Helen Clay Frick Papers, Series II: Correspondence

The Helen Clay Frick Papers, Series II: Correspondence, 1894-1996 and undated, consists primarily of letters to Helen Clay Frick from family member and friends. The series also includes greeting cards, letters of condolence, and appeals from charitable organizations. A number of the correspondents represented in this series can also be found in the Helen Clay Frick Papers, Series IV: Alphabetical File. Materials are arranged alphabetically by correspondent or by subject within each subseries.

Subseries I: General Correspondence - Alphabetical, 1894-1996 and undated, includes letters from Helen Clay Frick's parents, Adelaide H.C. Frick and Henry Clay Frick, her brother, Childs Frick, her aunt, Martha H. Childs, and various members of her extended family. It also contains letters from Miss Frick's Swiss governess, Marika Ogiz, close friends such as Pauline Wells, Elizabeth Holmes McLeod, Katharine "Kitty" McCook Knox, Polly Dixon Turner, Helen and Samuel Shoemaker, Austin and Dorothy Pardue, and members of the Shoumatoff family. Staff of the Frick Art Reference Library in New York, the Frick Art Museum in Pittsburgh, and Helen Clay Frick's Pittsburgh office staff are also represented in this subseries. Those correspondents include Mildred Steinbach, Daphne Mebane Hoffman, Ethelwyn Manning, Virginia Lewis, Charles F. Chubb, E.J. McNamara, and Walter F. Cooley Jr., as well as Clotilde Brière and Lea Danesi Tolnay, who assisted Miss Frick in acquiring library materials from abroad. This subseries also contains letters from University of Pittsburgh chancellors John G. Bowman and Edward H. Litchfield, painters Jean Julien Lemordant and William Orpen, art historians Richard Offner, Theodore Sizer, John Walker III, and Millard Meiss, and politicians such as Theodore Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Alexander Haig, and Donald M. Fraser.

Subseries II: General Correspondence - Topical, circa 1890s-1986 and undated, contains appeals from charitable organizations, including political and social causes, arts organizations, and churches, along with greeting cards from family and friends in observance of birthdays, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Valentine's Day. This suberies also contains letters of condolence on the deaths of Helen Clay Frick's father (died 1919), her mother (died 1931), her nieces Adelaide Frick Blanchard (died 1956) and Jane A. Frick (died 1978), and her cousin Karl F. Overholt (died 1938), as well as her dogs Bob (died 1941) and Warey (died 1967).

Subseries III: British Girls Correspondence, 1927, 1940-1981, consists largely of personal letters from seven British girls who lived under Miss Frick’s care during their evacuation from Great Britain during WWII. The British Girls include: Margot Nicol (née Isobel Margaret Horn), Sheila Milliken (née Sheila Inglis), Mavis Archer (née Mavis Sayers), Valerie Goodwin (née Valerie Sayers), Pixie Love (née Mary Pix Sayers), Molly Willcox (née Molly Stuchberry), and Mary Joy Shuttleworth. The collection also contains correspondence from parents, family, and friends in relation to one or more of the British Girls. Letters are either hand or typewritten, and may include enclosures such as photographs and newspaper clippings. Telegrams, postcards, and greeting cards may also be found in this subseries. The bulk of these materials date from the 1940s and 1950s. The only item dated prior to 1940 is a school record from 1927, which is currently restricted. Additional items under restriction include medical and school records for each of the seven girls.

The letters written by the British Girls between 1940 and 1944 convey their personal sentiments about the war and their experiences in the United States, including their thoughts on American culture and education. Letters from the girls’ families in England during this time reflect parental concern and gratitude to Miss Frick, as well as hardships suffered by those living in England at the time, especially food shortages, rationing, blackouts, and aerial bombardment. Letters dated from 1945 on detail the individual life experiences of the British Girls, their families, and friends in post-war England, and summarize their personal friendships, educational and career pursuits, travels, marriages, and family lives well into the 1970s.