“And help us to be true to the best that we know with hearts courageously hungry for the truth.”

Minneapolis Star | 2 January 1926

Minneapolis Star | 4 July 1941

Mrs. J Foster Terry SH to JH

January 1926

personal collection

Dear Jess:

I’m so glad you wrote me, and in the way you did, about Bill Foster’s going. In a cowardly way I had not written to his wife because I had not “lifted up mine eyes” and because I had been thinking in an all too human way only of the lonely, lonely way she must walk alone hereafter and the two babies she must lead and teach without his wise and loving help. I had written to his sister Maria because I knew what it meant to lose a well loved Brother and I knew where comfort lay.

Do you write to Mrs. Bill. You always had the gift of understanding sympathy. Their address is 304 Ontario St. SE, Minneapolis. I had a card at Xmas time with snapshots of the 2 little girls—one 3 ½ and one 8 months. Among other things it said “Bill is getting positively fat.” I had written them and told them we missed them last summer but that next summer they’d surely be here and we’d gather with the Jesse Halseys and have an old time reunion.

I understand he was take with pneumonia Xmas Eve and went to the hospital and daily the family here got telegrams of his condition. Pleurisy

--> set in and he died January 2^nd. Jo was teaching in the university too—I’m not sure what—psychology maybe too. One time she had charge of the correspondence courses they gave. She plans I hear to finish the year there. His body was not brought on—it was his wish that he be cremated and that to the family here was an added horror. His mother (so Mrs. Mourse Lafevre told me) is deeply religious and believed it for the best—only the cremation was a sort of sacrilege. (Personally I would not have been surprised had he willed his body to a hospital.) And unfortunately the cremation has given rise to some most unfounded conclusions. Cousin Amie Goodale in telling mother said, “But what could one expect for he did not believe in the resurrection.” I thought if that were neighborhood gossip you might through cousin Ida Fordham be able to slay it. No man who tho’t as deeply and thoroughly as he, could be unreligious. If his views were not all entirely orthodox, they were none the less sincerely religious and every one fought out with a fierce hatred for hypocrisy. Long ago he showed me a prayer he wrote. I learned it at the time and so to my regret did not write it down. Now I can recall but one line: “And help us to be true to the best that we know with hearts courageously hungry for the truth.”

If you have not written his family (in Water Mill) you might stress that religious side—for in your talk with him that evening here you found nothing but reverence I am sure.

I shall be glad to have your calendar—as you know.

Love from the Terrys to the Halseys,

Bess

P. S. I hope Helen is so pep-y and huskey that she is a regular gad-about. Did I tell you on the Xmas card of the twins we are waiting for in the spring? Little Pallas Napoleon and Cassandra Boneparte Fordham Terry, named for my great-great Aunts.

-->

"rendering up her life in homage for the gift of motherhood"

Southampton Press | 25 March 1926 |Elizabeth Fordham Terry

The community was greatly saddened by the death last week of Mrs. Elizabeth Fordham Terry, wife of J. Foster Terry. Her death followed a short illness which suddenly developed serious complications, and she passed away Friday evening at the Southampton Hospital, where she had been taken that morning. She was 37 years of age.

The funeral services were held at her home on Hildreth Street Monday afternoon and were attended by a large number. The Rev. Jesse Halsey of Cincinnati conducted the services, Mr. Halsey having come for the purpose as a warm friend of the family.

Mrs. Terry was greatly beloved in the village and her death is a sad blow to a large circle of friends. Her bright and inspiring personality and her unfailing consideration for others made her a welcome addition to every group. She possessed a brilliant mind and had unusual gifts as a conversationalist and a writer. She received her education at the Southampton High School, from which she graduated in 1905, and at Vassar College, graduating from the latter institution with the class of 1910. After graduation she taught for several years in the Bancroft School at Haddonfield, N.J.

During the World War, Mrs. Terry served as the local district nurse for the Red Cross. In the epidemic of influenza, he sympathetic ministrations and faithful services endeared her to the unfortunate families where the disease was rife, and there are many of our foreign-born citizens who expressed their grief at her passing.

She is survived by her husband and by two young children, Malcolm and Helen; one sister, Mrs. Albert Burr Craft of Yonkers; and her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Frank T. White. Her only brother, Malcolm R. White, was killed in France during the war.

In a beautiful tribute to the deceased, the Rev. Mr. Halsey said in part, “This earthly tenement was the habitation of one of the finest spirits I have ever known. Her loss to this community seems irreparable. She lent her aid to every good word and work. Many families of our less-fortunate citizens remember her many kindnesses in time of need.

A brilliant intellect; a remarkably balanced and sane outlook on life, a keen sense of humor—these and many other rare qualities of mind and heart endeared her to a  large circle of friends [indecipherable] when we cry, “To what purpose is this waste” can mean, but one [indecipherable] meaning [indecipherable] ever. It means that out beyond the Mystery there is some other room of our Father’s House where character and capacity are valued and where high service is to be performed.

While our presence and our poor words try to express our sympathy with this household, we renew our Faith in the Life Immortal, whose portal we call death, more homelike seems the vast Unknown since she has entered there.

“I have always thought of Malcolm White as the reincarnation of Captain George, and the faith, and courage of the soldier as he “went West” is paralleled in his sister, who with a smile upon her lips went out unafraid, rendering up her life in homage for the gift of motherhood.”

“One who never turned the back

But marched breast forward.

Never doubted clouds would break.

Held, we fall to rise, and baffled

To fight better; sleep to wake.”

August Heckscher Home Tuesday Night

20 August 1926| The Long-Islander

Confirmation Class | 1926

Seventh Presbyterian Church | Cincinnati | c1926

“A Lady—Thinking Backward and Living Forward”

Introduction to Sermon c1926

Delivered in Avondale Presbyterian Church by Jesse Herrmann

[Pastor | 1916-1928]

Matthew 5:17—“I came not to destroy but to fulfill.”

One of my most vivid vacation memories clusters around a weekend spent in Southampton, Long Island. Southampton, as you may know, is a so-called fashionable summer resort. It is a popular rendezvous for men with millions. But in the midst of these ultra-modern externals you distinctly sense an invigorating atmosphere reminiscent of other days. I know of no community of its size in America that has more direct human and material contacts with the Colonial period than Southampton. On Sunday, I preached in the oldest Presbyterian church in America, founded in 1640—twenty years after the landing of the Pilgrims. Many of the permanent families in Southampton today are the direct descendents of these founding fathers. Hard by this town is the Shinnecock Hills Golf Course, where an Indian caddie carries your clubs, for close by is a government reservation for the ancient Shinnecock tribe.

A man must be exceptionally dull if his memory and emotions are not stirred in a place where the Indian hut, the colonial house, and the Millionaire’s mansion stand within a stone’s throw of one another.

But the experience that I treasure most, after a brief visit to Southampton, centers in a home whose presiding genius is a gracious lady who has rounded out more than eight decades of life. For over fifty years she had been the uncrowned queen and the unmetered priestess of that whole community—mother to the orphan, friend to the wayward, and delightful companion for the young and old. In a remarkable way she gathers up in her character the fruitage of the past, the opportunity of the present, and the promise of the future. In perfect blend the three tenses mingle in her person.

Her home clearly belongs to the Colonial vintage. Much of its furniture was built and carved by skilled ancestors. During her youth, in the open fireplace, now an interesting museum, all the meals were prepared. But these antiques stand in marked contrast with the furnishings of her mind. On the table the latest books are  found. Unless compelled otherwise by the visitor her conversation is geared exclusively to the present and the future. The windows of her soul are ever open to the winds of God as they blow from the four corners of the modern world. The roots of life are deeply embedded in the congenial soil of the past, but every branch is n intimate contact with the fresh breeze of a new born day.

In the person of this delightful character I find a living commentary on my theme: “Thinking backward and living forward.” Her life illustrates what Jesus meant when he said: “I came not to destroy, but to fulfill.” He came to reveal the beauty and to unfold the value of the old and to build them anew into the living tissues of today and tomorrow. There is supreme need in our day for skilled hands and broad-gaged souls who can sense the permanent values in the past and weave them effectively and artistically into a new garment fit for modern wear. Men and women who can think backward and live forward.

The Jesse Halsey Manuscript Collection. Special Collections, Princeton Theological Seminary Library.

from "The Quick and the Dead" | 1931

film still of Little Family in Boston | c1926

My boys, after Christmas, had driven back East in an old Chev that they had rebuilt. This is in a barn in the neighborhood, and, though it is midwinter by the calendar, the weather is springlike, and we bring out the car and start sixty miles to the north to make a call. Twenty-five years ago in a northern mission field, I married a doctor and a school teacher. Boston people, they stayed at the mission after we left, but lately came home. Their boys and ours were born there. He died five years ago [Spring 1926]. Two years later the youngest died and I went East to bury him. So, my boy and I drive up to the border of New Hampshire to have supper with the oldest boy of the doctor's household and his mother. (Only a week later this same fine lad of twenty is hit by an automobile and I come again from the West to bury him. There is a text that brings me help at times like that. It is a question asked upon the cross by our Lord, but never answered, "My god, why?").
 --Rev. Jesse Halsey 

"It was the height of the 'jazz age'"

In the wider orbit of the world's life, the hopes which had inspired sacrifice in the "war to end war" were crumbling before resurgent power politics. The League of Nations still struggled to redeem international chaos; but, to those with eyes to see, its doom was already foreshadowed by futility. The course of the United States was wellnigh irretrievably set in recoil from responsibility. Those who cared deeply for social advance had not yet surrendered to the rising despair, but they felt their backs against a wall and confessed to one another their helplessness in the face of reaction and brute force.

In the meantime, in the day-by-day life of men, wealth multiplied, fortunes were made (and lost) almost overnight, sensuality softened the native fibre of youth, a new leadership unschooled in traditions of culture and social trusteeship gloried in irresponsibility, life whirled with ever faster tempo and was at once coddled and demoralized by ever more refined luxuries and amusements. It was the height of the "jazz age."   --Henry P. Van Dusen, on the year 1926, from "Theological Education" an essay in "This Ministry: The Contribution of Henry Sloane Coffin," ed. Niebuhr, 1945

Henry Sloane Coffin

Henry Sloane Coffin | Nov. 15, 1926

"Preach damnation!" Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin was emphatic. He was quoting "General" William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army: "The best preaching is damnation with the Cross in the midst of it." Dr. Coffin was addressing the students of Union Theological Seminary at the opening of the present school year. Regarded by Fundamentalists as their friendly but most effective enemy, Dr. Coffin is proud to make the historic phrases of an ageless Christianity his own. The Cross has always been in the midst of his preaching. High in his Manhattan Church suspended...

Halsey Films | Frame by Frame Index | c 1926 | Cincinnati, Lake Placid, Boston, Southampton, Whalebone

Film Still | Frederick Halsey | Cincinnati | c1931

1) Cincinnati c1931 Scottie dog, Frederick Halsey (in white shirt and white pants, getting into car), unidentified young boy and girl at car?

2) (00:24) Cincinnati 1926 Frederick (in white shirt and dark short pants) and Abigail Halsey (mowing),  7^th Presbyterian, older man on sidewalk?, street car, delivery to church, likely Charlie Casey (janitor at Seventh Presbyterian; man in hat and glasses by church plague), Abbie and Frederick on bikes, Wilmun "Billy" Halsey, Abbie, Charles (mowing and on bike), Abbie and Freck (by door), Charles (coming out door in hat), Billy and Abbie (on tricycles), Freck (drawing on sidewalk and opening garage), Charles (driving), Freck and Abbie (getting into car), Freck and Charles (wrestling), Abbie (in dress), Abbie and Billy (playing store), Helen (in knee socks), Charles, Billy, Abbie (on bike), Freck and Abbie with Charlie Casey, Billy, Abbie, Freck (getting into car), unidentified young woman in coat in front of Helen Sr.?, Helen Halsey Sr, Helen Jr. (w/out coat), Charles (in suit getting into driver’s seat), Abbie on tricycle with Helen (in hat)

3) (03:05) Cincinnati c1926 Charles (dark suit), Frederick (light suit), Billy (in sailor suit and w/violin), Abbie (with umbrella), Helen (in smocking), maid (in doorway), Helen Sr in doorway with umbrella and Billy and Abbie, Helen (in smocking), Abbie and Billy with children at water fountain and people in park

4) (04:10) Lake Placid 1926 Grandfather Frederick Isham, Freck (exiting and entering house), Abbie and Helen (picking flowers), Helen (knee socks), Abbie (in hat), Freck (short pants, lifting Abbie), Billy (in coat and cap), Charles (playing on fence w/ hat), Billy (in cap), Freck walking with Abbie down path, Helen, Helen, Billy and Abbie walking down street into store, Helen, Billy and Helen outside house, Billy and Abbie in garden

5) (04:53) Concord/Boston/Bunker Hill Monument 1926 Men with ox cart, Helen Halsey, Helen Jr., and Abbie with women and children walking across bridge (Isham cousins?), Bunker Hill Memorial, street scenes in Boston, Boston Harbor, train station, rowing on Charles River?, Abbie and Helen on Boston Street, New Hampshire w/Dr. and Mrs. John Mason Little’s family (following death of Dr. Little in March 1926?)

6) (07:36) Whalebone 1926 Jesse Halsey (white shirt, cap, tending fire pit), Helen Halsey (white dress, black hat, sitting with girls), unidentified bald man in black suit sitting?, Sam Herrick and Edward Pearson White (in boat), Frederick Halsey (black suit by boat), Edward Post White, Sr. (in beach chair), Nancy Herrick Hartwell (blond on left), Joanna Ruland (dark hair, striped suit?), unidentified boy in diamond suit?, Elizabeth “Ibby” White Adams (S on suit), Frederick Halsey (black suit, right of Ibby), Jesse Halsey (in beach chair), Lizbeth Halsey White (patterned dress and hat), Abigail Halsey (child), Helen Halsey Sr. (white dress, black hat), Abigail Fithian Halsey (seated, white dress, hat w/ black tie), Bill Bishop (glasses, bow tie?), unidentified bald man sitting in black suit, Aunt Edna Halsey Ruland (dark hair, gray dress, standing), Aunt Augusta “Gussie” Terry Halsey (black hat and black dress), Nan Herrick (glasses), Alma Jaggar Bishop (standing, in white), Jane and Alma Bishop (small children), Aunt “Gussie” Halsey (in black) and Aunt Edna Ruland (dark hair, gray dress, standing), Bill Bishop (glasses, cap), Edward Post White and Lizbeth Halsey White, Abigail “Babbie” Fithian Halsey (white dress, w/pole), Bill Bishop and Edward White horsing around, Bill Bishop pulls Babbie into sand, Jesse Halsey (in black suit), Bill Bishop (on ground), Babbie (with rake), Edna Ruland and Joanna Ruland? (in background), Gussie Halsey (in chair), Abigail Halsey, Alma Bishop, Jane Bishop (in surf), Sam Herrick, Edward Pierson White, Billy Halsey (in boat), Aunt Nan Herrick (folding blanket), Uncle Bill Bishop (glasses, hat, left), Uncle Jack Herrick (right)

7) (08:53) Southampton, 49 No. Main c1926 Charles Halsey (mowing), Jesse Halsey (white shirt), Helen Halsey (crossing street with cake), Jesse (mowing), Charles (driving), Abbie (on top of wagon), (Bug House) Jane Bishop, Helen Bishop, Alma Bishop, Abbie, Billy, Charles carrying Abbie and Billy piggyback

8) (10:18) Whalebone c1926 Uncle Jack Herrick (splitting wood), Abbie Halsey (surfing), Billy Halsey, Helen Bishop, Abbie, Sam Herrick, Helen Halsey, (small children), Frederick and Jesse (?) getting into clamming boat, Nancy Herrick, Aunt Nan Herrick, Aunt Alma Bishop? (pumping water); Abbie, Billy, Sam, Jane (sliding); (21:50) Dr. and Mrs. Craven? Lizbeth Halsey White?, Helen Halsey, Uncle Bill Bishop, Jane Bishop, Abbie, Billy, Herrick family, Helen Halsey Jr. (girl in white, bottom left, by stairs), Aunt Nan, Uncle Jack, Nancy, Sam, Uncle Bill Bishop (far right), Helen Halsey (bottom of slide), Jane Bishop, Abbie

© Anne Halsey. All rights reserved. 

Dr. John Mason Little | Obituary | March 25, 1926

Published: March 25, 1926
Copyright © The New York Times