Letter from Dorothy Selby to Isabel Field
Date
20 May 1947
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Object Detail
Date
20 May 1947
Transcript
37, Egerton Terrace, S.W.3 Ken.0844 May 20/47
Dear Mrs Field
Your letter reached me the day I heard that Frances had left us. I was on the point of writing to you to tell you that I had been down again to Herrison House to see Frances, just about 10 days before she passed on. I think she just knew me from one or two things she said. I felt then that the end might come quite quickly, or she might have lingered on, but I felt that any hope of recovery humanely speaking was not to be. The Doctor whom Miss Krauss & I then saw confirmed this. For Frances I feel no-one who came for her could have wished her to linger on gradually growing weaker & weaker. I think you can rest assured that she had every care & attention & I don’t think she in any way realized it when she was [?] I think it was just a complete break up mentally & physically. I realise [?], much in a [? ?] one prepares for the news, it always comes as a shock & can realise how much you wished you could have been with her as she was for these last few years. The [?] undoubtedly was a great strain and I think especially [?] this she had a great wish to see you & her relations in Australia. I know how much she felt the loss of your husband and her two brothers for she told me about it, & I know how much she enjoyed seeing your son Peter during the war.
I did not know her until about 20 years ago but have always had a great admiration for her work & her single mindedness & her friendship meant a great deal to me & I shall miss her greatly. It is nice to [?] this she lived to see her work recognized in a way which does not come to many pioneer artists in their lifetime.
I have just returned from her funeral at Weymouth; it was her wish to be cremated & I think you would have felt it was all as she would have wished & many of her friends there to bid her a last farewell on this Earth.
I am going down this week to Corfe Castle to go through her personal things with Miss Krauss. May I send you my personal sympathy. I know what a break in the family circle can mean. [written on margin of first page] If there is any point you would like to ask me please let me know. Yrs very sincerely D. M. Selby
Dear Mrs Field
Your letter reached me the day I heard that Frances had left us. I was on the point of writing to you to tell you that I had been down again to Herrison House to see Frances, just about 10 days before she passed on. I think she just knew me from one or two things she said. I felt then that the end might come quite quickly, or she might have lingered on, but I felt that any hope of recovery humanely speaking was not to be. The Doctor whom Miss Krauss & I then saw confirmed this. For Frances I feel no-one who came for her could have wished her to linger on gradually growing weaker & weaker. I think you can rest assured that she had every care & attention & I don’t think she in any way realized it when she was [?] I think it was just a complete break up mentally & physically. I realise [?], much in a [? ?] one prepares for the news, it always comes as a shock & can realise how much you wished you could have been with her as she was for these last few years. The [?] undoubtedly was a great strain and I think especially [?] this she had a great wish to see you & her relations in Australia. I know how much she felt the loss of your husband and her two brothers for she told me about it, & I know how much she enjoyed seeing your son Peter during the war.
I did not know her until about 20 years ago but have always had a great admiration for her work & her single mindedness & her friendship meant a great deal to me & I shall miss her greatly. It is nice to [?] this she lived to see her work recognized in a way which does not come to many pioneer artists in their lifetime.
I have just returned from her funeral at Weymouth; it was her wish to be cremated & I think you would have felt it was all as she would have wished & many of her friends there to bid her a last farewell on this Earth.
I am going down this week to Corfe Castle to go through her personal things with Miss Krauss. May I send you my personal sympathy. I know what a break in the family circle can mean. [written on margin of first page] If there is any point you would like to ask me please let me know. Yrs very sincerely D. M. Selby
Pages
4 pages
Institutional No.
MS-Papers-0085-49
Credit Line
Letters
to
Isabel
Field.
Field,
Isabel
Jane,
1867-1950
:
Correspondence
of
Frances
Hodgkins
and
family
/
collected
by
Isabel
Field.
Ref:
MS-Papers-0085-49.
Alexander
Turnbull
Library,
Wellington,
New
Zealand.
https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22832495
https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22832495