Stanford Student Letters and Memoirs

[written] '96 p. 13 8 [typed] May

My dear Nannie--

This Fr. Revolution lecture is awfully stupid, even though it is the next to the last, and I am going to take the notes in paper transferable to you. You would laugh if you knew the way I write to you nowadays. In Eng.11--the short story class, we have had to write letters, so I always write to you except on theme paper, & then, of course I can't realize that you don't get them. Last night I dropt into the funniest lecture by a railroad official I fancy in the Canadian Pacific Railway. The lantern slides were beautiful & recalled vividly the trip home. But the lecture was ludicrous, nearly all dialect poetry. The past week has gone quickly--have been writing my Danton paper for Dr. Howard. I am sick and tired of it. Last week was Rose Carnival in San Jose. Stanford day was the great day, & of course we carried off the honors, beat Berkely etc. To-day there is fraternity initiation, and the boys are going around with white cotton gloves on, fishing in the middle of the dry quadrangle, patroling the arcades with mock uniforms & brooms and doing all imaginable nonsense. I think I have told Miss Hardy all your news but I musn't forget to tell you about the loveliest old bridge & stream right near--if only we had found it last summer. The days are perfect now & this morning is the happiest day since May. Poor Meriam Maclaren has had to go home with a carbuncle on her nose. I am afraid she will miss the Commencement week fun. Ed.Schneider is home with Edith Barfield. I haven't seen him yet out here he looks badly, having lost most of his hair.

Bye-bye Toodles.

[written] p. 227

[typed] Sunday - - Nov. 8 - '96

Your letters are so sweet and so jolly I simply love to get them & can scarcely keep from reading the funny parts to all the girls. You asked about the typhoid fever scare - it has all blown over now, & was more a rumour than anything else. Poor Mrs. Greggs was the saddest case. We are having heavenly weather, just cold enough to make everyone dig.

To-morrow for Wordsworth we have to be able to recite from one to twenty-five sonnets. I have been learning the one "The world is too much with us", but know I can't say it when anyone is listening to me. I am going to learn the one to sleep beginning "a flock of sheep that leisurely pass by" etc.

Yesterday Mr. Bete made a morning call as he often does on Saturdays. He is anxious to get up some kind of an organization simply for the purpose of having all the Episcopal girls know each other by meeting perhaps once a semester. What a dig he must have been in college! It will probably be called some kind of guild & I promised him my help.

Mr. Bronco whom I spoke of as one of the new Rho Eta boys is a most interesting fellow, his name will give you an inkling to his ancestory & history--it is Wilhelm Karl, Friederick, Robert, St. Hilare Braenkov!!! And he has Americanized it to Will Bronco. Joe looks like a German Greek!

I promised to dine with a Mrs. Peck in Palo Alto to talk over Wordsworth. I know her scarcely at all but hope she knows our subject and has something good to eat. Have put on my flannels and re-continued my delicious cold baths. The matron is a wizard, incompetant and harmless as ever. Yesterday in a football game between the Berkely Freshmen & our Freshman we beat them all to smash. Red'd Alpine Crowes wedding cards--she is now Mrs. Wallace R. Farrington. H.I. someone whom she met on her return from her visit to Mrs. McGrew.

Thank you and Aunt Clara so much for my beautiful dress-- the prettiest evening on I ever had.

Your Toodles.

[written] p. 32 27

[typed] Sunday Morning Nov. 22, '96

My precious Nannie--

It is too rainy to go over to Palo Alto this morning and I am heart broken to think I can't go to chapel, but yesterday was one of those obstinate days when one can`t study even though there is nothing else in the world to do. So today I have to make up for it. Yesterday I read two of Crawford's short stories - one "The Upper Berth", the other "By the Waters of Paradise". The first a very ghostly, oozy,ghost story, the other a very charming, pretty ghost story. Beside that I read one ofBret Hart's vulgarly realistic California stories, and I think he is horrid. Today Mr. Bete has all the campus Episcopal girls meet at Prof. Fairclough to "get acquainted" and to arrange about having _____ regularly to the church Sunday mornings - a good idea. Prof. Hudson read "The Blessed Damozel" beautifully in class the other day, I am enjoying Rossetti very much and am so glad I have the course. We take up Byron soon with Anderson, just as soon as we finish Wordsworth.

I envy your hearing Ian Maclasen - Bonny Bru's Buch will always be associated in my mind with the summer in the mountains when I was late for dinner because I would finish Dr. Mclure. I don't see why you were so anxious to put down that carpet I am sure I should be tickled to death to have some one else do it. The slippers are blessings, and just the right size. You remember those Mama made me were very much too large, but these are too cosy and warm for anything.

There was a great football rally the other evening in the chapel. Of course it was exceedingly crowded and the boys as usual crawled in the windows & joshed everybody & everything. Several of the professors spoke & the coach - Mr. Cross, and the big men on the team, ex graduate & anyone the men could conjure up. Mrs. Stanford was there & sat right in front of us, she was very sweet and amiable & enjoyed the college spirit & fun, wondering what it all meant. Our team is not nearly so strong this year & the Berkely team is especially good so there has been considerable gloom, but you would never have guessed it at that wildly hilarious & confident rally. Here I intended writing only aline but can't seem to do it. I had a letter from Gertrude who is well & very sweetly asked me to spend Thanksgiving with her, but deliver me from San Jose in a boarding house on such an occasion. A number of us will stay here & muster such good things to eat as we can and try not to wish ourselves at the game.

The winter rains have begun, but we suffer so little from mud here on account of the asphaltum everywhere that I don't mind wet weather.

Tuesday we have an examination in History 23 - 18th century in Europe and I simply must study for it now even if this page isnt quite full - I can't think of another blessed thing to write.

Bye-bye5- Your loving Toodles

[written] p. 33 28

[typed] Roble Hall. Evening. Thanksgiving - '96

My dearest Nannie,-

Can I ever settle myself to write a legible letter, 20 to 0 in favor of Stanford - Rah Rah, Rah, Rah Rah Rah, Rah Rah Stanford Really I could just jump up and down all through this letter I am so happy. 20-0 think of it. A quieter mass of students never left the campus, not a cheer or a yell, but a crisp, cold snappy morning with a team of well trained self-controlled, manly, fellows, that simply walked up and down the field, & Berkely tumbled before their fierce self possessed strength. Proud of them? I'd like to hug everyone of them! I tell you there is a staunch pride in this university that carrys it through every kind of crisis & brings it out triumphant, and it is the generous loyalty and love they & we all feel for our blessed Alma Mater and I wager there are lots of our men that do generous manly things for the Berkely boys to-day in their defeat.

It really has been a very happy day - someway, when I wasn't asleep Helen Younger and I were busy, and it speaks well for two persons congeniality, when they can put up with the other on a day of such suspense. She went to church with me early this morning and the walk in the sparkling frost was a ----- long; then we did some errands about Palo Alto for the dance next Saturday, and before and before we were through one of the bus men asked me to go down to Menlo Park to bring back the horses for him, as he was going to take the train & see the game. He couldn't understand our not going and even offerred us 10. He felt so sorry for us. We saw the long Flyer & the team near sauntering about the station as cool as cucumbers, some of them hailed us as we drove up. When we found ourselves in full possession of the respectable three seater & two horses coming home, we thought we would make the way a long one. So we stopped at the Sigma Rho Eta House where Alice Colt was spending the day with Mrs. Rice - we found Mr. Bruntors staying away from the game too so Mrs. Rice, Alice, & Mr. Bruntors got in with us & we drove around a little while and after taking them home we sailed back to Mr. Lund's stables where they seemed quite glad to see us, and said nothing about the length of the road back from Menlo being particularly long.

Afterward a package came from Charles, and what do you think it was! Two plump white boiled chickens, a chocolate cake, and a beautiful jar of canned peaches. I really think Charles is about the nicest man we shall ever know; wasn't that dear of him? This afternoon Helen & I read John Oliver Hoffe's "A Study in Temptations" and slept, till the glorious news came.

We haven't eaten of our good things yet but are waiting till Marylyn Maine gets home on the midnight train when we shall have our spread & celebrate. In the meantime we are going to bed.

Bye-bye Toodles