Chapter VII

THE BLISS FAMILY GOES TO HARVARD

Before I tell of the adventures of the Bliss family in Massachusetts, where we — or at least, Paul — went to Harvard, I must catch up a few threads.

Paul had entered Hamline University, located in the pleasant suburb of Hamline in St. Paul, in the autumn of 1907, following his graduation at Central High School in the preceding June. His experience at Central had been very largely in the scholastic, or at least the mental field. He had been editor of the High School World, editor of the Senior Annual, president of the Class of 1907 in its final year, and he ranked ninth of his class (third among the boys), in scholarship.

A FAST MILE ON THE HAMLINE TRACK

Physical competition now claimed him and he went out for the track team at Hamline, running the mile and the half-mile. In the spring of 1909 he ran both these events on the old Hamline track, Norton Field, winning both against the South Dakota Agricultural College team, and setting records. His half mile time was 1:59 1/5, the first half mile, so the papers said, ever run under two minutes by a college athlete in the Northwest. A half hour later he won the mile in 4:33 4/5, also well below any previous time. His last race at Hamline was run in the St. Paul Auditorium with many colleges represented, and he won the mile, the only event in which he participated, setting a new indoor record against sixteen competitors.

When he first entered track athletics, I was fearful, having heard much about over-straining of the heart, but no trouble came. A college friend of mine, Miss Emma Donaldson, had been living with us but at first showed no interest, although the newspapers were full of articles about the “big indoor meet.” But I noticed she was changing her attitude. When the great evening came, she was as eager as the others. We were seated! The race was on! Every time Paul came by (we were in front seats in the gallery), as he neared, she would jump up, waving her arms and ‘kerchief with a vigorous, “Go it, Paul” or “Beat ‘em, Paul!” Nothing but a heart attack or paralysis would have kept her down in that seat.

A SMALL LEGACY AND A SCHOLARSHIP

In his Junior year Paul left Hamline, and went to work as a reporter on the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch. At first he was one of the city staff, but, probably because of his interest in athletics, was placed in the sports department. The death of his father made his contributions to the family exchequer necessary but he had visions of going on to Harvard. Two things at length made this possible. One was a small legacy from the estate of Grandfather Daniel Bliss of Waupaca and the other was the obtaining of a Harvard Price-Greenleaf scholarship. He left St. Paul in time to enter Harvard in September, 1911, and, carrying a very heavy schedule, was to take his A.B. degree in 1913.

Miriam and I returned to a seemingly empty house. She continued her work at Central and I of course was busy with household and church. The building of the new house on Aldine Street was a fine diversion. Cheerful and encouraging letters came from Paul. He liked Harvard from the first. It was all interesting, including “The Yard” or campus as other colleges term it. It is distinctive, as many another things about Harvard is.

I had rented our house, 1684 Van Buren, to Mr. and Mrs. Parks, the former a railroad office executive. They came in November and Miriam and I moved up to our reserved room. It seemed but a day till we were talking about and planning for Christmas. As the time drew nearer, Paul urged me to pay him a visit. Sister Eva would take care of Miriam. A family we had met on a summer vacation, the Patchens of Chetec, Wisconsin, invited Miriam to spend part of her vacation with them. In his “After Supper Poems,” Paul has written of the Chetec floating islands that visited him in the night. The islands are unmoored tamarack bogs. I reached Paul the day before Christmas. He had secured a room at Mrs. Angel’s, on Trowbridge Street. Some meals were taken there and some at Memorial Hall, a wonderful old Harvard building with a dining room 80 feet to the ceiling.

Paul took me to the Charleston Navy Yard and Bunker Hill monument. We took trips to Lexington and Concord. In Cambridge, there was much of interest including the homes of Lowell and Longfellow. When Sunday came we attended the Park Street Church and heard Dr. A. Z. Conrad preach. I introduced Paul to him. Dr. Conrad found it difficult to retrace the steps of time to Carleton College where I was a freshman as he became an alumnus. Greeting Paul most cordially, he took my hand holding it for a moment against his priestly robe, at his heart, he said, “Just hear that young girl talk.”

His church, Park Street Congregational, had been called “Brimstone Corner” in earlier years, because so many of its pastors had been so severely puritanical. Paul had the temerity to take me to his class, as I remained a couple of days after Harvard began again. This was English 39 given by Professor George Pierce Baker. After class he introduced me to Professor Baker, who has passed away during the last year. Later Paul was to be a post-graduate student in Professor Baker’s English 47 — a famous class in play writing.

A VISIT AT THE HOME OF COUSIN SELLECK HILLS

The end of our delightful visit had come and Paul saw me aboard my train. I went to New York State and visited near Niagara Falls, the woman who now bore my father’s name. “Forgive and forget,” I learned in a sweet song when I was much younger. She was very cordial and seemed really glad to see one of the daughters. She said, “So this is Irene.” I made a very short stay, but I have always been glad that I visited “Annis.” I had written my cousin, Selleck Hills of Cleveland, that I wanted to visit his family, and plans had been made. I said I would wear a red rose on my coat. Annis’ son had driven me to Buffalo, and it happened to be a blizzardy day. Though few passenger trains were running, there was a mail train and I took that, being the only woman on that stormy ride to Cleveland. When I entered the depot, I saw at quite a distance a man exceedingly like my father. There could be no mistake and I walked straight to him and he began looking in a way that showed he felt sure of my identity. “Are you Cousin Selleck Hills?” I asked. He looked at the “red, red rose,” and shook hands cordially. We took the street car to his residence, though he was a wealthy man. I enjoyed the visit.

I should have spoken of my visit to Niagara Falls before starting to Cleveland. It was a wonder, too, with its frozen stalagmites and stalactites. I took a cab to the Canadian side. Stunned by the beauty of it all, I recalled Cyrus Field’s remark on the completion of the Atlantic cable: “Behold what hath God wrought!” My visit brought me in contact with Selleck’s wife and sister-in-law. I enjoyed it all, but soon was aboard my train for Minnesota and Miriam.

The Blair Street house was now finished and we decided to move over with a little furniture. We did so, and remained till Mr. and Mrs. Parks left April 1^st. I could not get back home quickly enough. One was a pretty house; the other a home. The new house was soon rented and has been occupied ever since, at present by the Carl Day family with Marion and Gordon.

Miriam and I did much reading together including the literature that would help in the class at Central. Very soon June came. We both welcomed it, for it would bring Paul back to us. We were overjoyed at his return. Grandpa Bliss had passed away and Alden’s share of his farm estate was given to Miriam and Paul. A neighbor, Mildred Kingsland, was going to visit a friend who was also Miriam’s friend, married and living in Portland, Oregon. So I gave my consent to Miriam’s going, especially as the other girl was much older. Miriam had her money to go with and there was no depression in those days.

PLAIN LIVING, HIGH THINKING, IN THE TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE

The summer of 1912 was a pleasant one, and at its conclusion, Paul who had returned to his newspaper work in vacation, suggested that his mother and sister accompany him to Cambridge. We thereupon made an estimate of the situation. I had heard of Dr. Sargent’s School and Paul knew of it. This School specialized in training for playground and gymnasium, though not wholly, and provided a good preparation for teaching. Miriam might be entered there. I liked the idea. It would be less expensive and we could be together again in Cambridge or Boston, an education in itself for a western person. Miriam had too many admirers to assure the utmost concentration on study in St. Paul. When she bade good-by to Lillis Jones Banning and came home from the west coast, she could hardly believe the fairy story of our going to Cambridge. I was fortunate in renting the house to Professor Roy Towne and his wife. They enjoyed it greatly, saying it was like an eastern home.

We worked with a will and were ready to go at the proper time. It was a pleasant trip. Two young men, also Harvard bound, became acquainted with Paul and asked to be introduced to the mother and sister. They were Mr. Golden and Mr. John McIntyre. An apartment had been secured for us in Cambridge near Harvard, on Sacramento Street. It was partly furnished and we soon completed the furnishing, not elegantly, but neatly. “Plain living and high thinking” was a Boston and Cambridge adage.

Paul began his work again, happily. He was to complete three years’ work in two, which he did. Miriam entered Dr. Sargent’s School which gave a three year’s course, also summer camp work. We were only a few blocks from this School. It was all very pleasant for me. I could cook for my dear children and keep house, which I always liked to do. I found time to visit many historical places, and wasn’t Harvard all historical? So many tablets commemorating events. I could always pass by the tablet stating that “Oliver Wendell Holmes was born here.” I passed this going to take the subway to Boston, or to do my marketing in Cambridge.

The renowned Ware “glass flowers” of Harvard in Agassiz Hall always interest us. They lacked only the odor of the genuine.

WHEN A ST. PAUL GIRL HAD SWEET REVENGE

Of course the children formed acquaintances and both did well in School. Paul always had a hobby or two, so that he gave little time to the girls. While still in St. Paul, he had invited a young lady to some event and forgot all about it. Quite naturally, she was very indignant. When it occurred to him a week later, he made an apology and invited her to the theatre a day later. It was arranged that the lady should meet him at the door at a definite time, as his work on the paper would not permit his going for her. He went on time, but no young lady! He waited quite a time before realizing that she was having sweet revenge.

Harvard was very engrossing. I recall at one time Paul was assigned a term thesis in his landscape architecture course under Dr. Pray, that took him to Ponkapoag Pond, many miles from Cambridge. He invited me to go with him. We took the “L” and a street car to Great Blue Hill, then walked three miles, and were in a dense forest with no sound save the singing of birds. It must have been nearly all pines, for I recall the feel of a dense pine needle carpet and the invigorating odor. After he had taken sufficient notes for his thesis, we left the spot unwillingly. He was asked to leave a copy at Harvard when this thesis was handed in. It was put on file and I suppose is there today.

We often took the elevated and street car to Great Blue Hill. Once I recall Paul took a wonderful picture of a sunset on Cory Hill. He and I had the habit of going to Arnold Arboretum, leased by Harvard for 99 years. I never saw anything more beautiful. All sorts of beautiful trees and shrubs were there. I recall there were eighty varieties of lilacs. We once discovered a rose mallow, too beautiful to describe. I could not resist the temptation and surreptitiously picked a blossom, a lovely pink. I pressed it and had it for years. The Arboretum was used for tree and plant study by Harvard men. These were also the “Harvard botanical gardens which I often visited. Among places of interest that I often visited were Old South, the Paul Revere house and pottery, the Old Book Store. The Old North Church will be remembered as the one in whose steeple the lanterns were to be hung to warn the colony of the British, when Paul Revere made his memorable ride to Lexington and Concord.

“3000 MILES TO KEEP THE PAST UPON ITS THRONE”

Just through Lexinton was the “rude bridge” which had been made a very good one, when we were there. There was an iron tablet, with a memorable quotation, an inscription to the British from a poem by Sidney Lanier:

“They came three thousand miles and died

To keep the past upon its throne

Unheard across the oceantide,

The English mother makes her moan.”

Not far away, but nearer the Concord side, across the bridge, was the Minuteman statue by French.

We often and in fact usually attended Appleton Chapel in the Harvard Yard. It was an old building. Many noted men had spoken from that pulpit. The regular pastor was at that time Dr. Moore, not a very forceful man, but I am sure a good one. We heard Dr. Henry Van Dyke and Bishop Lawrence. The greatest charm of Appleton Chapel was its remarkable choir of Harvard students. Dr. Davidson was a musician of highest type and when he played the lovely toned pipe organ and the choir sang “Out of the deep have I called thee,” and “Singing to welcome the pilgrims of the night,” it was a spiritual event to be remembered through life. Around the Chapel were lovely rhododendrons and trees. There were gates to the Yard, most of them given by classes. The buildings in the Yard were mostly old, but of course well kept and fascinating.

Three persons added to our comfort and interest and entertainment during the years we spent in Cambridge. They were the Swain girls, Carrie, May, and Etta, half-sisters to Eva’s husband, Will Howard. We met them first on Thanksgiving Day, 1912, when we were invited to dinner with them. Carrie and Etta were School teachers and are yet, through all these years, and May, a wonderful cook and housekeeper, mothers the home.

I can see them bustling around to welcome us to their cheering home. It was a rambling old house — I doubt if there is another like it outside of New England. Burton Hughes, my sister Alice’s elder son, was invited with us and we had a merry day and a true New England dinner, I think one such as the Pilgrims went home to after attending church with gun on shoulder: turkey and everything with it, potatoes and squash, jelly and pickles, salad, and such pies—pumpkin and mince! The delicious odor of it floats to me now from that little town of Wilmington, not too far from Boston, to which we took the jerky little trolley car. They were social folk and we were invited again and again. One summer I recall we learned that the composer, Edward McDowell, and his wife were living near there for a time. After his death, Mrs. McDowell gave musicales and lectures, finally being able with the proceeds to build “The McDowell Musical Colony,” which is doing a world of good today for lovers of and students of music. This is at Petersboro, New Hampshire, near where Miriam had attended the Sargent camp.

WHEN PRESIDENT LOWELL READ SCRIPTURE LESSON

Let us go back through those Harvard gates on another Sunday and besides the wonderful voice of the organ, listen to the reading of Scripture. President A. Lawrence Lowell read from the Old Testament and the one who was to give the sermon from the New Testament. President Lowell loved “The law of the Lord converteth the soul, making rise the simple,” but his Boston accent made it, “The lor of the Lod . . . .”

One of the buildings I came to know well was Massachusetts Hall. Paul went there to read many evenings as it was being used temporarily as the college library after the tearing down of the old Gore Hall, and I often accompanied him. It was one of the very oldest Harvard buildings; troops had been stationed there during the Revolutionary War. It was just unlike any other building in the Yard, with its wide door, and windows with small panes. I let Paul do his reading alone, but the walks did me good.

St. Paul, as usual, had a very sizeable contingent of young men at Harvard. One of Paul’s classmates lived with us. He was Joseph J. Armstrong, tennis star, who was often out playing at his favorite game with Harvard’s best racqueters. Among others of the St. Paul group were Paul B. Halstead, now secretary and treasurer of the Cotton Textile Institute of New York, with whom my son roomed at Holyoke House his first year; Harry Clemens, Stewart Shotwell, Theodore and William Koch, Albert Von Wedelstadt, and Robert Marvin Nelson. The two Pauls were to have been together at Hollis Hall for their senior year, but my Paul withdrew from this plan upon inviting his mother and sister to be with him in Cambridge.

A BON MOT BY GRANDSON OF POET LONGFELLOW

A young man by the name of Dana called. He was a grandson of Henry W. Longfellow and son of “Edith with golden hair,” and an eccentric youth. Asked if he did not feel proud to be Longfellow’s grandson, he replied, “I should be much more proud were I his grandfather.” He was the grandson of the author of “Two Years Before the Mast.” We became very familiar with Longfellow Park, which was a gift from the children to Cambridge. We passed the Longfellow and Lowell houses every time we went to Lexington and Concord. They are of quaint architectures. I remember seeing, in the Longfellow house, the poet’s desk, pen and ink bottle and the copy of “North American Indians,” from which he is said to have got ideas for “Hiawatha.”

“I stood on the bridge at midnight.” This song, the words written by Henry W. Longfellow, was presented to me in early young womanhood by a beau of mine. It wasn’t easy to run into a music store and get anything you wished, and he had copied it laboriously, words and notes. It was beautifully done. Of course, the words pulled at one’s heartstrings. I’ve wondered sometimes if Longfellow should not have been at home, in bed and asleep, but if so we should have been deprived of a precious thing. The wonderful old Charles River was almost human. Shall I ever cross it again, en route to Boston, the Leif Ericcson statue just across? It spoke of other days and other people. The Charles River was once subject to tides, but with the creation of The Basin, the sea was kept out.

As Longfellow and Lowell lived near each other, so they are buried near each other in lovely Mount Auburn cemetery in Cambridge — Longfellow on Indian Ridge, in a perfectly plain marble sarcophagus, the one word Longfellow on the top; Lowell in a sheltered spot, almost below the other. We visited most of the graves of the eminents, including that of Louisa M. Alcott and family, near Lexington in Sleepy Hollow cemetery.

During our stay the new Harvard freshman dormitories were built. The athletic field was just a little way beyond. The Lars Anderson Bridge over the Charles was beautiful. There were football games in the Stadium and elsewhere. I thrill even now as I remember Harvard winning from her supposedly arch enemy, Yale, on the New Haven field. Paul had written a competitive play for Pi Eta club, which he named “The Stimie.” It was given in Cambridge and Boston and several outlying towns.

Time flew and we were soon nearing Commencement Day when the class of 1913 would graduate from this great institution with its incomparable traditions and brilliant instructors. Paul was one of six hundred men to receive his diploma. To his sister and mother he seemed the only one. The honors list showed him with several A’s and B’s. A tremendous force binds Harvard and her men always, and it should.