{"id":10970,"date":"2010-05-01T00:00:02","date_gmt":"2010-05-01T04:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fryeblog.blog.lib.mcmaster.ca\/?p=10970"},"modified":"2010-05-01T00:00:02","modified_gmt":"2010-05-01T04:00:02","slug":"two-previously-unpublished-letters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/05\/01\/two-previously-unpublished-letters\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Previously Unpublished Letters [Updated]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"norrie&helen\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

[Update]<\/strong> <\/strong>These letters are now posted in the Denham Libary under “Previously Unpublished Material” here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The two letters below from Frye to Helen Kemp regarding his mother Cassie have never been published.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The first letter is undated but it was written sometime during the summer of 1940, when Frye had left <\/em>Toronto<\/em> to visit his sick mother in <\/em>Moncton<\/em>, <\/em>NB.<\/em> Helen, who had accompanied him on a trip to <\/em>Moncton<\/em> in July, had returned to their home on <\/em>Bathurst Street<\/em> in <\/em>Toronto<\/em>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

My pet:<\/p>\n

Thanks for your letter.\u00a0 Nothing much has happened here.\u00a0 I want to leave soon: I couldn\u2019t leave as long as mother had her bad spell: she was at her worst the day after you left.\u00a0 She\u2019s getting much better but she won\u2019t<\/em> have a doctor, and that\u2019s that.\u00a0 She gives a hundred and fifty different reasons: the house is so dirty she\u2019d be ashamed to have a doctor in, God\u2019s told her to take cod\u2011liver oil (which we got her), Dad would never pay the bill and we shouldn\u2019t\u2013\u2013the whole thing is that she\u2019s got the idea she has cancer, and is afraid to have a doctor tell her so.\u00a0 Whether she has or not I of course don\u2019t know, not being a doctor, but even if she has the worst thing we could do would be to bring in a doctor over her head.\u00a0 Dad, however, says she\u2019s had this cancer bug since Vera was a baby.\u00a0 Her conversation is still a monologue of sickness and death and how many corpses that ghoul Aunt Dolly collected for her accursed boneyard.\u00a0 Mentally and physically, she\u2019s a hundred years old.<\/p>\n

I find Blake difficult here.\u00a0 Vera writes and says she\u2019s coming to see us at Christmas, bless her heart.\u00a0 After one look at where they put my Forum article I gave in and got a haircut.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been trying to locate my dentist, but he seems to have disappeared or joined the army or something.\u00a0 I drive around with Dad and lift cans of paint around for him\u2013\u2013how he manages alone I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 He hasn\u2019t made any more trips, but talks of going to Toronto this week.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got to look around and find a girl to come and live here during the winter: if she got her room free it would be well worth it.\u00a0 Sorry about the cut in the budget\u2013\u2013not altogether unexpected, I suppose, and if Baldy is not too much of a born grafter to save on Ent. it perhaps won\u2019t matter much.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a bulky dress bag folded up on top of your suitcase: do you want it?<\/p>\n

Dad saw Lichtenberg the other day and tried to tease him by telling him that another builder, a cheap shyster who undercuts his competition and swindles his clients, was tearing the town wide open and getting all sorts of orders.\u00a0 \u201cYeh,\u201d said Lichtenberg.\u00a0 \u201cI hear a rooster crowed like hell all vun morning.\u00a0 By night his head vass off.\u201d\u00a0 I love you.<\/p>\n

Norrie.<\/p>\n

Vera = Frye\u2019s sister<\/em><\/p>\n

Aunt Dolly = Elthea Howard, eldest sister of Frye\u2019s mother<\/em><\/p>\n

Forum article = the reference is uncertain but the obvious candidates are \u201cPoetry.\u201d <\/em>Canadian Forum 20 (July 1940): 125\u20136, and \u201cWar on the Cultural Front.\u201d <\/em>Canadian Forum 20 (August 1940): 144, 146.<\/em><\/p>\n

Baldy = \u00a0Martin Baldwin = curator and director of the Art Gallery of Toronto<\/em><\/p>\n

Lichtenberg = Described by Frye in the <\/em>Diaries as a \u201cgood-natured German in Moncton . . .\u00a0 who had been a peaceful, thrifty, industrious contractor there for thirty years. \u00a0For two wars the local Gestapo have cut their teeth on him: when the news is bad or they get tired of reading spy stories they\u2019d go up and practise on him. . . . Dad\u2019s friendship for Lichtenberg has come in for much unfavorable comment in that stinking little kraal Moncton.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n


\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

The second letter is postmarked from <\/em>Moncton<\/em> on <\/em>27 November 1940<\/em>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My pet:<\/p>\n

Mother had died two hours after Dad\u2019s telegram came.\u00a0 So when I got here there wasn\u2019t much to do except choose one of the less hideous caskets and a floral \u201cpillow.\u201d\u00a0 Next day Vera came and we had the funeral.\u00a0 That was yesterday\u2013\u2013Tuesday.\u00a0 It was pretty awful being in that morgue of the undertaker\u2019s with the mortal part of Mother made up into a dummy, but we got through it.\u00a0 I shall probably get in sometime Monday night.<\/p>\n

Now we have to face the business of clearing out the place.\u00a0 Dad won\u2019t stay here after we leave of course: he\u2019ll take a trip somewhere & will probably spend Christmas in Montreal or Toronto.\u00a0 It\u2019s lonely for him, of course, but it was wonderful to have Mother go off quietly to sleep not knowing that she would never wake up.<\/p>\n

Norrie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Update] These letters are now posted in the Denham Libary under “Previously Unpublished Material” here. The two letters below from Frye to Helen Kemp regarding his mother Cassie have never been published. The first letter is undated but it was written sometime during the summer of 1940, when Frye had left Toronto to visit his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16,26,162],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bob-denham","category-correspondence","category-unpublished-work"],"yoast_head":"\nTwo Previously Unpublished Letters [Updated] - The Educated Imagination<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/05\/01\/two-previously-unpublished-letters\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Two Previously Unpublished Letters [Updated] - The Educated Imagination\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[Update] These letters are now posted in the Denham Libary under “Previously Unpublished Material” here. 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