(This is a letter written by Hamilton Chase to his grandchildren, February 5, 1965)
To Lyle and Charles Courtsal,
Certainly as far as my vocation was concerned, your Grandfather Chase has led a mundane life in these interesting and often stirring times. When you work for such an enormous enterprise as the Bell System, in the normal course of events, you are tucked off in a corner, given instructions on what is expected of you and encouraged not to speak unless first spoken to. My, but this regimen is hard to take with anyone who is endowed with any spirit. Many, in fact a great many, who are much more mice than men crawl off into their corners and live a life of contentment.
Twas not always so with Granddaddy. In fact during the years I spent at that great liberal center of knowledge - the University of Wisconsin - I was encouraged to be a free spirit. I cut quite a swath and enjoyed every minute of my life at Madison. As I progressed at the University, I came to realize that my age was definitely beyond the average and that I should accelerate the pace a bit and get myself out of that glorious place and become self supporting. Consequently in the summers of 1923 and 1924, I pursued my studies at the University and in addition enjoyed life on Lake Mendola to the full. It was an unbeatable arrangement. The summer climate at Madison approaches the perfect. The University draws many interesting students from less favorable summer climes. Among them are an unusual number of exceptionally attractive and lovely members of the truly fair sex. You can believe me, my time was full during those never to be forgotten two summer sessions.
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| Hamilton Chase at University of Wisconsin |
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| Hamilton Chase |
In our Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity house, my neighbor across the hall was Robert Llewellyn Wright - know to all but his father as “B”. Being the sixth and youngest child of Frank Lloyd Wright, B was rather naturally a shade different from the rest of us. He was handsome with curly blond hair but woefully untidy and not always clean. For instance, he, prior to retiring at night, tossed his shirt and underclothes in the corner of the room. The next morning he’d put on clean clothes and the discarded ones remained in the pile. When in due course he ran out of clean clothes, B tied up the pile and betook himself to the laundry. In the meantime, however, the pile produced an increasingly unpleasant scent in B’s room, which did not encourage visitors. Also, scattered about and stacked up in the room was a large assortment of Japanese prints. Being completely unappreciating of the finer things in the line of art, all of us looked on these beautiful works with disdain. In fact, we considered them totally inappropriate in a male student’s room. However, we did question our judgement when in the summer of 1924, B’s father became a bit short of cash and sold these prints to the Buffalo Museum in NY for $ 5000. To us students in the year 1924, that seemed a considerable sum of money.
As the summer of 1924 progressed, B became enamored of a lovely blond girl from New Orleans and I enjoyed the company of one of the most beautiful brunettes the city of Louisville has ever brought forth. The four of us spent quite a few evenings canoeing under the moon of the placid surface of Lake Mendola. To the accompaniment of a banjo, we rendered “Way Yonder in New Orleans” to perfection - we thought.
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| Hamilton Chase in the center of his University of Wisconsin DKE Brothers |
So it went until the last weekend of the summer session when B came to me to say that his famous father was spending the summer at “Taliesin”, his residence near Spring Green, Wisconsin. He had been trying for some time to get B to come to Taliesin for a weekend, but B hadn’t wanted to go alone. So, his father had agreed that B could bring me with him. We’d go on the train and his father would bring us back to Madison on Sunday afternoon in his car.
We departed Saturday morning for the short ride to Spring Green and were met at the station by Mr. Wright’s chauffeur in his Cadillac Victoria. The chauffeur was a youngish man and an excellent driver even though he had only one leg. I noticed on each side of the car on the body between the front and rear doors a small red steel oblong attached to the car. When I brought these objects to B’s attention, he said a red oblong was attached to all of Mr. Wright’s possessions including his underwear and socks. We drove the few miles of beautiful Wisconsin land to stone gates marked Taliesin. Then we drove up a good sized hill on a curving gravel road. At the top of the hill the Taliesin mansion looked out over the magnificent Wisconsin River Valley. The house itself was comprised of two wings joined together by the work center or studio. Each wing, for all practical purposes, was a house in itself. It contained its own kitchen, dining room, living room and bedrooms. Mr. Wright could have guests or clients staying with him and they and the family each occupied their own quarters independent of the other group. Returning to the United States, two or three years prior to our visit, from Tokyo, Mr. Wright had converted the money paid him by the Emperor of Japan for building the famous Imperial Hotel in to art objects obtained primarily in Japan, China and Russia. Even on the porch Chinese idols stared open-eyed at me. Beautiful Russian bear skin and Chinese Oriental rugs were scattered over the floors. Japanese prints were everywhere. The house and every stick of furniture in it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The chairs and couches were low to the floor, soft and comfortable. The beds too were very comfortable and were also built quite low.
Mr. Wright was a vigorous man in his fifties who greeted B in an affectionate, fatherly manner and acknowledged my presence in a friendly way. A good part of the east wing was being rebuilt and eight or ten carpenters and masons were at work on the job. Soon it was time for lunch and all of us including the men working on the house, the farmer -- for Taliesin is a farm -- the farmer’s wife and housekeeper in addition to the architects working in the studio sat down with Mr. Wright at the head of the table. The architects were a man and his wife from Japan, a Swiss and an Austrian.
The studio was a long and somewhat narrow room with considerable glass looking out over the verdant Wisconsin River Valley to the north. It was the only room in the house with a high ceiling and had a balcony on the north side of the room. Since the balcony had excellent light as well as the handsome view, most of the work seemed to be done there. The work in progress was to have been a Chicago skyscraper on North Lake Shore Drive. The weekend prior to our coming, the president of a Chicago insurance company and his family had been Taliesin guests and had examined the plans. As I recall, however, the deal did not materialize. Of course, at that time Mr. Wright had not come in to his full fame and some of his work had to go for naught.
This brings me back to the work being done on the east wing. I asked B what was going on and he said something about the lines of that section of the house had not pleased Mr. Wright, so he had had that portion of the wing torn down and it was now being rebuilt. I presume he was pleased when the work was completed.
Getting back to B and me at Taliesin; we enjoyed a good lunch -- nothing fancy but good solid food. Then after lunch, Mr. Wright suggested that B and I might enjoy riding horseback along the country roads. So, with the help of the farmer, we went out in the pasture and managed to get halters on two Hackney ponies who had been grazing peacefully and were not easily apprehended. It seems B’s father had obtained these animals for B on his return trip when he had stopped over to visit in England and his beloved Wales. Mr. Wright was enormously proud of being a Welshman. Each of his children bore a Welsh middle name as did he. Well, the ponie were good, well trained, lively animals. We took quite a long ride and throughout it had to hold up on the reins to keep the ponies from breaking in to a run. We enjoyed the ride greatly. When we returned Mr. Wright suggested that the three of us walk down to the river and enjoy a swim. He wore, over his swim suit, a Chinese costume of white linen, a outsize straw hat and carried a cane he’d bought from the Phillipines. When we got down to the river we found the water to be clear and deep enough for swimming. The current was not swift and the water’s temperature was just bracing enough to make the swimming enjoyable. In those days your Grandfather was a good swimmer who did pretty darned well with the Australian crawl. Neither B nor his father was particularly adept at swimming and the old gent made some quite complimentary comments about my ability. He was grand company on the jaunt and was very friendly and jovial. I’d had such a good time, I was loath to leave but it became time to climb back up the hill and get dressed for dinner.
Even though it was in the month of August, the evening at Taliesin was cool and the fire was lighted in the fireplace of the east wing living room. Soon after dinner, neighboring farmers came in one at a time showing Mr. Wright their … (missing page 9 of 10 of the letter) …
We set off. The country was green rolling and a joy to the eye. All went well until we were about five miles out of Madison when the carburetor spit a couple of times and the engine died -- out of gas. No one seemed anxious to take over the job of going for gasoline so I asked what was to happen next and the job was mine. The great architect apparently forgot the detail of gasoline fairly frequently for in the rear of the car was an empty gallon can. Armed with the can, I set out afoot for Madison and gasoline. I hadn’t walked far, however, before a kind motorist, seeing my situation, stopped and took me to the nearest gasoline station. I was driven back to the care with a full gallon of gas. Soon, we were on our way again.
We directed the chauffeur to our fraternity house. When he saw the sturdy brick colonial edifice, Mr. Wright turned his head away and refused to look at it again.
Goodbyes were said and an interesting, happy weekend was over.
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| Hamilton Chase's original letter to me and my brother, 1965 |
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To Hamilton Chase
Southwestern Bell Telephone Company
Winfield, Kansas
From Robert Llewellyn Wright, Chicago, Illinois
November 12, 1929
Dear Ham,
Your letter finally reached me after some delay and I am very grateful for it. It made me think that there was perhaps some excuse for the letter to “Tim” after all but it usually takes years to life down one of those public outbursts.
I heard of your marriage some time ago and want to take this opportunity to congratulate you. Brother Snydacker who showed me an original clipping of that event, was detected by me at the Deke tea Saturday, after the Chicago game, with a young lady whom he rushed away for the purpose of feeding, although food was being served at the house. That will give you an idea of his present financial and spiritual condition.
The game was hardly encouraging, even though a victory, and I should think a bet on Kansas would be better than one on Wisconsin almost any Saturday this year. Personally, I am again using Cornell as my football alma mater, at least until the Dartmouth game.
I am now working for Mayer, Meyer, Austrian and Platt which, as you may have heard, is a law office. Still going to night school and will not finish my law course till June. Starvation wages but the most interesting job I ever had.
Being married ought not to keep you out of Chicago indefinitely and we ought to be able to stage some sort of a get together before long.
Sincerely,
B. Wright
619 Cornelia Street
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