Notebook 1: Green-Leach & du Maurier Controversy Part 3

Jan. 20th 1925

Mr. C. A A Parker   Editor   L.Alouette??

30 Waite St. Malden Mass

Dear Sir. Mr. Parker

Many thanks for yours of Jan 17th. I had not heard that your Magazine was passing into other hands but I had heard of course of the Green-Leach and du Maurier controversy.

As it was represented to me that Mrs. Green-Leach had not treated Miss du Maurier fairly I appealed to the members of the Circle as to whether they were prepared to vote any want of confidence in Mrs. Green-Leach, and I was assured on the contrary that they are full of loyalty and devotion to her and their sympathies entirely on her side. Most of them live in town and know both ladies equally intimately, (as I living in the country) "bloom unseen or waste their sweetness on the desert air." but should let their poems be a source of joy and inspiration to others. 

Yours Very Truly,

Lucy Derrick Swindells

This is one of those notes in which I'm not entirely sure the end goes with the beginning! The last page may actually be from another letter, but they were side by side in the notebook. At any rate, I'm assuming Mr. Parker was at one point the editor of a now defunct poetry magazine, which I couldn't find any references too. What's interesting is again Lucy broaching the subject of the infamous Green-Leach & du Maurier controversy! It's amazing to me that word of the controversy could have reached outside of Baltimore all the way to the offices of a magazine editor in Malden Massachusetts! - Carrie

Notebook 1: A note on Flappers & short hair...

April 2nd 1925

Sir:

I should like to make a few comments on the letter "Flappers at 60" in this mornings paper. Why should women mind making the change which circumstances have already forced upon men.  

Until well into the eighteenth century gentlemen wore long hair. I say say gentlemen advisedly for poor men had already had to dispense with it. 

Long hair unless exquisitely tended is the ugliest thing in creation. Is not the charwoman style of curtains and a little twisted knob good for a laugh in any Pantomine. Where as the Prince in the Pantomine has always short hair not quite to the shoulders delicious curling all round the neck. 

The almost impossible task of doing long hair attractively before hurrying out to the day's work forced men to discontinue it. 

So now that daughters of most households work in offices or other places instead of lolling gracefully on sofas. They too have learnt the value of time. They have incidentally become most all more attractive and Mothers seeing their daughters charms with short hair like to look pretty too. 

L.D.S. 

This is the first letter we read that shares Lucy's strong opinions on the need for women to have short hair. One of her most well known (and published) letters to the Baltimore Sun contains a letter she sent to the King of England about his resistance to women cutting their hair. Today's letter contains wonderful language, I love that she mentions a "charwoman" - which is an older English term for a maid or cleaning woman. It is interesting to me how Lucy uses such generalizations about women such as... they don't have time to be lolling on sofas anymore... that long hair is only seen on maids or cleaning women (or therefore women of a lower class). The last sentence is rather telling as well. I wonder if Lucy initially cut her own hair when it became the style for her daughter to do so in the 20's. To see a picture of Lucy read the About page.   - Carrie

Notebook 1 - Feb 15th 1925

February 15th, 1925
Halethorpe

The Editor of the "Sunday Times"

Dear Sir:
I notice in your Photogravure Secture of today's issue where the Earl & Countess of Coventry are shown, that they are said to have been married 75 years and to be over 92 years old.
This is a mistake as they were married 60 (sixty) years ago, (And 60 years being called a "Diamond Wedding" in England) and the Earl is only 89, having been born in 1838.
The enclosed cuttings from the Overseas Daily Mail may be of interest to you, I do not need them returned.

Faithfully,
Lucy Derrick Swindells

This is another one of my favorite aspects of Lucy! She is never shy about correcting the local newspaper in areas that she feels she is an expert, particularly politics and English Society. While Lucy left England in 1921, she never lost her love of being English. She was extremely proud of her heritage and her mother country. - Carrie