EMILY HALE - HER ENIGMATIC LOVE LIFE.

                                    

            A sudden interest in the life of the American Drama teacher Emily Hale has cropped up,

with the opening of her cache of 1131 love letters, fifty years after her death. These letters had been deposited in the Princeton University Library in 1956, and was opened in January 2020, in accordance with her wishes. The letters will be of interest because they will reveal the secret love life of a woman, who was not just the muse of the poet T.S. Eliot, but also his lover and confidante.

            Emily Hale was born on October 27^th 1891, in New Jersey, to Reverend Edward Hale a Unitarian minister and his wife. But she was brought up by her aunt Edith Perkins and her uncle Reverend John Carrol Perkins in Boston. She attended Berkley Street School in Cambridge and Miss Porter’s School in Farmington, Connecticut, but did not go to college. She became a Speech and Drama teacher and worked in many universities in the US. Emily always wanted to be an actor but was prevented from doing so by her conservative aunt and uncle. She became a member of the Amateur Cambridge Theatre and took part in many plays that were well received.

            Emily first met T.S. Eliot the poet in 1912, at his cousin’s house. He was then doing a course in Philosophy at Harvard. In 1913, the Amateur Theatre group produced a scene from Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’ in which Emily and Eliot performed. Eliot seemed to have fallen in love with this slim, graceful girl with a smiling face, and he professed his love for her before he returned to England in 1914. However, in spite of his confession of love for Emily, he went back and got married to a girl called Vivienne Haigh-Wood.

            In 1932-1933, Eliot visited Emily and decided to seek separation from his wife on grounds of sexual incompatibility. He could not divorce her because he was of the Anglican faith. Vivienne became mentally ill and had to be admitted to a mental hospital, where she died in 1947.

            Emily spent her summers with her uncle and aunt at Campden, Gloucestershire between the years 1935-1939. During these visits, her friendship with Eliot was revived and they spent many hours together. In 1935, he even wrote a poem ‘Burnt Norton’ named after a home in England which they had visited. He said it was his love poem to her. This was the first of many poems he wrote, declaring that Emily was his muse. It was the beginning of their epistolary romance which saw many letters exchanged between them. But the contents of her letters to Eliot were never known as he burnt them all. Emily preserved each one carefully, secretly exulting in the love he professed. Their correspondence lasted from 1930-1956.

            If Emily hoped that Eliot would marry her after Vivienne’s death, she was sorely disappointed. Many of his friends thought she was too prim and boring. She had to settle for platonic love in their relationship. Eliot’s last letter to her was in 1956.

            But when Eliot married his secretary Valerie Fletcher, thirty years his junior in 1957, Emily could bear it no more. She came to know of it through a mention in the Boston Globe. She had a nervous breakdown and had to undergo therapy. Some wise man had cautioned “Never date a poet. He’ll always do a dirty on you,” and that is what happened. Was it Emily’s lack of self love and self esteem that permitted Eliot to ride roughshod over her emotions? In the end Eliot had the gall to say “Emily would have killed the poet in me.” He died in 1965.

            In time, Emily snapped out of her ‘Broken Heart syndrome’ with surprising resilience. She began to work again and continued to teach at the Abbot Academy of Drama from 1947- 1959.

            Emily led a quiet life after her retirement until her death on October 12^th 1969. Unworthy as he was, she kept a photo of Eliot on the bureau in her apartment. Though her life was nothing but emotional chaos, she never bared her heart to the world. Now that those letters from Eliot are open to scrutiny, the literary world will have more details of that ambiguous relationship. As Anthony Curd an Eliot scholar said, “This is perhaps the literary event of the decade. I don’t know anything more awaited or significant. It is momentous to have these letters come out.”

ANNA MARY ROBERTSON MOSES -THE GERIATRIC WONDER.

            

 

            Anna Mary Robertson a folk artist of the 20^th Century proved that Age is no bar to living a fruitful life. As Longfellow said “Nothing is too late until the tired heart ceases to palpitate.”

            Anna was born on 7^th September, 1860, at Greenwich, New York. Her father was a small-time farmer, and she was third daughter in a family of ten. Her father recognized her passion for Art and would buy for her white paper sheets for her drawings. She would use lemon and grape fruit juice, grass, flour paste or saw dust to colour her drawings. Anna attended school for just a short time.

            At the age of 12, she became house keeper of a family and worked there for fifteen years. Her employers too recognized her interest in Art and provided her with chalk, wax and crayons. Apart from cooking and cleaning, Anna also did sewing and embroidery. She embroidered colourful landscapes on cloth and attractive quilted objects for family and friends, from 1930 till her 76^th year when she began to develop arthritis. Using needle and thread for her embroidery became painful. Her sister suggested that painting would be easier.

            So in 1918 at the age of 78, Anna started painting every day until she was 90. When her right hand grew tired, she would paint with her left hand, but never gave up. She generated more than 1500 canvases and initially sold them for a pittance.

            In 1938, an Art collector Louis J Calder discovered her paintings in the window of a drug store in Hoosick Falls, New York. He bought all of them and promoted her work among New York Art dealers. In 1939, three of her paintings were exhibited in the New York Museum of Modern Art, titled “Contemporary Unknown Painters.”

This was followed by solo exhibitions in New York, other parts of USA and later in Europe for the next twenty years. Bennington Museum in Vermont has the largest collection of her paintings.

            In 1887, Anna was married at the age of 27, to Thomas Solomon Moses a farmer. They stayed in Virginia for two decades and had ten children. But only five survived. Always an industrious woman, Anna not only worked on the farm but supplemented their income by making and selling potato chips and butter churned from cows’ milk. In 1905, the couple relocated to Eagle Bridge, New York. Thomas died in 1927. Anna continued to run the farm with the help of her son Forrest.

            Anna portrayed pastoral scenes in different seasons, like snow fall in winter or budding greenery in spring. She also painted people engaged in farm activities. She was completely self- taught and developed her own style of painting from top to down- first the sky, then the hills down to houses, people and cattle. The luminous colours she used imbued her paintings with life. Artists may have thought her art was primitive and called it “Naïve Art,” but it never bothered her. “I paint to keep busy and pass the time away,” she said. She drew from memory.

A German critic remarked, “The unrest and neurotic insecurity of present day make us inclined to enjoy the simple, and affirmative outlook of Grandma Moses. She depicted the world as beautiful and good.”

Judith Stein an Art historian said she was ‘a cultural icon. The spry, productive nonagenarian was continually cited as an inspiration to house wives, widows and retirees.’

Jean McMahon, Professor of Women’s Studies called her a ‘homespun feminist who advocated Women’s Suffrage.’

Grandma Moses escaped from the feeling of domestic confinement through Art and her paintings.

            In 1950, the National Press Club cited her as one of the five most newsworthy women.

At 88 years, Mademoiselle Magazine called her ‘The Youngest Woman of the Year.’

            After retirement from farm work Anna moved in with her daughter. In 1952, she published her autobiography “My Life History.” She wrote “I look on my life as a good day’s work………Life is what we make it. Always has been, always will be.”

            The ‘tiny, lively woman with mischievous grey eyes and quick wit’ won numerous awards and two honorary doctorate degrees.

Her 100^th birthday was celebrated as “Grandma Moses Day” by Nelson Rockefeller. In the September 19^th, 1960 issue of Life Magazine, Grandma Moses was featured on the cover page.

She died at the age of 101, on December 1^st, 1961, at a healthcare centre in Hoosick Falls, New York, and was buried in Maple Grove Cemetery.

President John Kennedy said, “Death of Grandma Moses removed a beloved figure from American life. The directness and vividness of her paintings restored a primitive freshness to our perception of American life.”

            Grandma Moses leaves behind the message that Age is no bar to a productive life.

           

AGNES SMEDLEY – SELFLESS POLITICAL ACTIVIST.

                                    

            Agnes Smedley was a radical activist from an early age. Most of her life was spent championing the cause of the oppressed. She held extreme political views which got her into trouble with the authorities.

            Born in Osgood, Missouri on February 23^rd 1892, she was the daughter of a labourer Charles Smedley, who deserted the family when Agnes was 14. As her mother was sickly, Agnes was forced to work as a domestic, to help support her family. Undeterred by her circumstances, she passed the New Mexico Teachers Examination, and began to work as a teacher at the age of 16, in Terico.

            In 1911 Agnes joined the Tempe College. It was here that she became involved in student politics. She married her college mate Ernest Brunden in 1912, and moved to Teachers College in San Diego. In 1916, she joined the Socialist Party of America and was dismissed from college for her socialist beliefs.

            Agnes got divorced in 1917 and moved to New York. She joined a group of Indian students who were supporting their country’s Nationalist Movement against British rule. She joined the “Friends of Freedom for India” an organization which was closely monitored by the US government. Emma Goldman called Agnes a true rebel who seemed to have no other interest in life except the cause of the oppressed in India. She was also disseminating information about Birth Control under the influence of Margaret Sanger, a subject which was taboo at that time. In 1918, she was charged on these two accounts and sent to prison.

            After her release from prison, Agnes began writing articles for the New York Call and for a British birth control journal run by Margaret Sanger.

            Agnes moved to Berlin in 1920, with the revolutionary Indian leader Virendranath Chattopadyaya. It was a turbulent relationship with a man who had ‘a tongue like a razor and a brain like hell on fire.’ She felt she was living on the brink of a volcanic crater. While in Berlin, she opened the first Birth Control Clinic.

            In 1921, Agnes moved to Russia and got interested in the communist ideology. She was disillusioned by the lack of freedom of the people and felt that everybody was under surveillance. In 1928 she moved out of Russia and went to China. When in China, she spent a great deal of time with communist forces. She wrote articles for the Manchester Guardian and Chinese Review about the situation in China. She was aware of the misery and starvation of peasants and the overworked coolies. Agnes was instrumental in ensuring American support to the Chinese communists, to prevent the Japanese advancing in the Pacific.

            It was here in 1928 that Agnes wrote her autobiographical novel “Daughter of the Earth.” The book was published in USA and Germany and received good reviews. It was described as ‘America’s first feminist proletarian novel.’

            In 1941, Agnes went back to the USA. She continued with her writing and went on lecture tours describing life in China. She also lectured on world politics. She was dubbed a communist spy, who worked as a triple agent for the Soviets, China and India. The FBI monitored her speeches, as she frequently attacked the US government for siding with totalitarian regimes.

            In 1949, Agnes was fed up of the smear campaigns unleashed against her in the US. So she moved to Oxford, England. By then she was in poor health and she died at the age of 58, on 6^th May 1950.

            Agnes Smedley was a complicated person. She acted out of humane motives, without considering the repercussions of her actions. She lived a life of extraordinary achievements as a gifted writer, a journalist and a feminist who had friends like Margaret Sanger, Emma Goldman and even Mao Tse Tung. But her enemies outnumbered her friends because of her political activism. Freda Utley described her as “one of the great people with burning sympathy for the misery and wrongs of mankind.”

KRIPABAI SATTIYANANDAN – INDIA’S FIRST FEMINIST WRITER.

            

In the 1880s, a young woman from Madras raised her voice against the systemic degradation of women. She believed that if women had to rise to power, they should redefine feminity. Marriage and domesticity should not be the sole ambition of women. They had the right to live and not simply exist; the right to independent thought and intellectual pursuits. This brave woman was bold enough to communicate her convictions through her writing. She was the first Indian woman to write in English, and the first Indian feminist novelist.

Kripabai was born in 1862 at Ahmednagar, to Hindu parents Haripunt and Radhika Khisty. She lost her father at an early age and was brought up by her mother and brother. Her brother Bhaskar encouraged her to read a lot, and engaged her in discussions on then prevailing issues. Unfortunately he too died at a young age.

Kripabai converted to Christianity but she grew up observing both religions. Her education was sponsored by two European missionaries. She was the first woman to attend the Madras Medical College. She lived as a boarder in the house of Rev. W. T. Sattiyanandan. But because of her poor health, she had to discontinue her medical studies.

While boarding in the Reverend’s house, she fell in love with his son Samuel Sattiyanandan and married him. He was the Head Master of a school in Ooty. Kripabai used that time in Ooty to start a school for Muslim girls. She was a strong advocate of women’s education This was also the time when she started writing her articles and poems. They were published under the byline “An Indian Lady.” Her first published article was “A Visit to the Todas.”

Ill health dogged her footsteps and she had to return to the warmer climate of Madras in 1886, when she seriously began to write her first book “Suguna –Story of a Native’s Christian Life.” It was semi-autobiographical in which she also referred to her brother. Though she spoke Marathi, Tamil and Telugu, she found it easier to write in English in which she was fluent. During this time, she gave birth to a child who died before its first year.

Kripabai’s health gradually deteriorated. She was diagnosed with Tuberculosis which did not respond to treatment. She used this time to write her second novel “Kamala”- The story of a high caste Hindu woman caught in the grip of orthodoxy, and her life as a child bride, mother and widow. Some of it was written from her hospital bed.

Kripabai was an advocate of women’s education. She was passionately involved in women’s issues and decried decadent customs and superstitions. Some of her articles were unfinished at the time of her death in 1894.

Madras Medical College has perpetuated her memory by offering a scholarship to a woman candidate to study Pharmacology or go for higher Medical studies. Madras University too offers a medal to a female who stands first in English.

It is a pity that Kripabai died so young and could not see the progress of women in the 21^st century.

           

VICTORIA WOODHULL – A SOCIALLY SCANDALOUS ACTIVIST.

            

             Victoria Woodhull lived by her own rules and was a radical in many ways during her life time. She donned many hats as publisher, author, women’s rights activist and politician. She was hailed by some, scoffed at by others and disparaged by many. Yet she succeeded in leaving her footprints on the sands of Time.

            Born in Ohio, USA on 23^rd September 1838, to an illiterate mother and a petty criminal father, Victoria had never been to school until she was eight, and then on and off for three years. She was forced by her father to become an itinerant clairvoyant along with the sister Tennessee, telling people’s fortunes and acting as a medium for contacting spirits. It brought in some money for their sustenance. But much later in life she gave up spiritualism and even derided spiritualist frauds.

            Victoria had many firsts to her credit. In 1868, along with her sister Tennessee, she became the first woman to run a Stock Brokerage Company on Wall Street, courtesy the wealthy industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt to whom she provided ‘psychological solace.’ But being a woman, she could not get a seat in the New York Stock Exchange.

            In 1870 she published the “Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly” and ran it for six years. In this paper she freely expressed her controversial opinions on social reform, women’s suffrage, birth control, and taboo subjects like free love and sexuality. Her paper was the first to print an English translation of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederich Engels.

            In 1871 through the influence of her friend Benjamin Butler a senator of Massachusetts, she became the first woman to address a Congressional Committee in the House of Representatives, on Women’s Rights. She said, “Women are the equal of men before the Law and have equal rights.” This brought her popularity and a position of leadership among the suffragettes. But a few years later, many of them became her fiercest critics, fearing that her unconventional lifestyle would put the Movement in jeopardy. When a comprehensive History of Women’s Suffrage was complied, her name was never mentioned.

            Victoria will go down in history as the first woman who ran for President of the United States in 1872. By then she had formed her own “Equal Rights Party” and contested on its ticket. But she was below 35 years of age which was the constitutionally mandated age for all candidates. No one took her candidacy seriously and she received no electoral votes.

            Victoria was also an author. Among her publications were “Stirpiculture or the Scientific Propagation of the Human Race” (1888) “Garden of Eden: Allegoric Meaning Revealed” (1889) and “The Human Body – The Temple of God.”(1890). She was an excellent speaker and even her critics recognized and acknowledged the power of her oratorical skills.

            Victoria became a target of public criticism because of her incorrigible lifestyle. She was thrice married and her first marriage was at the age of 15, to Canning Woodhull with whom she had two children. She was divorced after her first two marriages. During her time, divorce was socially scandalous and also limited by the law. Women who divorced were stigmatized by society. She had many other casual relationships too.

            Victoria was jailed along with her sister for publishing ‘obscene literature’ about Reverend Henry Ward Beecher and his clandestine affair with one of his parishioners.

            In 1877, Victoria and her sister moved to England. She continued to champion Women’s Rights and Women’s Suffrage, and spoke at many public functions. She finally settled down as a wife of a wealthy banker John Biddulph Martin in 1883.

            Along with her daughter, Victoria published a magazine “The Humanitarian” and ran it successfully for nine years. But after the death of her husband, she gave up publishing and retired to a village Brendon’s Norton in Worcestershire. She built a school there and became a champion of education in village schools.

            Victoria Woodhull died on June 9, 1927. Her life was a story of triumph over poverty, bad marriages, a hostile society and a sea of detractors. She was a woman of rare courage and stood up boldly for her convictions.

           

BAYA MAHIEDINNE – PICASSO’S INSPIRATION.

                        

            Some people are born artists and Baya or Fatima Haddad of Algeria was one such gifted person. Born in 1931 at a village called Bordj El Kiftan in Algeria, her talent for painting was evident even before the age of ten.

            Orphaned at the age of five, she was brought up by her grandmother. As a teenager she worked in the house of a French lady Marguerite Caminat, as a domestic help. This lady spotted her talent and encouraged Baya to draw and paint, even supplying her with paint, paper and whatever else she required. Later, Baya was legally adopted by her.

            Marguerite was well connected in the Art and Literary world. She showed Baya’s paintings to an Art dealer Aimee Maeght. Impressed by her talent, Aimee who was the Director of Maeght Art Gallery in Paris, organized a solo exhibition of Baya’s paintings in 1947. She was just sixteen years old and found herself suddenly in the limelight.  Andre Breton, Founder of the Surrealist Movement was impressed by her work and saw in her paintings a surrealistic dream like quality. In the Exhibition Catalogue he wrote that he was “promoting the beginning of Queen Baya.”

            But Baya refused to have her work compartmentalized under any genre. “I am a free spirit and paint the world within me,” she said. “When I paint I am happy. I am in another world. I forget everything.”

            Picasso met the teenaged Baya and was impressed with her work and the spontaneousness in her figures. In 1948 he invited her to work with him. It was a case of mutual admiration. They inspired and appreciated each other’s work. Though Picasso was fifty years older than her, she gave him fresh perspective and inspired him to paint a collection of women called “Women of Algeria.” An Art historian commented “Picasso nurtured Baya’s aesthetic – particularly her use of colour and line, while Baya’s cultural vitality served as a creative life blood for Picasso.”

            In 1952 Baya married an Algerian musician and composer Maheidinne Mahfoudh. Baya threw herself into domesticity, temporarily forsaking painting, to bring up six children in the years between 1953-1963. But she returned to painting in 1967 with renewed vigour. She was completely self- taught and painting was her passion. Totally illiterate, she could barely sign her name.

            Baya’s output was copious. Her subjects were women in colourful dresses, children, animals, flowers, fish and butterflies. Her colours were vibrant, her outlines bold and well defined. Baya’s work was exhibited in Paris and Algeria. Some of her paintings were printed on postal stamps. She also tried her hand at pottery.

            Critics called her work primitive, naïve or surreal. Some saw similarities with Islamic or African tribal art. It did not bother her or affect her work. She only allowed her environment and imagination to influence her artistry.

            Though invited to settle in France, Baya preferred to stay in Bilda Algeria until her death on November 9^th, 1998. This humble lady’s tribal art fascinated the western world.

           

COUNTESS ADA LOVELACE – ENCHANTRESS OF NUMBERS.

                        

The digital world today hardly remembers “The Mother of Computer Science” – Ada Lovelace, who wrote the first computer program in 1837, while she was still in her teens.

            Ada Augusta was the daughter of the poet Lord George Gordon Byron, who suffered bouts of insanity and was notorious for his erratic behaviour. He abandoned his family when Ada was only a month old, either because he felt intimidated by his highly intelligent wife Anne Isabella Milbanke, Baroness of Wentworth, or because Ada was not the ‘glorious boy’ the couple had expected.

            Ada was born on the 10^th of December 1815, in London. She grew up under the care of her maternal grandmother Judith, Lady Milbanke. Her mother had little affection for her and distanced herself from her child. She was always afraid that Ada would show signs of insanity like her father. Though physically distanced from Ada, she made sure that her daughter got a sound education through the best of private tutors. Maths, Logic and Science were subjects that took precedence over French and Music. She kept a close watch on Ada’s progress and berated her if she didn’t do well in her studies.

            From an early age, Ada showed a keen interest in Maths. She also had a fascination for machines. At the age of 8 she modelled boats. At 13, she designed flying machines. But Ada was not a very healthy girl. In 1829, she was paralyzed after an attack of measles and was incapacitated for a year. She had to walk with crutches until 1832. But nothing could mask her brilliant mind. She was presented at Court when 17, and became the belle of the season because of her brilliant mind.

            The highlight of Ada’s life was her meeting in 1833 with Charles Babbage, a Mathematics professor at the University of Cambridge. He was called the ‘Father of Computing’ and invented the first programmable computer – The Analytical Engine. He invited mother and daughter to view a small version of this calculating machine. Ada was determined to find out how it worked and asked for the machine’s blueprints. Her enthusiasm was such that she became the world’s first computer programmer, publishing the Bernoulli Number Algorithm. Ada was convinced that it would not just remain a calculator but would contribute to other areas like music, alphabet, images that could be converted into computer algorithms.

            Ada was married at the age of 19 to William King, Earl of Lovelace, and bore him three children in quick succession between 1836 -1839. But she had inherited from her father a flirtatious tendency and her affairs led to gossip among her mother’s friends. Ada was also a gambler and lost scandalous amounts on horse races.

Ada Lovelace 

            Ada’s greatest friend and mentor was Mary Somerville a famous mathematician. Together they discussed high level maths and also about Charles Babbage’s machine. It was Charles who called Ada ‘Lady Fairy’ and ‘Enchantress of Numbers.’

            Though Ada’s mother tried to poison her mind against her truant father and showed her his photograph only when she was 20 years old, Ada secretly harboured a soft corner for Byron. On November 27^th 1852, Ada died at the age of 36, from uterine cancer. According to her dying wishes, she was buried beside the grave of her father in the Church of St. Mary of Magdalene, Hucknall, Nottingham.

            Ada Lovelace Day commemorates her genius. It is a day when Women International celebrities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) are recognized and felicitated. It was first celebrated in 2009, and is now annually observed on the 2^nd Tuesday in October.