Helen Schermerhorn's: Bookplate Proposal

Woodward letter to Helen Ives Schermerhorn, page 2 and 3, sometime around 1908...

". . . or do you prefer Helen Ives or Helen Ives Schermerhorn? Now for subject matter - me and my mind a number of ideas, but I [wish] you would you tell me what to make. I spoke of a group of little old-fashioned children, reading a book together [n'est-ce pas]? My own plate I've about decided is to be a simple spray of an unleashed blossom, fruit branch, peach, or cherry, with possibly a snail upon it, with the Latin of "slow but sure". And my name in fine lettering the blossoming fruit branch has always been a great attraction to me - the beautiful wonderful petals bursting from a gnarly, unknown word branch; then the delicate pedal flush, and the branch - color, minus the ever constant green line always liked. But then this is neither here nor there. What I want to get at is would you care for anything so simple as a mirror flower? How about a rose? And say do you like darning needles? They are terribly decorative little creatures almost anyway you can put them with their gauzy Wings they're huge eyes and their segmented bodies, a rose and a Darling needle - I'm sure the idea would not be likely to be imitated in another book plate anyway, then how'd you like, per chance a wind blown tree, with a huge cloud back of it. Helen, who lines the wind and clouds and the out door fields? And a girl with the wind blown skirt, holding a book, and standing under the tree with her hand up to her hat? Wind blowing skirts are attractive in their lines.

The group of youngsters I had in mind are grouped like this one boy with a hoop, one reading, one listening and, a little old-fashioned girl with a baby on her arm and a bird in a something cage over head. Should the idea at all please you this sketch is enough to "queer" the idea, though. If I graduation of several words or rather a number of words, there is a way much unseen, though still good of making border of them the words with a bit of decoration at... [end of pg. 3]

Editor's Note:

We do not include the entirety of the letter because of the personal nature of its beginning as well as, it is not relevant to the subject of this page. We need to comment on the corrections we made. The first correction [in brackets] is a repeat of the word 'would.' From Woodward's context we believe he meant to write the word 'wish,' so we changed it

The second is not so much a straight correction as it it is grammatical spelling of the phrase n'est-ce pas. Woodward wrote it as n'est cepas. The phrase is a formal French tag question meaning "isn't it?," "right?," "don't you?," or "is that not so?" It is placed at the end of a statement to seek confirmation or agreement.

To the right we added to this page, Woodward's sketch for his own idea he seems to be settling on for his own bookplate. Woodward did not date his letters to Helen. In most all of them (but one or two) we have had to guestimate the date based on the context  of the  information  Woodward   referring  to in the  letter.  We believe  this letter  was written  around 1908.

Woodward is living on his own in Redondo Beach, CA. In a previous letter, Woodward tells Helen he is making his way by designing bookplates for people, among other things. We have a picture of Woodward's mother Mary on a cart, with the Redondo Beach pavilion behind her. The back of the photo is labeled, "Redondo Beach Cal ~"

We do not know the year the picture was taken and there is not enough visible background to date it. Therefore we do not know if this picture was taken when Redondo Beach was being developed which Woodward's father Orion was involved with the project or if this is a mother visiting her son. Around the time Woodward went to Redondo Beach, his parents moved to Glendale, CA, where Orion was also instrumental to the development of the burgeoning city.

One final point to make, Woodward uses some self-depreciating humor to soften his lead into his ideas for Helen's bookplate by describing the idea he is settling on for his own bookplate. He says he is going to include a snail with the phrase, "slow but sure" in Latin (we looked it up. It is "tardus autem certus".) For some context, this is a relatively short time after he has accepted that he will never walk again.

In previous correspondences (between his accident and the letter above), Woodward made a major faux pas by sending Helen his "self-published" booklet The Love Leaf which could be construed as a confession of love after stringing her along for sometime during his years in Peoria, IL. He does apologize to her but because we do not have her response, we cannot speculate as to what she had to say. We imagine she was polite given the rawness of his emotions at the time still grieving his loss. Following the apology, Woodward later tells Helen he will no longer answer questions or discuss his health going forward. He puts it behind him.

We have never seen nor found an example of any bookplate Woodward designed for himself. However, let's not forget that he lost two book collections to two fires, 1922 and 1934, both being total losses of his studio where he kept his books. This is no surprise but we hold out hope that someone may he lent a book passed to a family member who one day finds us.