Theodora V.W. Ward

Editing Emily

Theodora Van Wagenen Ward
1890 Nov 13 - 1974 Aug 16

© VanWagenen.org

I know I ought to resist but in Emily Dickinson's Letters to Dr. and Mrs. Josiah Gilbert Holland, Letter LXXVII, p. 173, Emily misspells Bleecker's last name, writing it "Mr-Van Wagner." Theodora comments editorially "Her misspelling of 'Van Wagenen' brought a prompt response, to which she refers as a reprimand, probably from Kate, to whom she sends an apology in the next letter." Letter LXXVIII reads "Orthography always baffled me, and to 'Ns' I had an especial aversion, as they always seemed unfinished M's. Will dear Mrs 'Van Wagenen' excuse me for taking her portentous name in vain?" The topic surfaces one more time in Letter LXXXIII "Love for the sweet Catharines, Rose and Bud in one, and the Gentleman with the vast Name...."

Appendix B

Appendix B in Emily Dickinson's Letters to Dr. and Mrs. Josiah Gilbert Holland lists dates and events for both families. I have only listed the Holland information here:

"Important dates in the Lives of Dr. and Mrs. Josiah Gilbert Holland and their children up to the time of Emily Dickinson's death.

Josiah Gilbert Holland born	24 July 1819
Elizabeth Luna Chapin born	3 July 1823
Josiah Gilbert Holland and Elizabeth Chapin married	7 October 1845
The Hollands at Vicksburg, Mississippi	1847-1848
J.G. Holland joined the Springfield Republican	1849
Annie Holland born	15 September 1851
Kate Holland born	1 November 1853
J.G. Holland's first book History of Western Massachusetts, published	1854
Theodore Holland born	7 December 1859
J.G. Holland's connection with Springfield Republican ended	1867
Holland family in Europe	May 1868-May 1870
Scribner's Monthly started	November 1870
Holland family moved to New York	1872
"Bonniecastle" built	1877
Josiah Gilbert Holland died	12 October 1881
Annie Holland married John Howe	7 December 1881
Kate Holland married Bleecker Van Wagenen	27 September 1882
Kathrina Holland Van Wagenen born	8 August 1883
Garrat Bleecker Van Wagenen born	9 February 1885
A list of titles of J.G. Holland's books, with dates of publication, is found in Josiah Gilbert Holland in Relation to his Times, by Harry Houston Peckham (Philadelphia, 1940), p. 213."

Theodora

The story didn't stop there, obviously! The New Hampshire Authors website says: "Theodora Van Wagenen born in South Orange, New Jersey."

In Theodora's own words:

"Let's go back to the closing years of the nineteenth century and take the Hudson River ferry boat from New York to New Jersey, step into the waiting train at Hoboken and go to visit the Van Wagenen family in South Orange, where Kathrina, Garrat and Theodora lived as children. Everybody came by train because there were no automobiles, and it took forty minutes to Mountain Station, the part of South Orange where they lived." [Ancestors, I.]

Education

"Kathrina and I hadn't far to go, for Mrs. Door's school was on the street than ran beside the house. It was a small private school of high standards, but boys were not accepted after the first few grades, and Garrat had to go elsewhere. When he was about twelve he was entered at the Newark Academy, a large institution with years of good reputation behind it, and was gone all day, so that he became a stranger with interest in the great world beyond our knowledge." (p. 6)

"At one o'clock we girls came home to lunch and then were free for the afternoon, except for music lessons and daily practicing." (p. 7)
[Ancestors, II.]

Religion

"From the dining-room [after breakfast] the whole family moved to the library for family prayers. Father read a bible passage, the we all got up, turned around, and knelt before our chairs while we joined in reciting the General Thanksgiving from the Episcopal Prayer Book, to which father added a collect or two, and ended with the Lord's Prayer." (p. 6)

"Sunday morning the "big carriage", a sort of barouche, was rolled out, and the whole family, including Katie, drove to the Presbyterian Church.... We did not go to Sunday School because our parents thought the teaching so inadequate that we might receive distorted impressions of the Bible and its meaning. Instead, they read us the Bible stories themselves on Sunday evenings from a profusely illustrated book still in my possession, in which the engraved figures, almost sculpturally heroic in quality, have always remained in my memory as authentic portraits of the characters." (p. 9)
[Ancestors, II.]

Culture

"Mr. MacDougall, the director of the Bureau of Associated Charities ... was a frequent visitor, since Father was president of the board of the institution and was eager to lead it into modern scientific methods of work. Sometimes Father told us of events at the publishing office of Dodd Mead and Company, of which he was the treasurer, and occasionally he brought home a visiting author or told us anecdotes of those he met. The best of the new books were always on our table, as well as the leading literary periodical of the time The Bookman, which the company published, and The Atlantic and Harper's as well." [Ancestors, II, 9]

Art

The New Hampshire Authors full-text reads:
"Ward, Theodora Van Wagenen (1890-1974); born in South Orange, NJ; lived in Alstead, NH; artist; author of books about Emily Dickinson"

I wondered about the "artist" reference in the above quotation. Gus Buchtel, a great-nephew of Theodora, emailed me January 27, 2005 to say:

"You will find in "Ancestors" a section about her [Theodora's] interest in Jung and her art training by Gauguin's son. She made beautiful woodblocks - one of my cousins has the blocks and a few years ago she and my sister made some prints from them for distrubution at a family reunion; very beautiful work. Her brother [Garrat] (my grandfather) was also an artist in his spare time - he used charcoal."

These two pictures were provided by Beppy White. The one is an actual woodblock; the other a print from a woodblock. Both are by Theodora Van Wagenen Ward.

Click on photo to see larger image
Collection of Beppy White, great niece of Theodora Van Wagenen Ward. Used with permission.	Collection of Beppy White, great niece of Theodora Van Wagenen Ward. Used with permission.

Jung

"It was at this point that I first heard about psychoanalysis. The person who introduced me to it had come in contact with one of the early pupils of C.G. Jung, a few years after his break with Freud. His work was just beginning to be recognized in the early 1920's, and the pioneer practitioners in New York had only recently established themselves there. They were three young women medical doctors .... Two of them were Americans, Kristine Mann and Eleanor Bertine, and the third was their English friend Esther Harding."
[Ancestors, p. 114]

Anthony, Maggy. Jung’s Circle of Women: The Valkyries. Among C. G. Jung’s most ardent followers were a group of women who came to him to be healed and worked closely with his ideas. The author writes about Edith McCormick, Toni Wolff, Kristine Mann, Linda Fierz-David, M. Esther Harding, Eleanor Bertine, Jolande Jacobi, Marie-Louise von Franz, Hilde Kirsch, Mary Bancroft, Lucille Elliot, Olga Frobe-Kapteyn, Christiana Morgan, Barbara Hannah, and Mary Foote, and shares their stories.

"Ancestors" is an abbreviated reference to "ANCESTORS ARE PEOPLE" by Theodora Van Wagenen Ward. A Sketch of the Life of a Family For the Descendants of BLEECKER AND KATE HOLLAND VAN WAGENEN, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1958. The file at the vanwagen.org website is incomplete but as soon as I obtain more material, I will.

For more on Theodora's writings, or to see family photographs, or to explore the Dickinson Connection.

An Aside of Sorts

Naming Houses

I find the naming of houses intriguing. The Holland's built "Bonniecastle;" the name of the home in New Jersey was "Lawnhurst;" the Van Wagenen family built a summer home of their own at Alstead, New Hampshire and called it "Windy Browe." Someday when I have time, I'm going to track the practice and apply it to the poem "My period had come for Prayer" where Dickinson writes "His House was not - no sign had He –/By Chimney - nor by Door –/Could I infer his Residence."