^Leroy^
53 Leroy Street, New York
September 15, 1934.

Dear Friduchi, Carmenita,

You big blankety blank blank Whatchumaycallit of a son of a
sea bitch of a nut.

If you remember in my last letter, I said I wouldn’t write
to you any more in my life until I got direct reply to my letters.
Believe it or not, but I have been itching to write you since
months, but forced myself not to so as not to break my word. But
not you have definite proof that I am a weak weak weakling of a
child, because tho I have not yet received any news from you, not
even a “pedo” I am going to write you.

I have such a lot of things to tell you that are probably
not at all interesting to you since to you as usual probably
all sorts of things of great importance are happening, but you
never write me about them because you really never get excited
about anything…..remember the famous eclipse in Detroit over
which I could have easily broken my neck in excitement, and yyou
were so sacriligious when you said it looked just like a cloudy
day when the full businesswaIs showing itself. Well, so the things
I will talk about to you are tiny tiny, and it will require all
the inspiration of a shakespeeare to give them magnitude to
you.

But before I start I want to tell you why I am writing you.
I just heard yesterday that you were sick at the hospital. Now
one is always very bored when sick but getting well, and as I
expect you to be getting well by the time you get this, this
letter may entertain you for ten minutes , the space required
between yawns. I must be careful to make it entertaining but
not over exciting so as not to give you fever. I mustn’t make
you laugh either toomuch so that your insides don’t get mixed
up. So I warn you ahead of times it will be very mild.

Starting from where I left off scolding you for your
voluminous correspondence a few months ago, here are the events
in order. All Steve and I did from the month of May to the end
of July was to work on the wall at Madison House. We made a swell
foundation a la Radio City and put our sketch on and then I lost
all the money needed for colors. Someone at the House stole my
pocketbook. We were in a terribly fix, and then Mrs. Stern came
along and gave me some money “for dresses”….NOT for any mural!”
So we were saved and started to paint middle of June. We made
large pieces from the start, and I might say, some were too large
for the beginning. My first brush mark on the wall was sotrembling
and cockeyed! But soon enough the whole feeling of the plaster
came and now I understand what a passionate business it is to
paint on fresh plaster. Steve would plaster for three hours, and
while he did that I would get the tracing and material ready.
Then I would start off on the painting getting the general black
base, while Steve rested. Then we would both work together over
each others work which was very hard as we both have pretty
different ways of th seeing things. Such fights we had over it!
It was the only hard thing in the mural, for we are both stub-
born and won’t give way to the other. We would finish up each
day very tired and disgusted with the work, and on top o that
it would be dark and the electric lighting was different. We
would wash the brushes and clean up everything then go home where

I would find dishes to wash, food to cook and a bath roo tub full
of dirty linen. We never got more than half of the money we needed
for the mural and had barely enough left to get us through the
month of Augus July, so that when we got an invitation to be
teachers at a Camp for kids (teach Art and Crafts) which meant
free eats and lodging, we calculated to get through with the
mural by the end of July. We had very few outside people to see
our work. Ben Shahn came with Lou by accident once. They were
walking in the East Side slums one Sunday and saw the mural thru
the window, so came in. It was half done by then, and they liked
it. Walter Pach and his wife came too and (NOT accidentally) and
showed great appreciation. A whole group of students from the
CPO also came and couldn’t understand how it was possible that
we could have that revolutionary mural in a settlement house
upheld by very rich guys. As for some of the trustees of the
House, they love it and all except some of the details….
which they feel however obliged to accept since we had the sketch
okayed before we started. Most of them don’t understand it anyway
so what the hell. The unveiling (or so-called unveiling) will be
held middle of October right in the middle of the autumn season
so there is a bigger chance of having an interesting reaction.
Until then we don’t know what to expect from people. Are we going
to get commissions when people find out how good are we are, or
are we going to be forever branded as lousy Reds by the Bourgeois
and lousy “liberals” by the Communists?

We went to Camp beginning of August for a much needed rest.
Steve was ten pounds underweight and I had lost ten pounds too,
not such a misfortune for me. When we got to Camp we found out
we had to take care of only about one hundred kids! We ended
up by having to set and serve and wash dishes at and make beds
as well as most of the other teachers. The noise of kids yelling
singing and fighting was no rest, but they were such a swell
crowd and the air and sun were so good, and the work to be done
so different from the mural that we did get some fresh energy
to face the coming months.

The teachers, or councellors, as they are called, were very
jolly. They would appear very good to the children of course, but
as soon as those had gone to bed, they (the councellors) would
go completely nuts. One day both the director and vice director
got drunk. The latter was once very drunk after Steve and I and
some others drove to town for some decent coffee. It was three
AM and he sat down with another teacher in the middle of the
road and started to argue for an hour on the rotten school
system and to hell with the Camp and to hell with the director.
We would laugh so much that for a day or two afterwards, we
felt sore in the belly.

One evening the three highest in command of camp came rushing
into the girl councellors room (where two girls and I slept and
kept our clothes). Now one it is not allowed for th any man to
come to the female quarters without warning. They came into the
room and opened all the drawers and threw all our underwear on
the floor crying in fake exasperation “Where is that box of
candy!” So to revenge the deed we went out in the night and
picked a lot of thistle burrs, very spiky plants that look like
fur and stck stick to clothes so badly that to pull them out of
wool you have to pull at them with lots of force which can easily
tear your clothes. We went to their room while they were gone
and first stuck burrs into their beds, and put burrs into their
indi underwear and inside their pants and sweaters. All night
we could hear them from a good distance, cursing and scratching.

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That my dear child is what respectable teachers do. On the last
day at camp when they had instead of kids, about 140 adults and
the teachers became waiters, we decided to go on strike. Steve
and I made funny strike posters and taught picket line songs
to the other helpers, “cheap hired help” was what we were called
for fun. We had such slogans as “Dishwashers, UNITE” and “We
protest discrimination of Aryans” (the camp being mostly Jews.)
Just before the dessert was to be served all the “servants”
met together and I led the line all around the tables back and
forth. Some of the guests were really afraid and thought we
were serious. Then the director came and asked us to read our
demands, which I did. They were all crazy demands such as
demanding that the guests go on a hunger strike so we wouldn’t
have to work, and demanding that there be abolition of Capita-
lism in camp, no more beating of eggs, or whipping of cream.
We protested having to eat the same food as the guests etcetc.
The director said he would grant some of the demadn demands if
we would only now serve the chocolate dessert. So we all jumped
at him and yelled traitor!!!and Sell out!!!!and broke a few
dishes. That’s how camp was. We got quite a lot of kids to
paint and draw, and fine results too for American kids. Of course
nothing like what is happening in Mexico. But it was thrilling
to see some of the big guys of 18 and 20 who only like sports
and sports and sports, making drawings between baseball games,
and in the middle of baseball games too.

We came back begingn of September and cleaned up house and
went to see our child mural at the Madison House and were quite
surprised that we had actually done it. There are a few things
I want to change and do over again, and I will have to coax
steve into agreeing with me. Of course I wouldn’t mind doing it
all over again…on another wall however. Ihope we get some wall
space again and money to work in peace. I would like to see Steve
paint all alone. He will do much more powerful work when there
isn’t a female nagging him all the time. I don’t think this mural
is characteristic of what he can do. We were held back by each
other, though it is also possible that the combination did some-
thing that is superior to one persons work alone. I was a bit
influenced by Diego naturally though many people are surprised
it isn’t felt more. Steve wasn’t at all and that helped. The
photos I enclose dont give a fair idea of the thing since they
are only details.

As soon as we came back Steve started to teach fresco to
Mrs. Brooks, the lady I hear you “loved” so much! She is paying
Steve and so we are not worried for the present. We heard all
about youse all thru her, and it made me feel still more sorry
for you than ever before, to hear that you had to smile and
entertain a lot of rotten tourists who came with sight seeing
bus. What a life, poor Frieda! And Diego not working yet must
be just plain insane. It was bad enough in Detroit when he
didn’t work one day. What must it be now when he hasn’t got started
yet. Naturally you get all the blame…who else in there to blame?
And when he is going to blame somebody, he certainly knows how
to do it. If only he’d get started, if somebody would just push
him by force on a scaffold and stick brushes and a palette in
his hand, after having plastered a piece of wall at the National
Palace, maybe it would get him started, and all his enthusiams
would come back. But then there are rumors that his arm isn’t

cured yet. I saw Zigrosser the other day and our first words
of greeting always are “How is Diego and Frieda?” He told me
that some vague news from a friend mentioned that “the accident
of Diego you know wasn’t really an accident, but its too long
to explain.” So I made the theory that Diego didn’t break his
arm at all but the life at San Angel with tourists coming in
and out was so unbearable that to have some rest he made up
the story to be left in peace. But I guess that isn’t such a
hot explanation. We still don’t know if it was the left or the
right arm. What we do know is that things aint so hot for either
of you, and now with your going to the hospital it makes things
sound like reall nightmares. Lets hope that when you get this
letter everything is better at last.

We have been doing some jolly work for the CPO driving some
of the comrades to Paterson the silk textile center and making
big posters for the strikers to carry at the picket lines…
this time serious stuff, and not camp jokes. They mentioned
them in the newspapers yesterday. Some of the posters near the
end of five hours of printing became pictures instead of words
and next time I go back to Paterson I am going to make only
pictures. The fellows there need them badly and love them.
I made lots of photos the other day of the picket lines which
are very militant and strong. The CPO is everywhere in the
Paterson strike, and the CP is boiling over with fury about it
and making lectures in New York about the role of the Lovestone-
ites in the Textile industry, calling us strike breakers and
guess what,?? Just guess what they call us for a change????
“Renegades” yes sir, regen renegades, for a change. But just the
same they had to get back into the AFL bexause the TUUL part of
the textile unions is useless and too small. But inside the
AFL they will only try to disrupt still more the workers, against
us, though that wont be easy as we are very popular. I don’t
hear anything about Trotskyites anymore. Their hadquarters are
always empty.

We are goigg to take a lot of courses at the school for
things look very seriously conducted this year, and we are
constantly reading technical things on Communism and Labor.
And while doing this, I go twice a week to Mt Kisco and carve
out guess what????? a bird fountain for Mrs. Cook’s estate,
(the sister of Mrs. [Liebann].) I act very delicate and dumb
there but I boil inside with rage at the capitalist mentality
they all have ther including the nurse maid who takes care of
the sick daughter Madge. I showed them the mural and (in photo)
and they asked why I had painted “We want bread” (all the
bourjeois HATE that part of the mural) when the government cer-
tainly was helping all it could and no one was actually starving
now in the U.S. But I am getting a bit of money which will keep
us from too many worries for the future months and so I swallow
it all. The pleasure comes in going to Paterson the next day
and walking in the picket line.

Stephancho is fine. He got color in his cheeks at camp and
was loved by all there. We love each other more than ever and
have a most peaceful life. We play chess when we come home from
work, or go to a meeting, or go to the movies, or to the kids
in Brooklyn. We miss you a lot…not so much the work with
Diego however…. but all the jolly times we had together,
and the times at Radio City which are as vivid to me now as they
ever were. Lou Bloch was just saying yesterday too, how he feels

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about Radio City. There was a meeting of the Committee for Action
for a Municipal Center the other day in which the City found a
house for the Artists to exhibit and to give them free, after
the artists of which the majority are Communists have been looking
for for a long time. It was of all the buildings the city could
give us, the very best located and perfect for the purpose. But
it had been lent or something to the effect, by the Rockefellers.
A real trap, I calls it!!!! They had a vote on it as to whether
to accept it or not. Lou Bloch and Ben made a real resistance.
(I wasn’t there and Steve came late) The three voted against tak-
ing it, but the majority voted the other way. So there is only
one thing to do in such a horrible case, and that is, to have
as opening show, the wildest attack of the Rockefeller vanda-
lism. If they don’t do such a thing they are a bunch of shitty
cowards. Of course since the municipal gallery will be non poli-
tical…..you know what I mean….and non sectarian, they may
go over such a plan, and the Rockefellers will still flatter
themselves that they own all the cultural and Art stuff in U.S
Which reminds me that by the way somebody in Rockefeller Center
wants a very large photo of the mural to put in their office.
That sounds intriguing. Alma Reed who is exhibiting photos of
Radio City mural wrote me a letter telling me that they had
great success in her Mexican Art exhibit and ordered another
large photo for someone at the Chicago Fair where this is taking
place. The architectural Forum promised me all sorts of articles
and printing my photos last February, and till now I have not
heard the slightest sound from them about it. They don’t write
me when I beg for answer, they close the telephone on me each
time and on top of that they have about thirty photos of mine
in their office for which they said “Don’t worry they will be
safe here! You cantrust us.” Fuck them all, the whole bunch
of slimy rats. How is that for poetry?

In the middle of Camp month Steve had about a week free
so he took the money we were going to receive for our work there
$25, and went to Flint Michigan to see his Pa and Ma. the first
thing they sid said when they saw him and expressed their sur
-prise was “Where is the girl?” meaning me. They asked him too
if he liked me, or rather “was there any love between
“you” and steve said “Yes there is, so what?” They seemed to thnk it
was fine, but that first Steve should get a good salary to which
Steve agreed very seriously. They said that I must come back with
him next time which may be in December IF we get a job, and if
get we can get away from it for Xmas. Walter Pach has had Steve
help him now and then in building panels and so on. He made
two little frescos before we left for camp which show that he
has to learn a little more the technique because the panels
are scratched here and there. He is so earnest about it, and
so humble. I like the portrait in fresco he made of his wife,
do you remember it, with that ultramarine background? He is
still waiting for the college to accept the sketch he made for
a little Fresco mural over some doors. We saw the sketch and
really dont see that there is the slightest radical tendency
in it. It is in fact too damn academic, though some details of
landscape are lovely. But it is pretty lousy for a fresco tech-
nique. But I hope he gets the job for he has worked so very
hard on it and things arent so hungky-dory with him either these
days.

The Morro Castle disaster certainly is the most exciting
business in a long time. I have Suzy’s little radio at home,
while she is in Europe, and I could smash it generally because
of the rotten things that they play on the ether, but last
week and again this week they are broadcasting the court room
inquiries of the fire. You hear the whole procedures, the
witnesses and the questioner. It is so different to hear the
testimonies instead of reading them a few hours later in the
news papers. You can hear the witnesses get mixed up and hes-
itate, and you can tell very well when they tell the truth and
you can also understand the things they don’t say. And each
witness is like a new story. While listening I darn stockings
and iron clothes, and when it gets exciting I burn my dresses,
on the iron.

Suzy went to England to play in an orchestra of ancient
instruments. You may have heard of Dolmetch and his ancient
instruments. Well that’s the guy. She felt horrible to leave
her man Paul, but it wasn’t long before someone over there
made her forget him a wee bit, or at least made her feel she
wants to go back to Europe again next year… The men all fall
for Suzy there is no doubt! Poor Paul, he’xs going to feel it
no doubt either, too. She went for a few weeks to visit the
parents who live now in Haute Savoie. They are in the same
doggone gloomy mood that they were in all their lives, irri-
tated at each other, but sticking together anyway.

[Handwritten note]

Well, dear Frieda, I have
lots more to tell you but
I am going to save it for
some other time. Maybe you’ll
send me a little card some day
and tell me how you are.
If you see Mati, ask her to
get me some c woolen ribbons
for my hair. It makes a
year since I need some.
Mine are greasy, smelly and thin.
Then I’ll send you the photos
I promised you.

A big fat hug to you from

Lucienne.