Photo of Gertrude Ely: Bryn Mawr College Collection
I was on the brink of unsubscribing to the American Academy of Poets poem-a-day e-mail because I let so many pile up and then have to slog through all sorts of contemporary brain twisters.
But as I was working my way through the poems today, I came across the one below. I thought, “Oh, I know exactly what this is about” and was carried back to my college days and hanging out at the home of my great aunt’s friend Gertrude Ely.
Gertrude Ely was quite elderly at that time but really interesting to be around. She knew all sorts of movers and shakers and was an awesome storyteller. I happened to be staying at her house one weekend when she received an unusual letter.
An elderly Philadelphia gentleman wrote that he had read in the Bulletin that she had received some civic award, and he just had to write and tell her a memory he had from his service in WW I in Europe. The Army was sending over carloads of friendly, proper young volunteers to chat with and cheer soldiers and bring a breath of home. The man wrote he would never forget a load of girls pulling up in an open car and Gertrude Ely calling out, “Any of you boys from Philadelphia?” He said, “At that moment, I believe every soldier there was wishing he was from Philadelphia.”
Gertrude Ely at my college graduation.
***
American Boys, Hello! by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Oh! we love all the French, and we speak in French
As along through France we go.
But the moments to us that are keen and sweet
Are the ones when our khaki boys we meet,
Stalwart and handsome and trim and neat;
And we call to them—“Boys, hello!”
“Hello, American boys,
Luck to you, and life’s best joys!
American boys, hello!”
We couldn’t do that if we were at home—
It never would do, you know!
For there you must wait till you’re told who’s who,
And to meet in the way that nice folks do.
Though you knew his name, and your name he knew—
You never would say “Hello, hello, American boy!”
But here it’s just a joy,
As we pass along in the stranger throng,
To call out, “Boys, hello!”
For each is a brother away from home;
And this we are sure is so,
There’s a lonesome spot in his heart somewhere,
And we want him to feel there are friends
right there
In this foreign land, and so we dare
To call out “Boys, hello!”
“Hello, American boys,
Luck to you, and life’s best joys!
American boys, hello!”
[Ella Wheeler Wilcox wrote “American Boys, Hello!” while visiting France during the latter stages of World War I as entertainment for the American soldiers stationed there.]
Photo of Ella Wheeler Wilcox: American Academy of Poets, here.
Who was your great aunt? Fascinating. I’m Doing some research on Gertrude Ely.
Best,
Wendy moffat, Dickinson College
Caroline McCormick Slade. Wendy, I would very much appreciate seeing the results of your research on Miss Ely someday, whom I got to know pretty well. Ann Tickner was also a bit interested in her last year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Ann_Tickner
Hello:
My grandmother worked for Gertrude Ely as a live-in domestic around 1940. I know there was also a day butler who lived elsewhere. After a year, my grandmother worked up the courage to ask if her only child (my mother), who was staying with relatives, could come live with her. Miss Ely agreed, and my mother got a closet-sized bedroom in the home, which I believe was a converted carriage house, now an office. Mom (age 91) has always said that Miss Ely treated her well. However, the anecdote she’s repeated most over the years is that my grandmother decided to leave because of the stress of trying to feed large numbers of guests with the small amount of food Miss Ely would purchase! Mom doesn’t know if it was stinginess, or the belief that her rich and important guests were already well-fed enough, or perhaps empathy for the troops and starving masses. Mom also remembers Miss Ely traveling to Latin America (Guatemala, she recalls) on charitable missions. Eleanor Roosevelt and the singing Von Trappe family (who lived in nearby Merion) were guests. Hope you find this interesting.
This is all fantastic. I will get in touch with Prof. Moffat as I don’t think she looks at my blog often. I spoke to her by phone after she wrote her question to me.
Gertrude Ely is my great aunt and my mother typed out her diaries. She took my father, now 88, under her wing, and on his first trip to Europe, sometime in the early 50’s. He might be someone with whom to speak.
Oh, how very cool — both your offer and the fact that you found my post! It’s funny that because we’re all celebrating women getting the vote, I was just thinking about her and her friendship with my own great aunt, a suffragist. Let me put on my thinking cap, Elisabeth. Meanwhile, my email is suzannesmom@lunaandstella.com
Elisabeth, would you consider interviewing your father and just sending me a few words on his memories? A few funny stories? I don’t want to put you to a lot of work.