In the early years of the 20th century a singularly flamboyant young lady named Isadora Duncan danced her way to fame, and some fortune, across America, Europe, and Russia. She captured attention in part because her gauzy flowing costumes exposed more skin than audiences were accustomed to seeing. Her unorthodox approach to dance created nearly an equal amount of tut-tutting.
Isadora rejected all conventional forms of dance and replaced them with her own expressive interpretation. One admirer said, “She doesn’t dance to the music, she dances the music”. This was exactly as she intended.
In later years, Martha Graham would develop a more structured version of the type of dancing Isadora pioneered. It would be called, Modern Dance.
That said, Isadora had no interest in pioneering anything. She had one objective that guided her throughout her life: be the most fulfilled Isadora possible. That single notion would cause more social changes than did the dancing. She was a champion for the individual freedom to pursue your own dreams.
Had Isadora been a young man, her notion would have been unremarkable. As a young woman, it was remarked upon quite a bit. Most young ladies of Isadora’s time were not encouraged to pursue their own dreams. In fact, they were not encouraged to pursue dreaming of any sort.They were encouraged to be sensible, modest, and skillful in the arts of maintaining home and family. After Isadora, some young ladies started wondering about all that. Modern feminists might claim her as one of their own. She would protest. She would be offended by any idea of categories, or of group consciousness, of any kind. Isadora didn’t want to free womenkind; she wanted to free Isadora.
Nonetheless, many young ladies, noticing the door ajar, decided to take a look outside.
One of these ladies was Annette Kellermann. Miss Kellermann wrote a book titled, Physical Beauty – How to Keep It. The book is filled with many tips about diet, poise, complexion, health and exercise. The exercises are illustrated by fetching photos of Miss Kellermann in tight leotards. I’m sure the book accomplished much good.
I have some personal reasons for thinking so.
Physical Beauty was published in 1918. My Great Aunt Bessie was just then changing from girl to women. Was she influenced by this book? I believe she was.
I have her copy. Inside the front cover she signed her name, Bessie Hamilton, in pencil. Above her signature is another inscription, in ink. I can not make out what it says, but it was done with authoritative flourish. Perhaps the book was a gift from whomever wrote this cryptic note. I would like to know, but I cannot.
Aunt Bessie has always seemed to me mysterious, and interesting. She died before I was old enough to ask anything cogent. Still I wondered about her. She was sister to my Grandma Ollie, and two other sisters. Grandma Ollie left home early to marry my Grandpa Joe. Aunt Lesta, and Aunt Letti, stayed where they were born until the day they died. Aunt Bessie did not.
She left to make her own way in the world – probably in her early twenties. Her chosen profession was: Teacher. She taught in many schools all around North Missouri for thirty years or more. My only direct memory of her was after she had already retired.
She was different from my other relatives; somehow more sophisticated, more engaged with things other than livestock and farming. Books, magazines and newspapers were neatly stacked on tables around her living room. Other relatives had Bibles, occasionally a newspaper, but no collection like Aunt Bessie’s.
She also carried herself differently; trim, smartly dressed, and confident. I suppose her wardrobe was slightly old-fashioned, but it still seemed to suggest professional probity. Even at eight years old, I found her intriguing. I still do.
Aunt Maudine has told me that when she was a little girl, Great Aunt Bessie took considerable interest in her young niece’s opportunities for personal improvement. Aunt Bessie persuaded Maudine to pursue a program of physical fitness, likely drawn from Miss Kellermann’s book. She also bought a piano for Maudine. I imagine she arranged for lessons as well. Maudine has told me her involvement with the piano cumulated with a recital at her local school. I’m sure Aunt Bessie was pleased.
I remember that piano very well. It seemed thoroughly out of place in that old farmhouse. No one played it. My cousins and I sometimes banged stupidly on the keys. For some reason, I didn’t ask about it until many years later.
There is a telling, yet enigmatic photo of Great Aunt Bessie. In this photo, off in the distance, some hundred feet or more, there is a silhouette of a Model-T Ford. The caption for the photo reads: “Miss Bessie Hamilton, driving the Model-T Ford that she bought with her own money”. I don’t know who took the photo, or who wrote the caption, or even why. But photo and caption together capture the spirit of a great lady.
Maudine followed Bessie into teaching, at least for a few years, until she married Uncle Frank and started her own family. Was Aunt Bessie unhappy that Maudine didn’t make a longer career in teaching? I don’t think so. I think Bessie wanted Maudine to be the most fulfilled Maudine that Maudine could be. In this she was successful. My Aunt Maudine is now in her 90’s. I have sent everything I have ever written to her for editing.
Her eye, and mind, is as sharp now as they were when she was eighteen. She ferrets out my every error in spelling, usage, and punctuation. Did influences from Isadora, To Kellermann, to Aunt Bessie, have anything to do with her perspicuity?
I cannot believe otherwise.
Aunt Bessie’s copy of Annette Kellerman’s book
PHYSICAL BEAUTY / EXCERPT
Fooling people is a waste of time and inefficient. By putting the energy we spend on makeshifts and artifices into acquiring the beauty we simulate, we can achieve real beauty, and be freed from the ignominy and ineffectiveness of deceit.
Clothing we must have and its fuller relation to genuine physical beauty I shall discuss in a later chapter. But the last of the mentioned substitutes for beauty is a thing we do not need at all. “Fat” is a short and ugly word. But “stoutness,” “plumpness,” “fleshiness,” “obesity,” “embonpoint” are only soft-pedal euphemisms. It is fat just the same, and just as clumsy, as unhealthy, as ugly and awkward when spelled with ten letters as with three.
We are told by artists and scientists that a woman naturally possesses more fat than a man, —that is is essential to round out the curves of her body and make her “plump.” I am tired, also, of this ancient stupid lie. It is a lie made by man, too cowardly to retain his woman by genuine worth. For devotion and love he substituted the harem; he penned his women up an fed them dainties and indulged their inactivity and laziness until they grew fat and “plump.”
Isadora, Bessie and Maudine - Epilogue: The mystery of the unreadable inscription has been solved. After showing the book to my sister and her husband, they immediately started searching the internet for answers. I told them that some days before, my friend, Tom Simon, while examining the inscrutable inscription, said that he thought he could see in it the signature of Annette Kellermann, herself. So, it was revealed to be.
Rhonda and Neil discovered several samples of Miss Kellermann’s signature. They varied a little, but all were clearly produced by the same hand. Some of these signatures were for sale. I don’t recall the prices. Several copies of the book were also for sale. All were priced plus, or minus, of $700. None of the books were signed.
I imagine Bessie’s signed copy would sell for something more than $1000.
I’m not selling.
How Aunt Bessie acquired this signed copy remains
a mystery.
The signature