Gertrude Weil - Horace Mann - Excerpts from Letter from Gertrude Weil to her family, March 18, 1897
This letter describes some of the activities in which Gertrude delighted in high school. As indicated by her excited recounting of an important basketball game, Gertrude became an avid athlete while at Horace Mann; her gym teacher was Margaret Stanton Lawrence, the daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She also became involved in a kindergarten run by Horace Mann students for neighborhood children; here she gives an insightful analysis of her work with the kindergarten.
Courtesy of North Carolina Office of Archives and History.
College Hall
Mch. 18, 1897
My dear Ones - I have only a little while to write to-day. Again there is great excitement up here over our second game of Basket-Ball. It is to be at the Savage Gymnasium & nobody but the team & [illegible]-team are going, except a few others who are going to be smuggled in as subs, among whom your humble servant is one. I'd make a pretty substitute in reality without even my suit. The Savage people were awfully mad that we made such close restrictions. They had planned to give us a great reception, & besides Dr.Savage will be minus many
Courtesy of North Carolina Office of Archives and History.
...The Saturday afternoon Kindergarten work that you asked about, Mamma, is done by a kind of a club, that nine of us girls have formed. It is very little & we don't do very much—but then, we have just started. There is a Kindergarten room & a gymnasium on Lawrence St. (equivalent to 127 St.) which we have got permission to use. And so we have a free kindergarten for the children around there. There is a class in gymnastics too for the older girls who bring the little kindergarten children. Kitty O'Brien is a characteristic name. There are some awfully cute children that come—as sweet as they can be. Not all the Hall girls go the same day, but arrange it so that there about five go at a time, so we don't go every week. It lasts from 2 to 4 & the children are perfectly delighted. There are some pretty tough ones among them & some dirty ones too, but it isn't very bad ...
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