B007RT1UH4 EBOK (73 page)

We all send love & let us know how you prosper—

Willie

Matthew: Gaddis’s son, then ten.

To Sarah Gaddis

[
An undated memo attached to a copy of an undated obituary-essay on Samuel E. Williams (died 1937; see headnote to 16 November 1943) entitled “The Road That Leads to Somewhere” by Philip Kabel, possibly from the
Union City Times Gazette
. The article discusses the maternal side of WG’s family history in some detail.
]

Dear Sarah——you have asked often enough about the family story and I thought you might find this of interest. It is from an Indiana newspaper about 30 years ago—Robert Way was Grandmother’s ‘brother’—S.E. Williams was your great great Grandfather—and you see there
is
an Indian princess way back in your family—and that you had ancestors settling in Boston about 340 years ago! (I also thought you’d like some of the names, like Peninah!—)

much love from

Papa

Robert Way: the obituary also notes the recent death at age 31 of Robert Dickinson Way, a pianist and music professor.

an Indian princess: Mary Crews, described by Kabel as “a Cherokee Indian princess” (cf. note to 13 August 1956).

ancestors settling in Boston: Kabel notes that Williams’s ancestors “settled in Boston in 1630.”

Peninah: “In 1876,” Kabel writes, Williams “was married to Ella Hough, daughter of Moses and Peninah Hough.”

To Sarah Gaddis

[
An undated letter (probably January 1969) reproduced here as an example of WG’s calligraphic handwriting.
]

Candide
or
Ethan Frome
: WG quoted Voltaire’s novella earlier (4 May 1951). Edith Wharton’s short novel (1911) is mentioned in passing in
J R
(516).

To Sarah Gaddis

[
A birthday greeting to his daughter, who was living near Boston with her brother and her mother’s third husband and children. In February 1969 WG had bought a house about 10 miles north of New York City, which would become the setting for
Carpenter’s Gothic
. WG’s mother had recently died.
]

25 Ritie street

Piermont NY 1968

8 Sept. 69

Dear Sarah.

Here you are, with Birthday distributed in pieces around coming and going and school. Perhaps this is normal for Virgo? Mr Thompson’s birthday in late August (Virgo) went on-and-off-and-on for 4 days. At any rate you will find enclosed the confirmation that you
are
14 (count them), and I so earnestly hope the day itself is a
good
one. Unmitigated (look it up!) praise of course is something we should all be wary of so I won’t do that here, since obviously there are a few areas for improvement which is part of the process of growing up, but you are a daughter to be immensely proud of, and I am, as I said in another letter to you, less frequently aware than I should be of the privilege. It was an awareness Grandmother had, and even though her later days were not easy ones I hope you know how much pride and very real joy she took in you and Matthew, how much the very fact of your happy existence added to her life. Her loss is something I am far from used to and I know you have similar feelings but, after all, we might scarcely miss her so much if she had not been so close and generous to us all our lives and so our missing her is really a measure of all she did for us, in which I think she found her own reward.

And so how many ways your starting off into high school is a new start and a demanding one and an exciting one, and one in which I hope you won’t look for instant results or solutions, or make instant judgments (of people ‘good’ and otherwise), of yourself and where you stand and who you are in relation to those around you.

I know you are impatient about life, which is very much a part of being 14, and so make an effort to take your time about looking over things and people and situations and yourself in relation to them, so that you can keep a little freedom of choice when choices present themselves. At the heart of all this I think is your regard for yourself and your worth as a person, and the essential idea that you must put a high value on yourself. I don’t mean ‘snob’ value or more-clothes-than-so-&-so or cash-in-hand or ‘popularity’, because these are all just the cheapenings of your worth, your real worth as a person, and perhaps you can get some idea of that in the love that so many of us have for you, and some of the confidence to play things a little cool and above
all
to keep your sense of humour! Because a sense of humour is simply a sense of proportion, of the real worth of things in relation to each other, which lets you see how totally ridiculous some of the most intensely fought out selfish battles can often be, and Sarah if you can keep your sense of humour you are a step ahead almost anywhere you go.

Of course we all regret the fact of your birthday falling in the midst of change and readjustment on so many hands, so that it cannot be the kind of Cake-and-Hands-around-the-table occasion dear to even grown-up children. So on Wednesday I hope you won’t feel any “gyp” that some of it is already behind you (that you’re wearing some of it, that is) but have a fine birthday there. And then I have written your Mother about our going out to a somewhat belated birthday dinner on Monday when we bring Matthew back up. How would that be? And then we can go over various things including your allowance which I know got somewhat confused on your last visit and is in arrears, clothing money, &c.

Like those people in
Our Town
it seems so difficult sometimes simply to stop and live ‘every every minute’. I will be so eager to hear about people and school, perhaps you can take us over Monday for a look around? since by then of course you will know it intimately. [...]

with much much love,

Papa