Draft of Ethel Myers’ Autobiography Notes

She was not yet four, but she could remember the great dormitory with many sleeping children and up at the end the little crib between two great windows looking down the great room, That and nothing more. Then life changed and she was in a beautiful home and the daughter of a wealthy man who had been in Manila for thirteen years and the partner of Hetty Green’s husband. They owned the Manila Rope Walk. Several times I said to my mother, “Where was I before I came here,” and she always said, “Oh, that was when we were having the parlour decorated.” (Hand painted flowers on the ceiling,) I then said to myself – They don’t want me to know. But I never mentioned it again to anyone until my twenty-first birthday.

My foster father was at that time a real estate broker in Brooklyn. His health was very poor owning to his years in Manila. After many doctors he gave up his home in Brooklyn and we moved  to Orange, New Jersey. But several months later he be passed away. After that we moved from place to place – six months in the Oranges and six months in the mountains. A hotel life. Every winter season I went to another public school. During my first school days I went to a private school. During my high school days we live in a suburb of Newark. Then to New York to an apartment where I tried for the Academy
 

II

I was trained as a child for a musician. After four years of drudgery I decided I wanted to be a painter. I never had any other idea. So in my second year in the Newark high school I left and went to the National Academy, then on twenty-third street. They sent me to Walter Saterlee, whose studio was in the old YMCA building across the street. After several months I took the examination at the Academy and failed. Then I said I am through, I am not interested in the antique. They sent word to me that if I would try again I would get in — but I said no — I have gone to the Chase School. There I became monitor of a class, and afterward became assistant director and teacher with John Douglas Connah, director. It was there that I was instrumental in getting Robert Henri in the school. It had then become the New York School of Art at Sixth Avenue and fifty-seventh street. This was where Henri lived, just across the street in the Sherwood Studios over fifty years ago. Where he painted his fifty-seventh street in a snow storm and got pneumonia.
 

Some time after that May Preston, Alice Woods and Edith Glackens came to visit the old Chase School. I knew Alice Woods who lived in the same boarding house with me at Bayport on the Great South Bay. Alice was writing “Edges” and I was monitor of the New York School of Art Summer School there. It was there that I first met Joseph Stella.

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III

It was in the old Connelly mansion on the Hudson river, just near where the George Washington Bridge is now, that I had my first studio. Four windows overlooking the Hudson River. One day I was talking to a little man who made pictures to illustrate insects, and we were talking about who we considered the coming artists of the day, when I mentioned Jerome Myers. He exclaimed, “Oh, I’ve known him for years. I used to have a studio where I lived on fourteenth street, but I never considered him a good artist there.” He offered to take me to Jerome’s studio at fifty-ninth street. He was a shy little man and sent me a card of introduction and told me I better take a lady friend. I promptly when alone but found Jerome out. In a few days I went again and stayed for coffee. I have been going to the Macbeth Gallery for some time to see pictures by Jerome, Arthur B. Davies, and Bryson Burroughs, and had saved Jerome’s newspaper notices for two years. At Jerome’s studio I discovered his self portraits, which had not been known publicly, and to me were remarkable.  I went time and time again to see the portraits, and Jerome came to my studio on the Hudson.

IV

I lived downtown but traveled everyday to my studio. At that time I had a painting hung at the National Academy, an East side subject. In the summer the old William M. Chase School had summer classes where I was monitor. It was a rambling old house build by Tweed and Connelly gang or the old Taminany Hall crowd. A magnificent ball room and a beautiful chapel in an oval wing with the dome chapel decorated with angels. At this time the old place was well on the downward grade and had been bought by the Anheuser-Bush family. Several artists had studios there. The severe winter beautiful but cold — and the only way of transportation was the old third avenue cable cars.

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They were just blasting for the IRT subway. Jerome never liked the country but with a big, great fire going and a good broiled steak he managed to make the trip. He told me after we were married that one day he came up and saw me going belly whoppers with an artist's little girl. He wondered if he was about to marry a child.

V

Marriage was the last thing in my mind, but in three months Jerome proposed to me. He said he didn't have any money and maybe never would have, but if I would take a chance with him he would love to marry me. I looked at him in astonishment and said, "But I am engaged to be married." He calmly said, "Well, think it over for a week and let me know." He had never been to my house and knew nothing about me. I thought it over for a week and decided I would marry him. Then he wanted me to marry him at once. Said it would not interrupt his work. But I waited until the fall.

I should have been a wealthy girl but my foster mother tore up three wills when my father was ill, until she got the one she wanted. She became executer of the will with a promise of what I was to get. When I was twenty-one and told her I knew I was not her child, then she told me they had adopted me. She told me how she had gone to see my mother in the hospital just before she died. That she was happy and excited that I had a good home and asked only that she love me and give me a good education. She said my mother was only twenty-three. A beautiful woman with dark, auburn hair and dark brown eyes. She said my father was dead and she had no other relatives to give me to. She had given me to her brother when she got sick. He died shortly after and his wife had lost her mind from grief. Not knowing what to do with me, she had given me to her minister, who was an Episcopalian, and asked him to find a home for me. He in turn gave me to his sister who was head of an Episcopalian home and who had a little niece about my age. We played in her apartment during the day, but at night I had to sleep in the dormitory. I remember at three-and-a-half years she said at that point the doctor wouldn't let my mother talk any more. She had a bad heart, but made my foster mother promise she would come back in a day or so. Several days later she heard my mother was dead and she said she was glad she never went back again. From that day on we never mentioned my early life again.

VI

She did not approve of my marriage to Jerome because he was a poor man and an artist, and she did approve of my early engagement to a businessman.

Through the first year of our married life we struggled on first in his little studio in the old Aguilar Library Studio Building, and when the baby was to come we moved to the front of the building for twenty dollars — never a penny offered. After the baby arrived she wrote me and said if I would leave Jerome and the baby and come back and live with her she would give me everything. I never answered.

VII

Our life was a very happy one. Very little money but plenty of friends. We had holiday dinners with stuffed flank steak, hot biscuits and ….home-made pies and plenty of friends.

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……year in the old library building it was to be torn down, and
…….ing of John Sloan and Doillie we took a big old loft just
…….on twenty-third street. There Jerome finish his pictures
……..one-man show at Macbeth…. Then we started to roam. I
………many, many times in the next few years. Mr. Macbeth told
…….long as he was in business he could count on him. But
…….on ten dollars now and then.  So we built a little
……..on land in the mountains, but poor Jerome loved the city
…….after a few weeks he came back to the beloved New York
…… the baby — and so we kept moving. We had a wonderful
……morning we would ride down on the old belt horse
……mothers and children sleeping in Corlears Hook Park
……then those in their flats. One morning while
……sleeping in our studio on twenty-third street, Jerome
…….the bums in Bryant Park.  The large photographic
…….to us caught fire and John Sloan coming home from
…….over to help Jerome. Only to find me alone with the
…….to get out as the place next door might have an
…….on the top floor. Imagine Jerome’s feelings when he
…….to find the engines in front of his house. During
…….y-third street Jerome and John talked of the “eight,”
…….somehow we drifted away. (This loft was right in
……shopping district.)

Through those years Virginia gave seventeen recitals. Millionaiares sitting in tears on ironing boards, etc. Finally two concerts in the big Carnegie Hall and then six years on Broadway.

VIII

When we live in the old fifty-ninth street studio, Eugene Higgins came back from Paris. Jerome gave his first one-man show in a friend’s photographic gallery on seventy-second street.

We lived in many places, some uptown, some downtown. Always making sketches and having exhibitions, but no home. Finally we took two rooms on west thirty-seventh street in the garment district, the top floor. The back studio hall room was Jerome’s studio and the third floor front hall room was where we three ate and slept. At this point I decided to be a designer of clothes. I took five dollars and bought lace and designed a blouse. Went up to the fifth avenue shop and sold the design. From then on I was in business. Not long after that Mr. Macbeth sent back all of Jerome’s large pictures — all of which are in museums today and kept his small pictures for the debt. Jerome never blamed Mr. Macbeth, but the policy of the business had changed — younger blood had come in the business and they felt pleasing portraits and landscapes were easier to sell. I remember Jerome came in one day all excited to tell me he had sold a picture from his Hall in Carnegie with Orchestra then six years on Broadway.

IX

At Chase I knew George Bellows, Guy du Bois, Gifford Beal, Edward Hopper, and Everett Shinn and Kenneth Miller, Robert Henri, George Luks a neighbor in fifty-ninth street.

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After the Armory show we were dead broke so I gave a studio exhibition of Jerome’s work, offered everything for half price because we were going to Europe. And went to Paris to get an apartment, bought furniture, paid six months rent and the war broke out. Two taxis. That morning Jerome went to the American Embassy to ask about conditions and was advised to get out of Paris at once. Wet wash, trunks, clothes on chr. closet. Everyone said the war will only last a few days so we started off for a trip to Holland. Jerome in one taxi with a trunk of pictures, for we had come to Europe for exhibitions, having a dealer in London. I rode in another taxi with Virginia and another trunk of art work. At the Gard du Nord the porter refused to express an order for a top. At this point Jerome left me with the pictures and the baby and rushed back to American Express. There wasn’t any cash to be had. But the American men all got together and gave Jerome all the Italian silver they could find. And Jerome returned and in about four hours we boarded a train for Holland with the French soldiers at midnight. In Brussels the train went no further. They had a run on the bank that afternoon and two hundred thousand people were milling the streets. An angry mob. The station was right in the heart of an amusement park. After walking the park for some time there would be no further train until six in the morning. So Jerome took us to a hotel — no room but they gave us a small room where we sat up for our Italian silver, and the child slept. At five thirty a.m. a great gong sound and we rushed for the train which was crowded with soldiers. As we stopped before the bridge over the Sida Sia river rumor ran that the bridge was mined. The train was packed aisle seats and platform. Wonderful boys. All of them no doubt killed in the war. The next night the Germans were in the same station we had left. In Holland for miles you could see the soldiers marching to defend the border. At Rotterdam there were more than ten thousand soldiers, many had been drinking and bidding farewell to their wives and children. We saw many trunks thrown off the trains to make room for the soldiers. (They promised to store American trunks until after the war.) The American Express was wonderful in every way.

In Holland things looked very bad and we decided to come back to America. We had taken a student to Paris with us. A young Russian boy who refused to leave Paris and we left him with an artist cousin. Three days later he joined us in Holland — a wreck. Covered with a rash from head to foot. I thought it was the measles but it turned out to be a rash from fright.  The experience was terrible. Our hotel room was a mess. All the wet wash hung up to dry. We paid for our tickets back to London but after a week the company gave us back our passage money in gold saying, “Take the old Bat line back that after that it perhaps be the last boat.” There wasn’t a berth on board. But the Captain gave me his room with the child. All night long Jerome walked the deck and saw them planting the bombs. At the break an officer come on board our ship to tell us war had been declared. As we got near Margate we could see and hear the soldiers shooting. Everyone on board with their luggage had to be searched. By that time it was pouring rain and we were taken off in lighters, and a steep ladder and Jerome with heavy suitcases fell to the deck below. And the prisoners were held on board. In London it was bank holiday with no money to be had and rich women could be seen (travelers), some with only a banana to eat, having exchanged travelers checks. In Holland we were more fortunate. At the Savoy Hotel we booked on three ships. Our boy student was sending cables before each ship, but the only one that was received by his family arrived in New York just as the extra came out the ship had been blown up.

X

Jerome was on the committee to help stranded Americans, headed by Herbert Hoover. One foolish woman asked an American student why he had left America with so little money.

Leo Schultz, the great cellist, lost all his money in a Hamburg bank. Jerome got Samuel Untermeyer to help him and he was therefore able to get his sick wife back to America. Leo Schultz was ever grateful. We were finally able to get back to New York on the old St. Louis, steerage, with many other Americans. We lived on deck night and day. A dense fog, horns blowing. At night we went like mad with all lights out and in daytime we stood still. The old boat shock. The stewards had been taken off for military duty. Long shoreman taken on in Liverpool to replace the stewards. Wristwatches, steamer rugs and etc. were stolen while people slept. The garbage was thrown in a corner of the ship and food could not be eaten. I saw one woman pay a dollar for a sandwich and throw it overboard because it was crawling. No fresh food was taken on at Liverpool because England needed all the food she had for her people. We bought a good supply of crackers and cocoa before boarding the ship and on this we lived until we reached New York. Jerome paid a lot for a glass of milk for our child and she said, “What funny ice.” It was broken glass. There were over a hundred cases of ptomaine on board. Afterward there was a great law case against the company. I lost seventeen pounds on the trip and was black and blue from laying on the deck. We arrived in New York on August 23 and went to Luchows, where we had a wonderful steak, but we were all pretty weak.

XI

We had sublet our Carnegie studio as we thought to a reliable magazine editor but he in turn sublet it to a gang of illustrators who entertained their girl friends, threw away seventy years of drapery, and two large rugs. And when we returned they hadn’t paid two months rent and so out they went. When the lease was up we gave up the studio and went to Nutley, New Jersey at the suggestion of Guy and Floy du Bois. We rented a quaint little house on open land with a store in the front and with long white cheese cloth drapes. Made a perfect large studio for Jerome. In the rear of the building was a brook surrounded by beautiful old willow trees.

XII

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(Cont.) this, Nutley, Peter Stuvesant Club, Virginia’s illness, time of polio epidemic, Carmel, a summer in the old farm house in Carmel, the year before the Armory show. Jerome back in Carnegie. I took an apartment on east 58th Street. Went in business designing and had three girls. Worked for fifth avenue trade. At this point Jerome got the flue, then Virginia, and I finished after taking care of them with pneumonia.

Famous Armory Show was organized. Walt Kuhn, Henry Fitch Taylor, Elmer McRay and Jerome.

So many meetings, so much excitement, we had to move to a larger studio in Carnegie, and that was when we first came to Carnegie in 1912.

Jerome gave up an entire year to the Armory show — Our trip abroad, London, Paris, Brussels, and Holland — back to London, stories.

Here I would spend my days where the lions are now while Jerome painted his pictures. It was from this studio I sold his “Mission Tent” now in the Metropolitan….

Little room and when I looked at the check it was from Maximilliam Grab — My heart sank, but the check was good and the man was a real collector.

Then our next move was to the Phipps house on east thirty-first street. Two little rooms, but a roof garden for the children. But Jerome would only … his pictures in the small space so he took a studio in the old McHugh opposite the library site for the new public library on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. Charlif, the great Russian ballet teacher, was on the same floor. I took a parlor floor along with the baby and my designing. That only lasted about six months because Jerome and I needed to be together so by getting a small room next to the studio we had a place for Virginia to play and for me to design. At this point Virginia became the child wonder of the dance and we had people come from all over even the Parkhursts from England. Ridgley Terrence and Percy McKay both wrote poetry about her.

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Vanity Fair and Vogue wrote pages with photos about her. At four she gave her first program at the Peer Gynt Suite at the Plaza Hotel and at five she gave her first theatrical dance recital (February 28, 1913) at the Berkeley Theatre on 44th Street and Fifth Avenue.