This is from the welcome to Summer conference on Agora. I hauled it into
the History conference to start a discussion on the association between
Robert Frost and the UofM.  :

Item 1: Welcome to Summer
Entered by Katie Geddes (katie) on Tue, Jun 21, 1994 (22:21):



        FIREFLIES IN THE GARDEN

    Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
    And here on earth come emulating flies,
    That though they never equal stars in size,
    (And they were never really stars at heart)
    Achieve at times a very star-like start.
    Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.

                         -Robert Frost

#9 of 72: by Michael Delizia (md) on Wed, Jun 22, 1994 (08:51):
 I love that Frost poem.  Thanks, Katie.             
   
 
#65 of 72: by Michael Lloyd Warner (mwarner) on Thu, Jun 30, 1994 (22:13):
   Anybody remember when Robert Frost used to live on Plymouth road?

#66 of 72: by Marvin the Martian (dang) on Fri, Jul  1, 1994 (10:29):
 my english teacher does.

#67 of 72: by Katie Geddes (katie) on Fri, Jul  1, 1994 (13:41):
 I was told he lived on South University.


#68 of 72: by Steve Gibbard (scg) on Fri, Jul  1, 1994 (14:02):
 I know he lived on Fuller.  Maybe he lived on both at different times?

#69 of 72: by Marvin the Martian (dang) on Fri, Jul  1, 1994 (14:09):
 quite possible.  i've heard that he lived several places, and moved away
 and back too.

#70 of 72: by STeve Andre' (steve) on Fri, Jul  1, 1994 (14:26):
    He lived on Hill st, not far from Geddes for a while, too.

#71 of 72: by Michael Lloyd Warner (mwarner) on Fri, Jul  1, 1994 (17:23):
 Hold those thoughts.  It sounds like there is still a lot of local
 knowledge about Robert Frost in Ann Arbor.  I'd like to take it to a
 "Robert Frost in Ann Arbor" item in the History conference.  I have a
 couple of stories I dredged up in the course of some research I've been
 doing, but I'd have to find time to scrounge up the material. In the
 meantime, someone should start an item in History.  I'd like to discuss
 more particulars of the above few comments, but not here.  If you have a
 "Robert Frost" remark, let it be the first item in an item in the History
 conference, where interested parties should look.  Otherwise, I will start
 one in a day or two.

#72 of 72: by Jan Wolter (janc) on Sat, Jul  2, 1994 (00:37):
 There was a good article on Frost in Ann Arbor inthe Observer a few years
 ago.  Bottom line:  Frost hated Ann Arbor.

55 responses total.

  I'm not very familiar with biographical details of Robert Frost's life. 
So, maybe some Grexers can enlighten me.  I am curious about his
connection to A2, since a subject of my research seems to have been mixed
in the cause of his coming here.  Another subject I am researching was
greatly delighted by his coming, found him to be an antidote to the H.L.
Menken loving masses. She was a co-founder of the campus periodical known
as "Whimsies".  This all happened around 1921 or 1922 (have to check my
notes).  Oddly, now that I read the "Firefly" poem chosen to start the
Agora item, I am reminded that my subject once had a short book written
about him by Emerson Hough called "The Firefly's Light".  It was my
subject's $$$ in part that first brought Frost here. 

  I'm introducing an element of mystery here, but I think only as a device
to help uncover what is known among you.  Yuki would be proud of you,
although only her recent passing allows me even to use her name (in good
conscious).  She burned her letters, you now know, before she died.

Can somebody give me some basic info on Robert Frost. This poem and this item 
makes me curious. And i have never heard of him, probably because i'm dutch.
When did he live ? Is poetry the only this he's done ? Has he published a lot ?
Folmer

Frost lived 1874-1963 and is considered to be one of the finest American
poets.  During his lifetime, he produced several volumes of poetry.  He
lived most of his life in New England, and much if not most of his poetry
refelcts the culture of that region.  I'm unsure of the extent to which
he is known outside the United States.

Until the matter came up in Agora, I was unaware (or had forgotten) that
he once lived in Ann Arbor.  So he didn't like it, eh?

I would be surprised if Frost is not also very well known in other English
speaking countries. The nature of his trade, Poetry, accomplished 
entirely in English, would naturally limit interest in him beyond those.
Can any British, Canadian, Australian, or New Zealanders confirm?

Re #2: I'd be surprised if Frost is really unknown in the Netherlands,
since educated Dutch are fluent in English, French and German also. 
Perhaps there is an effect of most English being taught by English persons,
who would naturally prefer *their* Poet Laureates to our's. 

Are you implying that the British don't teach Frost?

Yep, I'd wager that that's what he's implying.

;)

Frost published his first volumes of verse *in England*, while he
was resident there, in ca. 1910-1915, when he was ca. 38 years old.
He received Pulitzer prizes for poetry in 1924 and 1930. Despite all
this, he is not included in an anthology of "Best Loved Poems of
the American People", published in 1936! His fame came late in his
life.

I would have guessed that by now the British would be teaching his poetry.
But this is very far from anything I would actually know. Interesting.

In #5 I was not referring to courses in poetry in England, where I 
would expect that Frost would be included (as an example of American
rustic poetry), but in English instruction in the Netherlands, where
the teachers are often just English emigrants, who can find a job
teaching English. However, I'm pretty deep into speculating now, so
will not argue the matter further!

When and why was Frost in Ann Arbor?  My information is that he was here
for a year in 1921.  I'm curious about what other people know.  My
information is very much partial and almost without doubt a certain degree of
fond remembrance.  The source of my accounts of Frost is one Stella Lee
Brunt of Hamilton, Ontario.  She was later adopted by a former Trustee of
the University of Michigan.  BTW the documents which give me my
information are housed at the Bentley Library on North Campus, U of M's
great House of History.  I think I need to do a little more digging there
before I tell more of my tale...

  rcurl knows more than he is letting on, but that's his job here!

  Robert Frost didn't think much of Brunt's writing, but she was not
discouraged.  She was not a person who was easy to discourage, although
she was far from insensitive.

The citation for what follows is:  Michigan Historical Collections,
Bentley Library, University of Michigan.  Papers of Stella (Brunt) Osborn
(1894-1988), research and comments by mwarner.

The biographical introduction to the Stella Osborn papers includes this
description:  "Stella Osborn (nee Brunt) was born on July 31, 1894 in
Hamilton, Canada.  She finished elementary school in 1908, and
subsequently went to work at the age of fifteen as a stenographer. She
eventually completed her high school education through night classes in
Toledo, Ohio.  In 1918 she entered the University of Michigan, graduating
summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1922.  In 1930 she received a
master's degree in Medieval English Literature, and in 1978, an honorary
Doctorate of Letters, both from the University of Michigan...

  ...In 1931, she became the adopted daughter of Chase S. Osborn,
ex-Governor of Michigan, and collaborated with him on five books...

  ...On April 9, 1949 her adoption was annulled and she became the wife of
Chase Osborn...

  ...Stella Osborn died in Sault Ste. Marie in March 1988, where she had
moved from Poulan, Georgia in 1980.  In the last years of her life, she
continued a lively interest in world affairs, actively corresponding with
friends and with colleagues from the various peace organizations with
which she had been involved."

  Robert Frost was a central figure to the meeting of Stella and Chase.

Fascinating -- I didn't realize you could adopt people over the age of 18.

I searched for Frost on Lynx and, besides copies of some of his poems,
came across a very sketchy, and apparently truncated, biography, which
had no mention of his Ann Arbor sojourn, much less any association with
Chase or Stella. The biographer mentioned other biographies as being
rather disdainful of Frost - a rather unusual contrast. 

I have a volume of Frost's letters that tells part of the story:  

In 1921 Frost was invited to become "Poet in Residence," a 
relatively new idea at the time, at the University of Michigan.  
He was paid $5,000, donated to the University for this purpose by 
Chase Osborn, to spend ten weeks or so in Ann Arbor during the 
school year.  He took his responsibilities seriously, organizing 
workshops and discussion groups, and engaging many of the most 
popular poets of the day to give public readings in Ann Arbor.  
In his last year at "Michigan University," as he called it, the 
illness of one of his daughters made it necessary in the dead of 
winter for him to close up his house in Ann Arbor ("Every week or 
so I would run the water out of the pipes") and commute back to 
Massachusetts.  His wife, his sister and his son were also in 
poor health during this period.  Finally, he resigned his post 
and moved back to New England for good.  In his last letter from 
Ann Arbor, he says, "I like Michigan people and I like Michigan.  
Only only." 

A letter dated 28 November 1922 gives his street address as 
"1432 Washtenaw Avenue."

Btw, Frost's last year at U of M was 1926.

So what happened to Frost when the ten weeks was up?  Did Osborn
extend another payment to keep Frost at UM?  Did UM cough up a
stipend?

1432 Washtenaw would probably be somewhere in the South University area. 
I'll look for it when the class I'm teaching right now is over, since I'm
only a couple blocks away right now.

Re #16: I'm afraid I didn't word that very clearly.  Frost
was Poet in Residence for ten weeks each year from 1922
to 1926. 

This item cost me $25.00.  While browsing through the book
of Frost's letters, I came across a series from the early
1920s regarding Amy Lowell.  Apparently, Lowell called in
sick to Frost's 50th birthday party, and Frost, by way of
retaliation, declined to attend a dinner in Boston to
celebrate the publication of Amy Lowell's book about Keats.
Amy Lowell died less than a month later (she really was
sick), and Frost wrote a characteristically unpleasent
letter to Louis Untermeyer about the whole thing, jokingly
accusing Lowell of timing her death so as to maximize his
guilt over missing her "Keats eats," as he called it.
Frost had a mean streak at times.  In fairness to him,
however, Amy Lowell, who was tremendously influential in
her day, had refused to endorse one of Frost's books
because she didn't think his endorsement of one of hers
had been enthusiastic enough.  She had her moments, too,
in other words.  ANYWAY... Just last Saturday, before I
had read this item, I saw a first edition of Amy Lowell's
Keats book (two volumes, nice condition) at a local used
book store, for $25.00.  Reading the Frost correspondence
in connection with this item sent me back to the book store
(after a stop at the ATM, of course).

I hope your ATM account can afford the cost of 1432 Washtenaw...

What is the volume of Frost letters called, etc.?  It sounds interesting. 
The Bentley library has  at least one folder labled "Robert Frost" in the
papers of then U of M President Burton's Papers from 1921-1922.  The
problem with these archived collections of letters is that the most
interesting stuff in not labelled in many cases, and you have to be
willing to filter feed, in addition to being very creative in your
searching.  That's one reason I appreciate now, since I have been doing
some letter reading research, books that are composed in large part of
reprinted letters.  There is more work in them than just typesetting. (at
least the good ones).

Re 13:  "The offer of adoption was far less than my dream but much more
than I had any reason to hope for.  A stepchild of life from the
beginning, I could be deeply thankful for anything approaching the average
ration of happiness.  So, in 1931, on the birthday of his mother, Chase
Osborn adopted me while he was at his winter camp in South Georgia, at the
Worth County courthouse in Sylvester.  He was in his seventy-second year,
I in my thirty-eighth."  SO Papers,  Bentley Library.  From SO's
unpublished autobiography.

Interesting about Frost's mean streak.  I've gleaned no hint of it from
his poetry, which is almost entirely gentle and humane.

Quotes from Stella Osborn...

   "The importance of the Osborn-Upper Peninsula gift of Frost at the
University of Michigan can be understood only by reference to President
Burton's papers in the Michigan Historical Collections of the Bentley
Historical Library in Ann Arbor.  Despite the outstanding success of that
first year, there would not have been a second year had it not been for
Dr. Burton's incredible persistance in searching out a second donor.
(still anonymous)."...

  ..."Another weakness Frost pointed out was that my prose was too
rhythmic. It made him feel - well - "sort of sick."  I knew what he meant.
"I fight against it but don't seem to be able to get away from it." 
"Well!  If you realize it and have tried to stop it and can't, perhaps
that's the something that makes you different, so just forget about it,"
was his final advice.  Nevertheless I still struggle and my prose still is
marred by taking off from the earth and walking straight into the sunset,
sunrise or stars."

 There is reason to believe that Robert Frost was kinder to the minor
birds in his Ann Arbor days than he was in his later days at Breadloaf;
when at times he openly and sharply expressed his impatience at having to
bother with such stuff as he found in his basket --  though the writers
were paying good price for his bothering, and some of it was authentic. Or
should poets whose working hours are notoriously irregular ever be tied
down to contracts and timeclocks?...  ...One complaint about Frost at
Breadloaf was that one morning he did not show up because of the deep hurt
when the frost killed his flowers."  SO papers.

_Selected Letters of Robert Frost_, edited by Lawrance Thompson,
published (my copy, anyway) by Holt, Reinhart & Winston in 1965.

I don't know if the jury is in yet regarding Frost's "mean streak."
If you read Thompson's biography, Frost sometimes seems an
incredibly disagreeable person.  Vain, thin-skinned, vindictive,
selfish, etc.  As a poet, I think he is sometimes misunderstood.
The kindly wrinkled old New England bard with the tousled white
hair and the gentle twinkle in his eye didn't have much to do with
the poems.  There's gloom and cynicism even in some of his most
popular pieces.  But Frost was too smart to kill his cash cow.
The most he ever did to disillusion his fans about the supposedly
"inspirational" but actually nasty and sarcastic "The Road Not Taken,"
for example, was to caution audiences at his public readings that
"this next one has a stinger in its tail that most people don't
notice."  If *I* had written "The Road Not Taken," it would have
driven me crazy to hear people reverently reciting it as if it
were an Emersonian or Thoreauvian exhortation to self-reliance.
It's a wonderful poem, but if anything it's like a Wildean or
Beerbohmian satire on the self-reliance cult.  Anyway, Frost's
collected poetry is a rich and complex body of work that can't
be summed up succinctly, except possibly with the word "genius."
(A little biography should tip you off: The prototypical Yankee
poet was born in San Francisco and was named Robert Lee Frost
after the celebrated Confederate general.)

From the Marion Leroy Burton Collection, Michigan Historical Collection,
Bentley Library, U. of M.:

 On June 29, 1921 University of Michigan President M.L. Burton sent this
telegram to Robert Frost in "South Shaftesbury, Vermont":

  "After corresponding with President Hughes, I desire hereby officially to
offer you fellowship at University of Michigan for academic year 1921-22
on basis somewhat better than you have indicated to President Hughes.
Letter Follows."

  ...And the letter which followed (My edit = ... ):

  "Mr. Robert Frost
   South Shaftesbury, Vermont
  June 29, 1921

  I enclose a confirmation of a telegram which I have just sent to you. I
am sorry not to have been able to head this matter up sooner but I now
have a gift from the Honorable Chase Osborn, former governor of this
state, to make possible your coming to Ann Arbor next year...
  
  ...I want to be very explicit about this whole matter.  I am sure you
understand that it is distinctly a one year arrangement.  You could not
come to Ann  Arbor under satisfactory conditions and pay your own house
rent on a basis of $3500. President Hughes telegraphed me that you would
accept on that basis.  We shall treat you much better.  Candidly, for the
entire expense of this arrangement for the year we have $5000..."

  A letter from Frost to Burton 7/7/21:

  "...It remains for me to thank you for having chosen me to be a
representative of creative literature in this way at Michigan University. 
We'll waive the question of whether you might not better have chosen
someone else for the honor.  I should have thanked you almost as much if
you had.  The important thing is that you should have chosen anyone. I
don't know why I am so gratified unless it is because I am somewhat
surprised when men of your executive authority (yours and Mr Osborn's) see
it as a part of their duty to the state to encourage the arts; and I don't
know why I am surprised unless it is because I base my expectation on what
I have observed of our Presidents at Washington.  We have had a dozen in
the White House in the last fifty years, all good men and all good
executives, but only one of the lot of such sight or insight.  And we
don't think that a large enough proportion for safety, do we?...

  ..This is a long letter, but you will forgive it to my wish to show my
appreciation of what you and Mr Osborn have done..."

  Another letter, to U. of M. Secretary Shirley Smith, explains that Frost was
paid $350 a month for 9 months, $1350 for rent... 

  "This leaves $500 for coal + bal can be adjusted in last payment.."


  Captured in this folder is the moment the cash changed hands, but we
need to look backwards further in time to see the motivations and
circumstances leading to this moment, which represented the creation of a
"Fellowship in creative arts." A comment made earlier in this item already
pointed out that this was somewhat unusual for its day.  I think further
research on the topic could be done to paint the surrounding circumstances
and people involved.  But, as I expected, material representing those
circumstances seems to be scattered. 

  One perspective I have some insight into is that of Stella Osborn, to
which I shall return.

Which was the president that Frost thought was the only one worth a damn?

He didn't say.  Maybe he didn't want to accidentally offend Burton's
favorite, or maybe in the context of the day the choice was obvious.
Who would our "likely to care about arts" candidates be from the
presidents of 1871-1921?

...Accidentally offend Burton in regards to his favorite.

...*regard*

(This is so much fun to read...keep it coming...)

A surfing safari:


  Search GopherSpace by Title word(s) (via UNINETT/U. of Bergen): robert frost

      1.  Frost, Robert. To the Thawing Wind..
      2.  Frost, Robert. Directive..
      3.  Frost, Robert. The Wood-Pile..
      4.  Frost, Robert. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening..
 -->  5.  Robert Frost: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.
      6.  To Robert Frost (Greg Potts).
      7.  Robert Pound, Ezra Frost.
      8.  Re: Robert Pound, Ezra Frost.
      9.  TAN Warning: This is not Re Robert Pound, Ezra Frost.
      10. Robert Frost: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.









Press ? for Help, q to Quit, u to go up a menu         Receiving
Information..-
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Robert Frost


Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.                        

My high school English teacher thought (as many people do, I think)
that the above was a death wish poem.  I had a professor in college,
though, who disagreed based on the fact that the author doesn't seem
overly depressed; he seems to enjoy watching the "easy wind and downy flake".

A "death wish" is overinterpretation. I have done exactly what Frost
describes, just to contemplate a beautiful scene - but then hurried on
because I had promises to keep. It is fun, though, to interpret what is
being thought, and what promises must be kept, and what "sleep" means.... 
That's how critics make their living...

Stella Osborn wrote of her Frostian memories:

  

..."Too marvelous to be true!" was my response to the first statement I
ever heard concerning him.  I did not know I was reffering to him; or to
anyone.  The direct object of my comment was the rumor of a gift to the
University of Michigan of five thousand dollars for a fellowship in the
creative arts, which would secure the atmosphere of the presence of Robert
Frost for a year on campus...

  ..I was to be a senior at the University the ensuing year.  The message
came from Yuki Geda Osawa, a native of Seattle, who was a candidate for a
doctoral degree and one of the staff of our insurgent campus magazine
called "Whimsies".  "Whimsies", which embodied the joint idea of Yuki and
myself abetted by three other women students, was championing aesthetics
and religious faith in an era when inconoclasts were raising Mencken and
Darrow as brazen serpents in the campus wilderness, and other student
publications seemed engrossed with such substantial things as football
and business opportunities in South America.  From the watchtower of
literary altitudes, it was a time of drouth in the great institution which
later, with its Avery Hopwood Awards, clearly led the world in its
encouragement of creative writing.  We felt hopelessly forgotten.

  IT was at Convocation in September, when President Marion Leroy Burton
announced the gift of the Fellowship and the coming of Robert Frost, that
the name of Chase S. Osborn, former Governor of Michigan and former Regent
of the University, came to my ears for the first time.  In a rush of
gratitude for all of us, I wrote the former governor and regent and tired
to tell him what his gift meant: overnight it had transformed the
University from a disillusionment into something at the peak of our dreams...

  ..."Whimsies" began as a mystery story in the year preceding the Frost
era at the University.  Its editorship was anonymous.  Its entire first
edition of thirty copies (a few pages stapled together, amateurishly
dateless) went stealthily into a mailbox on Hill Street on dark night in
1920, when footfalls on sidewalks were silenced by thick layers of wet,
brown leaves and conspiratorial mist was in the air. Perhaps Professor
Bussey was aware of something going on.  The mimeograph machine in the
basement of his Astronomy Observatory was an accessory before the fact.

  Something like thirty copies, neatly rolled, were on their way to
President Burton, all of the deans, and all members of two separate
Departments of Rhetoric and English Literature (including American).  Oh,
yes, and the editors of all then existing campus publications...

  ...President Burton, always alert and dynamic, after reading the
introductory editorial complaint about the absence of encouragement of
creative writing at the University, took up the question with the head of
the Rhetoric Department.  Professor Fred Newton Scott, internationally
active and co-author of one of the most fascinating textbooks I have ever
read, Scott and Denney's "Paragraph Writing"... ...probably with the
glimmer of a smile playing about in his Van Dyke Beard, said that
the writing was good and the point well taken.  Professor Morris Tilley of
the English and American Literature Department, mentioned an experiment at
Miami University: a poet-in-residence as a member of the faculty, and he
thought that Michigan might try to get Robert Frost.

  Marion Leroy Burton lost no time in investigating. He found that an
honorarium of five thousand dollars would be acceptable, and that former
University Regent and former Governor, Chase S. Osborn, would gladly
provide it....

----

What personal observations did Stellanova make about Robert Frost,
after meeting him?

To date, most of my entries have been drawn from 2 accounts written by
Stella a number of years after the Frost coming.  One was written in 1974
and another was written in an undetermined year, but probably the sixties
or seventies.  The information here so far represents her organized
reminiscence.  She does include some accounts of her impressions at times
such as .... (hmmm, flip. flip, flip.  Ah)

  "He amiably agreed to be the judge of our first "Whimsies" -Wahr poetry
contest.  The editorial staff did not see eye-to-eye with him.  I think
all of use were for an exquisite lyric by Rosali Dunlap.  Robert, to whom we
had given absolute power, of course, conferred the prize on Clement Smith
for a sensitively descriptive piece about a duck swimming on the Huron River."

  On the whole, I don't have an exact answer to that question.  Her
letters from that period should offer some more immediate impressions, and
the collection does hold folders of letters from those years.

  She despised the idea of H.L. Menken, remember, so it would be ironic if
she indulged in flights of biting prose.  As she said, her style was prone
to take off in other, more lyrical directions.

   

In a few days (as soon as I get the copies from the Bentley Library:
they're backlogged right now) I'll have letters between U.M. President
Burton and "Hughes" from 1921 discussing the Frost invite.   Excerpts to
follow. 

In Stella Osborn's comments about Frost coming to Ann Arbor mentions a
"poet-in-residence" program at "Miami".   This was Miami University at
Oxford, Ohio.  I learned this while looking through U. of M. President
M.L. Burton's papers in a box containing "Robert Frost" items from 1921. 
The immediate coincidence for me was that a "Hughes" was mentioned as a
go-between between Frost and Burton.  In the same box with the Frost item
where alphabetized letters from part of 1921 and part of the alphabet
which happened to include "H".  

  My time was limited that day, and so I quickly ordered xerox copies
(available for purposes of research) and gained another step on my
personal journey of discovery.  As the letters are from the period very
close to when Frost is invited, and because I have only looked at "Hughes"
letters, the early parts of this story still remain unexplored.  

  I have also learned about a researcher who has done extensive work on
the subject of "Robert Frost in Michigan": Dorothy Tyler who's credit in
"Frost Centennial Essays" compiled by the committee on the Frost centennial
of the University of Southern Mississippi, 1974, reads "Dorothy Tyler is a
writer and editor residing in Troy, New York, who was a student of Frost's
at the University of Michigan.  Tyler's essay in "Centennial" is titled
"Frost's Last Three Visits to Michigan".  

  I will address the "Frost Centennial Essays" volume later.  

  The "Hughes" letters from the summer of 1921:

  (M.L. Burton Papers, Michigan Historical Collections, Bentley Library,
U. of M.)

  In a Western Union Telegram dated June 29, 1921 U. of M. President M.L.
Burton writes President R.M. Hughes, of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio:

  "I am authorized by the Board of Regents to arrange for Robert Frost to
come here next year.  We can do better th(a)n $3500. Housing situation
difficult but we shall work it out for him. I am telegraphing him today.
Letter follows."

The letter (same date):

  "I enclose confirmation of a telegram and a letter which I have just
sent to Robert Frost.  I am  very happy over the situation.  I believe it
will be  best for us not to let him got too involved in the question of
finding a place to live.  We shall try to solve that problem for him.

  Will you tell me how you think we ought to use Mr. Frost next year?"...


  I'll post Hughes' interesting response later this evening, as well as
Burton's reply to Hughes.  These letters are slightly lengthy (a dozen
paragraphs or so together) and I want to break the item up.  Someone else
may want to jump in with additional information as well.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss