GRACE COOLIDGE ON THE JOYOUS SUMMER HOLIDAY ACTIVITIES SPENT BY HER AND PRESIDENT CALVIN COOLIDGE

COOLIDGE, GRACE ANNA GOODHUE.  (1879-1957).  First Lady.  Superb content Autograph Letter Signed, “Grace Coolidge”, as First Lady, on gilt imprinted The White House stationery.  Eight very full pages, octavo.  ‘Superior, Wisconsin, June 28, 1928’.  Very fine condition.  Accompanied by original The White House envelope addressed in her hand to “Mrs. Edwin A. Sherman, Marblehead Neck, Marblehead, Massachusetts”, with red, two-cent stamp and circular “Superior, Wis.” postal cancellation.  Coolidge writes:

 

“Dear Mollie K: If that isn’t the sweetest set of ‘undies’ [?] I ever saw, then I’ll eat ’em—elephants and all!  What fun I had unwrapping them and holding them up to a select audience.  You should have seen the look of perplexity which came when the can of oil and the syringe were revealed.  I am glad you sent them for after lying in bed for several days I think one gets a little out of whack in that respect.  Well, here we are—set down in the midst of lakes and rivers in a very pretty clearing.  The lodge in which we live and sleep is on an island—absolutely a perfect circle.  The edge is lined with a low barberry hedge with clumps of forget-me-nots close to the water’s edge.  The grass is cropped and carefully tended.  There are groups of cedar, spruce, and hemlock here and there with occasional white birches.  One freak is a fallen cedar which doesn’t quite lie on the ground and out of this grow three straight cedars, sturdy and strong.  This is the effect: [here she sketches a fallen tree with three others growing on top of it].  I never saw anything like it.  There are two bridges to the mainland.  We cross one to reach the dining lodge.  In this house are the kitchen and all its works, the servants’ dining room and the maids’ sleeping rooms, an office for the housekeeper and a main office where the telephone is and a general clearing house.  I am continuingly surprised at the great amount of business involved in keeping this establishment running.  The grass is kept cropped over a space as large as the south grounds of the White House and at the further end are the garage, stable and power house.  We have to walk up there to get into the cars.  The secret service, the doctor and the company from Fort Snelling who do guard duty are in tents on the side of a hill beyond these buildings, among the trees.  The first week that we were here it rained almost continually and the tent dwellers were getting very moist but all were cheerful and uncomplaining.  Already, the President looks rested.  He was up bright and early, this morning, and off for the day’s fishing.  As for me—I am tip-top once more.  I certainly hated to be the cause of holding the outfit up for two days.  John graduated with a whole course to the good [?].  He is having a good time in Connecticut and leaves for here Friday—tomorrow.  From what Mrs. Stearns writes I am afraid you haven’t been having weather that was any too good.  I do hope it is going to improve now and be nice the rest of the summer.  Please give my love to Lilian.  I shall be interested to know what you decide she shall do next year.  I wish I had Francis here to play for me, this morning.  I am stuffing rolls into an …  My best thanks to you for the beautiful ‘undies’ and also for the other equipment.  Write me the news.  With my love, your friend, Grace Coolidge”.    

 

Just a superior letter and one of the very best we have seen from her, or any First Lady’s pen!   One of our: “The Best of the Best.”™                                                                                            

$1500.00