Vassar College Digital Library

Vance, Gertrude (Pratt) — from brother, December 7, 1913

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Date
7 Dec 1913
Details
Identifier
vassar:54246,Folder 74.7; VCL_Letters_Vance-Gertrude-Pratt_1913-12-07_074_007_015
Extent
1 item
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: VCL_Letters_Vance-Gertrude-Pratt_1913-12-07_074_007_015_001
39 Gates Ave.
Montclair N.J.
Dec. 7, 1913

Dear Goo,

In response to your request to have me write a letter I am doing it now because this is the first good opportunity I have had to write you. After we left you at the Grand Central we walked all the way down to 23rd st. I wanted to go down Broadway but [Paret?] and Walworth insisted upon 5th avenue. We went that way and believe me on Sunday nights 5th avenue is the lonliest and gloomiest place I ever struck.

However I’ll ditch the uninteresting stuff and give you a few items of interest. Did you know that you were intimately acquainted with a moving picture actor, in fact danced with one numerous times last winter? Last Tuesday when I was up at the club swimming, I got talking with Allen Brown. I asked him if he was going

 


: VCL_Letters_Vance-Gertrude-Pratt_1913-12-07_074_007_015_002
out for the hockey team this year. He said he would like to but that all the games were played on Saturdays when he went to New York. I asked him what his job was and he answered by asking if I knew of the General Film Company a corporation which exhibits movies everywhere. I said yes and he went on to tell how he went in to their studio every Saturday and took parts [crossed out: in] small or minor parts in different plays. He said there were lots of other young fellows there and that they were payed by the hour, making three or four dollars per day. He said it was swell fun, lots of skirts and all that sort of thing. Of course all the acting is done in the studio or just around town. How does that strike you? If you should ever speak to him about it, break it easy, ‘cause I don’t know whether its an embarrassing subject to him or not. Don’t horn it around too much anyhow.

Knight was elected for next years foot-ball team captain, he deserves it too.

 


: VCL_Letters_Vance-Gertrude-Pratt_1913-12-07_074_007_015_003
Seymor Hill was the only fellow from the High School team that the Newark Papers picked for the All New Jersey team. The M’s were given to all the fellows on the team last Wednesday. I don’t want to talk about the second team letters because there was ^so much darn frat graft in giving them and a lot of low down work from Mr. [Halkin?]. I’ll just cite one case. - Gardner Platt of Delta Pheta also cronie of Mr Halkin and rather fat and slow for a football player received an M2. He played in one of the three games, same number as I did, and attended about half the practices. A. [Dub...ssen?] who played in all three of the games and only missed 2 or 3 practices, did not get a letter.- M2. Moral - Join a regular fraternity and let Halkin know it if you want a real square deal.

We lost our first Basket Ball game to Paterson High last Friday by the score of 15-11. Sloke &

 


: VCL_Letters_Vance-Gertrude-Pratt_1913-12-07_074_007_015_004
Starret couldn’t play on account of studies or something or other so you can imagine the result. The game was scheduled for home but for some reason they had to play it up at Paterson. He all went up in the automobile bus which leaves here from the end of the Valley road line. Just previous to leaving the municipal building, where we started, Larry [Levitt?] asked me to be scorer at the Basket Ball games, as I did the trip at the expense of the athletic association. We had a swell trip over, the bus is just like a trolley car inside,- only a little smaller. When we got their we had to walk half a mile to the basket ball court, which moved to be nothing less than a dance hall with baskets stuck up at either end. Another surprise awaited us when we went down stairs to the place where the teams got dressed. The dressing room was a bar room, an adjunct to the dance hall

 


: VCL_Letters_Vance-Gertrude-Pratt_1913-12-07_074_007_015_005
which was still fairly well stocked with beer bottles. The players hung their clothes on the backs of the chairs and on the tables,- say that was a pretty hard place for a fellow to keep from breaking training rules.The Paterson bums were a rotten bunch, the game had hardly been started when there was a free fight for a minute after a certain Paterson guy got fresh with Otto Rose,- he is some scrapper. I don’t know how it ended but we had to pull several players and fellows apart. We had the bus nearly to ourselves going home so we had a novel time - roughouse, singing and cheering. I got home about [crossed out: seven] eight and went to the [crossed out: theatre that] Hospital fair that night and Saturday afternoon also. I’ll just speak of the two times as one.

I had a good time [making?] conversation with the [Hawleins] girls, Bessie


 


: VCL_Letters_Vance-Gertrude-Pratt_1913-12-07_074_007_015_006
Oliver and everybody in general; saw the movie shows there three times,- it was real good. In the two times I was there, I spent 50¢ only; there was so much to see that you don’t have to wave the [kopecks?] unless you feel like it. Some fellows go there and separate themselves from the mazuma at the rate of 10¢ a minute and at that don’t get any more fun out of it than I do. I saw Stoddard Smith up there, he must be getting along pretty good at Stevens Prep., he has already been rushed for two of the Stevens College fraternities and some of them are national frats too.

Daddy and I went out to the theatre Saturday night. It was a pretty bum show except for one act and one of the movie films. Daddy said the latter was worth the price of the show alone, it was good alright -- “In the Midst of the

 


: VCL_Letters_Vance-Gertrude-Pratt_1913-12-07_074_007_015_007
Jungle.” You would have to see the play to appreciate it but I will say this much. - It was about a girl who was lost in the woods of South Africa for three years and finally found. A lion or tiger was shot about every 2 minutes and in the last [crossed out: film] reel, a pet leopard of this girl, which she raised in the jungle from a pup, has a fight with a hyena, it was a thriller and the leopard finally killed him, [crossed out: and] the Hyena ^not the hero. What do you think is coming to the Montclair Theatre? They threw an announcement on my screen [crossed out: saying] giving a list of the coming attractions, they include “Within the Law,” “Bought and paid for,” and “the Red Widow”. They will certainly have some while you are home at Xmas so you oughta

 


: VCL_Letters_Vance-Gertrude-Pratt_1913-12-07_074_007_015_008
see some of them, it’l be great won’t it? I sent [yourmy?] letter to Eleanor Edmonds and got a reply on Wednesday. It was written on a correspondence card and in it she thanked me profusely for the pictures. She said [Hen?] had asked her to come here again sometime in the near future.

Well theres one thing in the football season which I can be thankfull for - I collected $10.50 from the Herald for the games and stuff up here in November. I also got back $3.50 from the “Bulletin” for football expenses.

Since it is 10:45 and I began this letter at 9 I will close jetzt & sogleich.

Mit viel Küssens
Von deiner
Bruder

With love
From
Don

P.S. Wir werden ein Weinachtfest [sp:Weihnachtsfest] des Deutchen [sp:Deutschen] Klubs von der Hoch Schule haben am 16th of December, ein play, der refreshments, und terpsichorean reflection.