secret, it would fit over my clothes, I should do it under cover, like in the bathroom. I should come out (dressed like a clueless, tasteless beach goer) just before she started her talk.

Readers, I did it.

 But after Joanna called the meeting to order at 1 PM.

 First, the nominating committee presented their candidates.
Treasurer: Lori (to continue another 2-year term)
Corresponding Secretary: Jacquie (to continue another 2-year term)
Recording Secretary: Frances (starting a 2-year term, replacing Christine)

The candidates were unanimously approved. Joanna thanked Christine for the wonderful minutes she’d taken during the years (2021-2025) she served as Recording Secretary.

 Second, Lori gave the treasurer’s report: $508.06. We noted that it was time to consider our annual gift to the Hastings Library. One possibility: replacing the board books in the Children’s Library, which are worn and battered. Joanna will contact Debbie Quinn for her suggestions. We will also buy children’s books from the Barkin Bookstore to donate to a summer reading program.

 Third: next year’s topic. Five topics made the cut; members are now to choose three and rank them in order of preference. Laura will reveal the final selection at the next meeting.

bathing suit detail

 We made recommendations about books and films. Christine suggested Vera by Elizabeth von Arnim, a novel about a complicated marriage, unlike von Arnim’s other work. Frances suggested “The Penguin Lessons” a film directed by Peter Cattaneo. Both Steve Coogan, the star, and the penguin deserve Oscars.

 Laura began her presentation on Vincent Van Gogh by confessing that she had difficulties approaching him. (Aside – is that the reason she asked me to wear that silly bathing suit?)

 We started by reading quotes from his letters, example: “There is nothing in the earth as interesting as people. You can not study them enough.” And “to paint nature one must live in it a long time…”

 Van Gogh was born in the Netherlands March 30, 1853, into a cultured, well-educated family with a degree of prosperity. His father was a Dutch Reformed minister; his grandfather as well as three uncles were art dealers. Growing up, Van Gogh was described as “dreamy.” He drew a lot; he disliked the boarding schools where he was sent. At 16, he started working at an uncle’s art gallery. Failure marked the next decade of his life. He was no good at, nor did he like, the business of art. He fell deeply in love and was rejected. He wanted to be a minister, but failed the university entrance exam; that was followed by another failure at a 3-month missionary course.

 He had become passionately religious. A missionary post was found for him in a coal mining district in Belgium. He permitted himself nothing more than what the miners had; the mission had supplied him with a simple dwelling which he gave up to a homeless man. He lived in a hut, like the miners; like the miners, he lived on a diet of potatoes. Living at a level perhaps even below that of the miners, religious almost to the point of martyrdom, he was still not accepted by the community. He was dismissed by the church authorities. 

 At 27, he returned to live with his parents. His father, troubled by his eccentric behavior, wanted to commit him to a lunatic asylum; a decade later, Van Gogh would be in an asylum. His younger brother Theo suggested Van Gogh go to art school. Theo gave Van Gogh the next decade of his life.

another detail of suit

Theo was his brother’s hero. He worked as an art dealer in Paris, he had a wife and a son. He supported his brother financially, although his own career was not lucrative. He tried to sell his brother’s paintings, without success. The two brothers had an extensive correspondence. Theo died 6 months after his brother’ suicide. Theo’s letters to Van Gogh have disappeared.

No other record of the development of an artistic vision exists like Van Gogh’s to his brother, nor of a man who created paintings despite debilitating mental illness, often completely isolated, with no income except the small sums Theo provided. 

 In the last two years of his life, Van Gogh suffered intense depressions; had seizures, hallucinations, delusions of being poisoned and was in and out asylums. Many of his paintings from this time are heartbreakingly beautiful.

 With the consultation of our psychologist member, Lori, we speculated on what his illness might have been: schizophrenia? bi-polar disorder? manic depression?

 Van Gogh shot himself in the chest in 1890 and died a day later of the infected wound. In his pocket was a letter to Theo. It said  “…my own work, I am risking my life for it and my reason has half foundered because of it–that’s all right…”

 Respectively submitted,
Frances Greenberg, Recording Secretary

Linda Presents the Letters of Emily Dickinson

Jacquie's Email Hello Literary Ladies! That our greatest artists have the ability to express universal truths that feel so timely always astonishes and moves me. And I can never say too many times what a gift it is to explore their artistry and insights with you all. The thrill I feel when I look at my calendar on a Sunday morning and see that I have a Lit Club meeting to look forward to that week... heaven! (Hopefully with the fewest mentions of buffoons as is possible in these troubled times.)

Did Emily write all her letters and
poems at this tiny desk?

That said, this is to remind you all that The Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson will be meeting this Wednesday, March 26th, in Constance's lovely home, beginning at noon for lunch and a chat. Our fearless leader will ring the bell at 1 PM to begin our meeting, after which Linda will be presenting on “The Letters of Emily Dickinson.” I read that there are approximately 1,304 extant letters, so luckily Linda had a little something to work with! Happy Spring! x Jacquie

Christine’s Minutes Eleven members, two associates and one guest, Susan Meigs, gathered at Constance’s house. There was much delight and relief when we saw that yet again we would enjoy Connie’s famous poached salmon.

President Joanna rang the bell at 1:02 PM and thanked the host for our last meeting (herself) and then thanked today’s host.

Several of us were intrigued to learn that rocks will fragment at high altitudes, hence the need to carry heavy rock samples in one’s carry-on luggage.

The following books were recommended: Bear Claw, (in Crow Killer Series?), by Alfred Dennis; Anna Pigeon Mystery Series by Nevada Barr – all set in National Parks; Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood; Jesus Wept by Philip Shenon; Orbital by Samantha Harvey; Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism and the Making of Modern America by Clay Risen; Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy; Mothers and Sons by Adam Haslett; Saint and Liars: Story of Americans Who Saved Refugees from Nazis by Deborah Dwork.

Laura passed out sheets with a list of all the possible topics for next year. Members were asked to indicate their top five choices, in no specific order. This first step in our two-pronged voting will allow her to narrow down the list, for our final vote with three weighted choices.

Jacquie announced that the Hillside Book Fair occurs this weekend, and there are many thousands of books. At the end of the Fair, on Saturday afternoon, some members will gather to choose and collect books for several destinations, including the Barkin Bookstore and boxes to Africa.

Lori, our treasurer collected dues from many members, a hefty $20 per annum.

The minutes of the February 26 (Connie’s program on Paula Modersohn-Becker) were read and accepted. In the interest of having more time for our program, the minutes for March 12, our annual meeting, were not read. Christine will email them to the members.

And throughout all this, being a truly sensitive and literary dog, poor Bosley suffered mightily from the vibrations of thunder and lightning.

At last, we arrive at the reason we are all gathered, to hear Linda discourse on the “Letters of Emily Dickinson.”

Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830 at The Homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts. She died on May 15 (my birthday!), 1886, also at the Homestead. Emily was the middle child, between her older brother Austin, and her sister Lavinia (Vinnie). Her grandfather was one of the founders of Amherst college. Her father, Edward Dickinson, was a lawyer, treasurer for Amherst College, and one-term representative in Congress. Her mother, Emily Norcross was from a leading family in a neighboring town. Except for a brief period on North Pleasant Street during some financial difficulties, the family always lived at The Homestead. Neither Emily nor Lavinia married, and they lived there all their lives. When Austen married Susan Gilbert, he built himself a house next door.

Our first reading was from Dickinson’s obituary, written by her sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert Dickinson. In exquisite language she extolled the life and works of her sister-in-law and dear friend.

Emily attended Amherst Academy, where she studied Latin, composition, and botany. She was interested in botany all her life and made an herbarium with pressed flowers.

Her first letter was written to Abiah Root, a classmate at Amherst Academy, when Emily was 16. She enclosed a geranium leaf.

For one year, Emily went away to school at the South Hadley Seminary, now Mount Holyoke College. Initially she was quite homesick, but then settled in, and wrote home about her exams, her daily schedule, and of course, the school food. She also wrote many letters to Austen who was away at law school.

From a young age, Emily had many questions about life and death. While the rest of her family were Calvinists, she was not. We would call her a Transcendentalist. While she needed solitude in order to write, she could also be sociable, within her circle of family and friends.

In 1856 Austen married Emily’s dear friend Susan Gilbert, and they lived next door to The Homestead. But theirs was not a happy marriage. Austen had a long-term relationship with Mabel Loomis Todd, who was married to an astronomer.

The years 1858 to 1865 were an intense period of writing for Emily. She was writing poems and then binding or sewing them together in “fascicles.” By the time she was 35, she had written over 1000 poems, some of which she shared with Susan, and some she sent to Thomas Wentworth Higgins. Upon seeing his “Letter to a Young Contributor” she sent four poems to Higgins, inquiring whether they were worthy.

Between 1864 and 1865, Emily spent time in Boston while being treated for an eye condition. After returning home, she stopped making her fascicles, and she never left Amherst again. Emily Dickinson’s father died in 1874, and then her mother had a stroke, so that Emily and Vinnie took over management of the house. Then Mrs. Dickinson died in 1882, and in 1883 her beloved nephew Gib died of typhus. After years of ill health, Emily died in 1886, at the age of 55.

While many of us have read her poetry for years, and in some way feel we “know” Emily Dickinson, in fact, as Linda made clear, there are lingering mysteries about her life, regarding her relationships with Thomas Higginson and with Susan Dickinson. Then there is awkward fact of Mabel Todd Loomis, her brother’s mistress, who was disliked by Emily, yet ended up deciding the fate of the poems.

In her will, Emily requested that Vinnie burn her letters. Only then did Vinnie discover the drawer full of poems she had not known existed. She showed them to Susan, who already had many poems that Emily had been sending her. Then Vinnie gave the poems she’d found to Mabel. No one seems to know why. Mabel Loomis connected with Higginson, and he went on to publish her poems, with altered words, altered meter, and added titles. It sounds like Emily Dickinson Lite™. Loomis and Higginson did not like the friendship (romance??) between Emily and Susan, and they may have pushed the image of the poet as a slightly crazy recluse scribbling away in solitude. There is much we shall never really know. One member, Jacquie, pointed out that there were “a lot of exclamation points for a recluse!”

A 2016 collection of Dickinson’s poems, edited by Cristanne Miller, is purported to be the most accurate version of her poems, as she wrote them.

While the mysteries remain, Linda left us with two irrefutable facts: at the artist Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party (permanently installed at the Brooklyn Museum) there is a place setting for Emily. Also, Taylor Swift is distantly related to the poet.

It was a revelatory afternoon.

Respectfully Submitted,
Christine Lehner, outgoing Recording Secretary

Annual Meeting

Jacquieʼs Email Hello Literary Ladies! Just a quick reminder that we will be meeting this Wednesday, March 12th, in Joanna's beautiful, now finished living room, for the annual meeting of the Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson. Please come equipped with book/play/TV/movie recommendations to share, or just helpful hints on how you are getting through your days. In addition, if so desired, please brown bag your lunch, though Joanna will be providing a hot soup, beverages hot and cold, and I'll bring something sweet to share. (Not lunch???!!!)

Besides general chat, we will be brainstorming new possible themes for next year, as well as reviewing the old. For inspiration, above I've attached the list of past themes from 1909 to the present which I've taken the liberty of updating (see sidebar, important documents).

Christineʼs Minutes On March 12, 2025, ten members and one associate gathered at Joanna’s historic house, where the ceiling was no longer falling down. We gathered initially in the kitchen and enjoyed a delicious soup, which was not meant to be our lunch. Following that came the pièce de résistance: for Joanna’s 60th birthday, Jacquie made her famous gateau au chocolat fra diablo. This is where words fail me.

Joanna rang the bell at 1:05 PM. Given that this was our annual meeting, it was posited: what exactly do we do now? Many suggestions followed. The minutes of the previous meeting were not read, because they were unfinished. However, the minutes for January 22 were read and accepted. Our treasurer was in Rome, but it was stated with confidence that our treasury remains the same. Dues are generally due at this time, and they can be submitted via check, cash or Venmo. A nominating committee was created of Linda, Carol and Constance. They are tasked with coming up with a slate for Recording Secretary and Corresponding Secretary. It appears entirely likely that Lori will remain treasurer, but about this your current recording secretary is unsure. In determining who will fill the soon-to-be vacant offices, Joanna asked the salient question: who is not here today?

Then Laura, our hard-working vice, passed out a list of possible topics for the coming season. A rollicking discussion followed. Certain topics were jettisoned for obvious reasons, and new possibilities were suggested, including, but not limited to: how-to books, as a cultural marker; books about movies; investigative journalism; and just picking a topic from a hat. Laura will type up the list, and Jacquie will put it into a Google doc. Laura also told us about a bookstore in Ossining called Hudson Valley Books for Humanity. It sounds excellent. There is also a rumor that a bookstore will soon be opening in Hastings.

The club then played a short round of the game “Humiliation” in which one names a classic book she NOT read and then gets points for the number of people in the group who have read it. (Or maybe who have not.) Books unread by members braving such humiliation included: One Hundred Years of Solitude; War and Peace; Hamlet; Moby Dick; Paradise Lost; and even Pride and Prejudice. But having been sufficiently bribed, your secretary will not name names.

Finally, in an egregious breach of Literature Club protocol, members were requested to leave by 2:30, as our president and hostess had a compelling appointment in Brooklyn.

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary

Constance Presents Paula Modersohn-Becker

Jacquieʼs Email: Hello Literary Ladies! For those of you who followed Laura's step-by-step instructions for inserting her carefully penned addendum into your program book, you know that this coming Wednesday, February 26th, the Lit Club of Hastings-on-Hudson will be meeting to hear Constanceʼs presentation on the “Letters and Journals of Paula Modersohn-Becker.” Carla will be hosting in her gorgeous rooms with a view. (For your convenience, think carpool when possible as parking is tricky along Warburton.) We will begin to convene at noon for a light repast and conversation, and, if I remember to return the “Presidential Bell of the Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson” to Joanna after holding it in her absence for the past few weeks, our dear leader will ring it at 1 PM to begin our meeting.

Being completely unfamiliar with Paula Modersohn-Beckerʼs work, I read ahead a bit, and I am very much looking forward to learning more about her. And since I get to do that with all of you, with Constance's guidance, and that VIEW, what could be better?

I hope to see many of you there. Enjoy the thaw! x Jacquie

Christineʼs Minutes Fourteen members of the Literature Club gained some altitude and convened in Carla’s lovely apartment overlooking the river. We lunched on delicious and healthy vegetarian chili and arepas and then were bowled over by olive oil orange cake and yummy pudding.

In a brief recount of recommended books and theatre, we heard about Studying with Miss Bishop, by Dana Gioa, All the Beauty in the World, by Patrick Bringley, a guard at the Met Museum, and Metropolitan Stories, by Christine Coulson, who also worked at the Met.

At the uncommonly early hour of 12:57, President Joanna rang the bell. Carla read her excellent minutes of February 5th, taken in the absence of Christine.

The treasury remains the same.

Then we were off to the fascinating world of art and artists in the early years of the twentieth century.

But first: Constance informed us that her primary source was the PhD thesis of Diane Radycki,  “Paula Modersohn-Becker – The First Modern Woman Artist.” This thesis, submitted in 1993, was the very first ever written about a female artist for the Harvard Department of Fine Arts. Additionally, the thesis was not about one of the usual artists to be mentioned along with the word female, such as O’Keefe, Cassatt or Kahlo, it was PAULA MODERSOHN-BECKER. Modersohn-Becker was born in 1876, and died in 1907, at the tragically early age of 30. She was little known during her lifetime, and it wasn’t until the 1970s that her art began to garner the international acclaim and recognition it deserves.

Constance also drew material from Paula Modersohn-Becker – The Letters and Journals, Edited by Gunther Büsch and Liselotte von Reinken. Constance passed around Paula Modersohn-Becker, Ich Bin Ich/ I Am Me, the catalogue that accompanied her recent show at the Neue Galerie in NYC, so that we could appreciate some of her paintings.

The first letter we read was from Paula’s mother, on the occasion of her thirtieth birthday; her mother recalled the dreary day in Dresden when, at the age of 23, she was giving birth to her second child. In Paula’s response to her mother, it was significant what she left out: her plan to divorce her husband, Otto Modersohn, and go to Paris to pursue her art.

How was Modersohn-Becker the first modern woman painter? She was the first to paint women’s bodies without the hitherto omnipresent ‘male gaze.’ She painted female nudes, and nude self-portraits, she painted mothers and infant, in the nude. Her models were ordinary women, set in ordinary situations, with the simplest of surroundings. Yet during her brief lifetime, there were so few exhibits of her work, that she was not considered an emerging artist, or considered much at all. The first exhibit was in 1899, when she was 23, and then in 1906, she had four paintings in a group show in Bremen. That was it.

A year after her death in 1907, her friend Rainer Maria Rilke published a poem “Requiem to a Friend,” memorializing PMB. Then in 1917, ten years after her death, her family arranged for an exhibit of her work, to be accompanied by a book of her letters and journals. Rilke, however, refused to edit the work because he thought the letters would distract from her art. The book went on to be published and was reprinted many times. Thankfully, otherwise she might have been lost to us when her work was purged by the Nazis as degenerate.

Paula Becker was born in Dresden, often referred to as the Florence on the Elbe, in 1876. Her father was an engineer, and her mother came from an aristocratic family, but the Beckers lived in constrained circumstances, likely due to the fact her Paula’s Uncle Paul Becker had tried to assassinate Kaiser Willhelm of Prussia. Meanwhile, Bismark had succeeded in unifying the German states, for the first time in history.

After her confirmation, PB went to London to stay with her aunt, with the plan that she would learn household management. She was 16. Her letters have much to say about the churning of butter, and not much about Paula’s conflicts with her aunt and her desire to study art. Her uncle came up with solution to the household conflict: at his expense, Paula would attend art school for 6 hours a day. Paula’s letters turned from butter to painting from Greek casts. She explains that the young women at their easels sat on high stools, while the men had lower stools.

Still, Paula had headaches and was painfully homesick and so returned to Bremen after 8 months abroad. As her sister Millie had done, she attended a two-year program of study to become a governess. She was allowed to take art lessons from a Bremen artist, and then to go study art in Berlin, at the Berlin Ladies Academy. There she could paint from models, but not nude models, and PB felt strongly that she wanted to paint nudes.

Whenever she was home from school, Paula visited Worpswede, an artists’ colony outside Bremen, founded by Fritz Mackensen and Otto Modersohn, part of the romanticized back-to nature movement that was springing up all over Europe. She met Clara Westoff, and they remained close friends for the rest of Paula’s life. Clara later married Rainer Maria Rilke.

In a letter to her sister Millie – which Paula asked not be shown to her parents – Paula discussed how her art deviated from the norm.

In 1899, the work of 18-year-old Paula Becker, and another woman artist, was part of a show in the Kunsthalle in Bremen. Her work was panned and called coarse, repulsive, repugnant and more. Not a happy beginning.

On January 1, 1900, PB took a train to Paris to join her friend Clara and immerse herself in the art world there. She became enamored of Cezanne. She enrolled at the Academi Colarossi and attended daily classes. In her letters home she described the marvelous art she was seeing: Manet, Degas, Renoir and of course, Cezanne. At Worpswede, Paula, Clara, Rilke, Otto Modersohn and his first wife, Felice, formed a close group of friends. Paula wrote often to the Modersohns and encouraged them to come to Paris. In June, Otto visited Paris, but without his very frail wife, Felice, who died soon thereafter. Paula and Otto become engaged on September 3 of that year. Paula’s parents were so distressed by the rapidity of the affair that they sent Paula to Berlin for cooking classes. An interesting and appealing response, I thought. In Berlin, she spent time with Rilke and frequented art museums. Paula and Otto married in May 1901. He was 36 and had a 2-year-old daughter; she was 25, determined to be an artist, but under pressure from her father to become a governess in order to earn a living. In a journal entry from Easter Sunday 1902, PMB wrote “marriage does not make one happier.” Meanwhile, she returned Paris and stayed with Rilke and her friend Clara Westoff; they were now married and had a daughter. They encouraged PBM to meet Rodin. She also saw the work of Gauguin and wrote sheaves of letters. She painted like mad. It was in a letter to Rilke that she wrote “Ich bin Ich” that is, I am Me.

But her husband, Otto, was not pleased with her art. He said that it didn’t ‘progress’. Which seems odd, given the remarkable paintings she was making. It is unclear what transpired in their relationship, but when she was 30 years old, in 1906, Paula became pregnant. She stated while she did not want to be ‘married’, she did want a child.

Matilda, named for Paula’s mother, was born on November 6, 1907. A week later, she began to have pains in her legs. She died on November 20. She was 31.

In the years following her death, PBM’s work began to be shown. A museum was built in Bremen dedicated to her work. Hitler deplored its architecture, so we can assume it was good. Then the Third Reich condemned her work as degenerate, and they seized and destroyed about 70 paintings.

Thanks to Connie, and the Neue Galerie in Manhattan, many of us are now getting to know the story of PMB, and her astonishing paintings. It was a revelatory afternoon.

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary

A Friendship and a Feud: Vladimir Nabokov and Edmund Wilson Presented by Frances

Jacquie's Email Hello Literary Ladies! I made the mistake of reading the headlines this morning before writing this, so my mood is a bit gloomy. How did we get here?
      Luckily, we have our upcoming meeting of the Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson to look forward to—a much-needed balm in anxious times. We will be meeting at Carol's beautifully perched home on Villard Avenue at noon for what I imagine will be a full-out lunch. (Itʼs time to just call it, right?) Our intrepid president, Joanna, will not be able to join us this week since she will either be hosting some important event at the Federal Bar Councilʼs annual retreat somewhere in Mexico, or lying on the beach, so Laura will be ringing the bell at 1PM to begin our meeting, after which Frances will present on A Feud and a Friendship: The Letters of Vladimir Nabokov & Edmund Wilson. Now THESE are some feuding white men I can get behind!
    That's all I have in me to report. Iʼm looking forward to seeing you on Wednesday. x Jacquie

Carlaʼs Minutes On a chilly and sunny day, 10 members and two associates gathered in Carol Barkin’s warm and welcoming home to enjoy her delicious carrot soup, charcuterie plus, and not one, not two, but three wonderful loaf cakes and cookies—an un-lunch? A presentation followed to be sure.

Laura Rice, vice-president, presided in the absence of the president and secretary. After non-minutes and treasurer’s report—a familiar $248—we shared book/culture likes which included: Elizabeth Strout’s Tell Me Everything, the film A Real Pain, the book Orbited, the Japanese Netflix series Asuna, Ina Garten’s memoir, the book Couplets by Maggie Millan, The Rest is Memory by Lily Tuck, as well as Tana French’s The Searcher (the author’s father is NOT The NY Times op-ed writer). Then we were ready for Frances Greenberg’s presentation on the feud & friendship of Vladimir Nabokov and Edmund Wilson.

If the Hatfields and McCoys had possessed brains and not bullets, intellect not ire, writing rather than fighting words, respect not rancor, there might have been a feud like that of Nabokov and Wilson. Both were born in the late 1800’s, grew up in wealthy homes: Wilson in Red Bank, New Jersey; Nabokov in St. Petersburg, Russia. Both had fathers who were jurists, though Nabokov’s father had other government roles as well.  Both Wilson and Nabokov were towering intellects, egotists, men of the pen. As Frances said, both had a “high level of self-esteem,” i.e., arrogance. Their testiness, their need to dominate, their ultimate conflict, reminded her of the horsemen's saying that two stallions should never be kept in the same barn. 

 Nabokov had grown up speaking French and English as well as Russian. He attended Cambridge after his family fled the Bolshevik October Revolution in Russia. Wilson was educated at Princeton. Nabokov’s university years were lonely; although he had no sympathy for White Russian Monarchists, he was perceived as a reactionary by fellow Cantabrigians fascinated by the Russian experiment. He first studied zoology, then switched French and English Literature. (Ultimately, he became an outstanding lepidopterist as well as a renowned writer.) Physically, the men were opposites—Nabokov was tall, slim and handsome. Wilson was short and rotund. His mother had given him the unfortunate nickname Bunny, which stuck with him over the years.

Their relationship began cordially in 1940, when Nabokov emigrated to the U.S. He left England after Cambridge, joining his family in Berlin, where he struggled financially, supporting himself by tutoring and teaching tennis. During his time in Germany, he published 9 novels, in Russian. The Russian diaspora was a lively literate society, there were more than a handful of publishers in western Europe, keeping Russian literature alive. The Bolsheviks exercised iron control over culture; only novels following the Communist party line could be published in Russia. Nabokov’s work never appeared in the country of his birth.

Living in Berlin during Hitler’s rise to power, Nabokov understood his family’s vulnerability. His wife, Vera, was Jewish. They moved first to Paris but were aware of the possibility of a German invasion. In 1940, he was able to get a visa for a teaching position in the U.S. a position which never materialized. He was without financial resources. Nabokov’s cousin, Nikolai Nabokov, had already established himself as a composer and a music critic in the U.S. He was a friend of Edmund Wilson’s, then at the height of his power in the New York literary world. Nikolai Nabokov introduced the two. Wilson helped Vladimir find work writing book reviews for publications like The New Yorker and The New Republic. Both men were important members of their respective literary circles in the 1920’s and 1930’s, but Nabokov’s was a small and limited group of Russian émigrés, scattered from New York to Peking, living precariously, both economically and politically. 

Wilson came to New York after graduating from Princeton and serving as a hospital orderly in the army during World War I. He had quick success as an editor, a writer and critic.  He wrote for Vanity Fair and The New Republic. He had met, and became friends, with F. Scott Fitzgerald while they were both at Princeton.  We read Wilson’s comments, many critical, on Fitzgearld’s first published novel, The Far Side of Paradise. Even so, Wilson’s final words were “I really liked the book.” Wilson could drink all night and be up the next morning ready to work He held his liquor remarkably well, unlike many of his contemporaries. As for his love life, Edna St. Vincent Millay was his first affair. He was madly in love with her but she feared the entanglement of marriage, and no doubt Wilson's domineering character. The two remained friends. Wilson married Mary Blair, an actress, soon after Millay's refusal, Blair was the first of his four marriages. His work—plays and fiction—had progressive sympathies and he believed communism held the answer to many social ills.

Nabokov got a position teaching English literature at Cornell University in the late 40’s. He believed that novels should be “pure invention.” Their only purpose was to enchant. This contrasted strongly with Wilson’s progressive philosophy. In Wilson’s 1940 book, To the Finland Station, he ignored the excesses of Bolshevism. But Wilson’s and Nabokov’s mutual admiration society continued until ...Pushkin changed everything. Their feud began. It had to do with a translation of Eugene Onegin and their differing interpretation of Russian poetic meter. Russians venerate Pushkin in the same way English speakers venerate Shakespeare.

Wilson had learned Russian but was hardly a match for Nabokov’s fluency and the subtleties of translating. An explosive and harshly critical exchange appeared in letters published in The New York Review of Books, in 1965, following Wilson's harsh review of Nabokov's 1200 page translation of Eugene Onegin. Their vitriol was extreme. An example of Wilson’s words of war in this exchange refers to Nabokov’s translation. “Mr. Nabokov is in the habit of introducing any job of this kind which he undertakes by an announcement that he is unique and incomparable and that everyone else who has attempted it is an oaf and ignoramus, incompetent as a linguist and scholar, usually with the implication that he is a low-class person and a ridiculous personality. Nabokov ought not complain if the reviewer, though trying not to imitate his bad literary manners, does not hesitate of underline his weaknesses.” In his reply letter, Nabokov says “... we are indeed old friends. I fully share the warm affection sometimes chilled by exasperation that he says he feels for me. We have had many exhilarating talks, have exchanged many frank letters. A patient confidant of his long and hopeless infatuation with the Russian language, I have always done my best to explain to him his mistakes of pronunciation, grammar and interpretation. ... In the present case, however, things have gone a little too far. I greatly regret Mr. Wilson did not consult me about his perplexities (as he used to do in the past) instead of lurching into print in such a state of glossological disarray.”

The swords were unsheathed—actually even before then with Nabokov’s publication of Lolita, in 1955 in France, and in 1957 in the U.S. One suspects that Nabokov’s financial and literary success was envied by Wilson. Wilson's reputation was in decline by the 1950's. He was no longer the power in the literary circle he had been in his earlier years, in the 1920’s through the 1940’s. 

During Wilson’s final illness, Nabokov wrote to him, recalling the pleasures of their former affectionate friendship. Wilson died in 1972 at 77; Nabokov in 1978 at 78.

Respectfully submitted,
Carla Potash
Secretary for the day