Archives & Manuscripts #14 - International League of Antiquarian ...

Photographs:
10. BERG, Patty. Measuring 8" x 10". [Circa 1995]. Signed: “To Barbara With best wishes and good golfing to you always Sincerely Patty Berg.”
With two additional photos with printed signatures.
11. SMITH, Marilynn. Measuring 8" x 10". [Circa 1945]. Signed: “To the ‘beauty’ of the golf tournaments. Best of luck to a wonderful golfer and
friend. Marilynn ‘Smitty’.”
12. SPARK, Shirley. Measuring 8" x 10". [Circa 1940]. Signed: “Barb, The very best in your new adventure may you always find happiness
Sincerely Shirley.”
Memoir:
13. CANINE, Martha Newman. Martha Newman Canine: A Memoir. Three spiral-bound notebooks. Each approximately 175pp. [Circa 1985].
A lively holograph memoir written by Fowler’s mother, Martha Newman Canine (1900-1991) and intended for her grandchildren. She writes in
black ink on the rectos with 84 photographs tipped in on scattered versos. The first volume has a timeline of important events – births, deaths,
marriages, etc., followed by an introduction in which she states matter-of-factly that she was “a great disappointment to Father when I was not a
son. However, he made the best of it and made me realize very early that my responsibilities would be the same as if I had been a boy. …he trained
me in a way that girls in families like ours, were seldom trained. I have had reason many times to be grateful for his foresightedness.”
And so begins the very engaging and frank account of Canine’s birth in St. Louis in 1900 to Dr. Louis Edward Newman, graduate of Jefferson
College in Philadelphia, and Martha Ellen Bryant (only referred to as “Mother”) whose first husband was killed in a tragic shooting incident. She
recounts her somewhat privileged life and close relationship with a black servant, a former slave, whom she taught to read and “did a great deal to
help me out grow our early racism and to become color bind in regards to skin.” She recounts various anecdotes including the death of a friend
who fell from a car driven by Mitchell Leisen (the director of Death Takes a Holiday and the Oscar-nominated Hold Back the Dawn) how she was
forced to run the household after her mother’s mental collapse following the death of her grandmother, her courtship with her husband, her years
as wife, raising her children, including Fowler whom she describes as an active and curious child, and the couple’s decision to abort an unwanted
pregnancy shortly after Fowler’s birth. The diary concludes somewhat suddenly in 1947 shortly before the death of Canine’s husband the next year,
likely as a way to end on a happy note. [BTC #384083]