Notebook 1 - April 3rd 1925 - Selling Stories

April 3rd 1925
The Editor
The Pictorial Review

Dear Sir or Madam:
I shall be pleased if you will make me an offer for the enclosed short-story culled from my experiences as an artist. Relative to which I enclose a cutting. I have also been an author since my first story was accepted for a magazine in 1907. Also And since coming to America the Elizabeth Sunday Times contained a short-story from my pen every week for 18 months that I lived in Elizabeth (New Jersey), the Elizabeth Daily Journal also publishing many of my articles. While there I was chairman of the Committee to the Arts' Club & painted portraits of the President & Vice President of the Women's Club, and many lovely children of the wealthy residents. Nearly 2 years ago I moved re-moved here & am now at work upon a Jubilee Presentation portrait of the Rev. Dr. Peregrine Wroth who has been for just upon 50 years Rector of the Church of the Messiah, Baltimore.
I have been a subscriber to the Pictorial Review ever since I came to America.

Very Sincerely Yours,
Lucy Derrick Swindells

This letter gives us one of the first glimpses of Lucy finding ways to earn money. She was primarily a poet, a writer, and an artist. She often sent letters to local businesses trying to find customers for portraits, along with writing newspapers, magazines, and department stores to see if she could sell her short stories and poems. As an English woman raising her older teenage children in America, with very little help from her husband, she really had to work hard to scratch out a living, especially to help maintain her need to feel like an upper class Baltimore socialite. - Carrie