In Italy I’ll be in Florence a week, Venice a bit longer, and start and wind up in Milan — so that’s the best general address. I am not sure exactly when I’ll be staying in London, it depends on the friends I’m visiting, etc. But you could drop me a note there with telephone numbers, perhaps, and I’ll get in touch with you? I hope you have a nice sea voyage — I’m returning by boat but wish I were going by boat, too.
Yesterday I received a letter from my aunt Grace (Mrs. William Bowers) — enclosing the letter you wrote to the Great Village “Chamber of Commerce.” I’m awfully sorry it turned out that way. I know you were just doing your job and naturally tried to “check up” on the informations I’ve been writing you. But Great Village is so small there isn’t any such thing as a Chamber of Commerce there, and everyone knows everyone else, of course. Whoever got your letter just handed it over to my aunt. She is almost eighty years old now (although the rest of her letter was all about her first trout fishing of the season) and apparently she was baffled and a bit put out — She has never wanted to discuss the past with me at all, although she was more concerned with my mother than anyone else, and I think now, almost fifty years later, she has almost succeeded in burying it completely. She was the only daughter of that family who “went back home;”* she married a farmer, a widower with eight children, produced three more of her own, and for many years has lived on the largest farm in N.S. (They used to raise trotting horses, among other things.) By now she has many grandchildren and dozens of step-grandchildren — and so has a great deal of “life” to have buried the past under.
I know you should be able to confirm my statements somehow but I honestly can’t think how.
I’ll answer your questions myself — but again, it’s just my word for it! Long ago I used to try to get details from Aunt Grace but I never succeeded. — She is an active, strong, humorous woman, my favorite relative as I’ve already said — and she believes in living in the present. I think, too, like most families, mine has no idea that I could possibly have done anything that the rest of the world would be interested in — at least they apparently haven’t thought much of my life and works since I went away to school! Aunt Grace has given me some information about the Bulmer family, what little I do know — she and the aunt I lived with—
Well — I’ll answer for the “Chamber of Commerce” (if you could see the “Village” I think you’d be amused.) — and I wish I could think of an outside source for you …
My great-grandfather’s (One of them) name was Robert Hutchinson. He was part-owner and captain of a brig or barque (I’m not sure which) that sailed out of G V when it was a ship-building place — hasn’t been since the beginning of the century, probably.
Aunt Grace is the only real “Bulmer” left, there. — There is a sister-in-law, and some distant cousins live around there — There were five children, in this order: Maud, Arthur, Gertrude, Grace, and Mary. Aunt Mary lives in Montreal (Mrs. J.K. Ross), — the others you know about.
It has always been said that what set off my mother’s insanity was the shock of my father’s death at such an early age, and when they’d only been married three years. (He was 39 she was 29). It is the only case of insanity in the family, as far as we know. She had undoubtedly (I think) shown symptoms of trouble before — perhaps traits that in our enlightened, etc. days might have been noticed and treated earlier. As it was, she did receive the very best treatment available at that time, I feel sure. She was in McLean’s Sanitarium outside of Boston* (you must have heard of that) — once or maybe twice. Aunt Grace herself went with her, and also, I think, though I’m not positive, took her to doctors in N.Y. — At any rate, the Bishop family “spared no expense.” Since Aunt Grace was so involved with it all she naturally does not like to remember it, I suppose. That generation took insanity very differently than we do now, you know. My father did not beat her or anything like that — really! I am telling you the facts as I have always been given to understand them, and a lot I remember pretty well. (Of course I may have distorted it, but as I’m sure you know, children do have a way of overhearing everything.) The tragic thing was that she returned to N S when she did, before the final breakdown. At that time, women became U S citizens when they married U S citizens, — so when she became a widow she lost her citizenship. Afterwards, the U S would not let her back in, sick, and that is why she had to be put in the hospital at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia (across the harbor from Halifax). My Bishop grandfather tried for a long time to get her back in the US. One always thinks that things might be better now, she might have been cured, etc. — Aunt Grace suffered most of all because of it, and being the kind of woman she is, her technique is to bury it, not speak of it, etc.
Well — there we are. Times have changed. I have several friends who are, have been, will be, etc. insane;
I think that greatgrandfather was the only real “sea-farer”—the only one I know of. As I said, my mother’s father ran the tannery for many years. His people were farmers from “River Philip” (wherever that is! — I just remember hearing that). One of his cousins, very rustic, used to appear once or twice a year when I was small, with gifts of bear meat and venison, in sacks in the back of the buggy.
If I can think of anyone I know now in G V who might help you I’ll let you know — but it’s a long time ago. And they really wouldn’t understand your reasons, you know—
Well—adiozinho, as we say here—
Affectionately yrs, Elizabeth Bishop
P S. I don’t know much about my father except that his remaining sister, my last “Bishop” relative, who died last year, was devoted to him, and so had been all my mother’s side of the family, too. He was apparently quiet and gentle; I have a letter or two he wrote to my Bulmer grandmother, very funny and affectionate. He was tall and good-looking (neither of which characteristics he handed on to me). He liked to stay at home and read. Most of his books unfortunately were sold before I grew up, but I have a half-dozen or so. This week I have been reading his very elegant edition of “Stones of Venice”, with his bookplate, given him by two of his sisters for Christmas, 1898. What a madman! (Ruskin, I mean, not my pa—)
I don’t think I thanked you enough, really, for your invitations in England. I’ll get there around June 14th, I think, although my dates are a bit vague. I am hoping Lota can come with me but I’m afraid she’ll be flying back from Milan then — she can’t leave her park; no one does any work when she’s not on hand. I have a sailing back for August 1st, my comings and goings in England depend somewhat on some old friends I’m visiting, and I also want to get to Scotland for ten days, possibly.
I made a long automobile trip in Ireland long ago and had such a nice time I don’t think I want to go back unless I can drive around again that way. It seems to be much more popular for tourists than it was when I went. I saw just about all the coastline except for Wicklow, I think — spent a couple of weeks in Dublin, etc.—
About Brazilian politics — I see I’ve ignored your remarks without meaning to, and I shouldn’t have because people rarely take that much real interest in Brazil … There seems to be a tendency in the U S to take Brazilian leaders at their word — and their word, or words, for the last thirty years or so, haven’t been worth a penny. ENCOUNTER sent me a pamphlet by John Strachey about “Democracy”—platitudinous and simple as it is (meant for broadcasting, perhaps) he does make intelligent distinctions about “democracy”—how there is really so very little of it, and that little pretty much confined to the U S, Britain, and France (he says). The U S — from the press — seems to feel that the last two presidents here were really, underneath, democrats and liberals trying to help the poor masses, etc. — and were held back by greedy Senators and an entrenched rich greedy aristocracy. Well, they couldn’t be more wrong — but I’ve rarely been able to tell any American this, and have almost given up trying. One was a psychotic who had a breakdown—& this last was a crook. — I said several years ago he was closer to Jimmy Hoffa than anyone else — and my American friends thought I had turned “reactionary”. He has now, thank heavens, been kicked out — and has taken a huge fortune with him, and left the biggest property in land ever acquired in South America (