The telegram as directive

Within Anne Sophia Penn Chew's collection of correspondence are a large number of telegrams. This communication tool was widely employed by Samuel and Mary Johnson Brown Chew. Samuel and Mary split their time between Cliveden and Mary's family home in the city, so their belongings were housed in both places. Many of Mary's letters to Anne describe the day's events, give reports about the children, and, inevitably, ask for some article of clothing to be sent or some task to be completed at Cliveden in her absence. The telegrams serve as quick reminders to send this or that, notify Anne that the family will be coming to tea or dinner, or ask her to prepare something. Though Anne was not generally doing these things herself (she likely would have had her servants do them), the letters and telegrams have a tone of direction and expectation. Anne may have been living independently, but her life seems to have been lived in service to her nephews and their families.

In one of the first telegrams I read, Anne's nephew Ben requests that she have a warm bath for him in the afternoon:

An audacious request, in my opinion, but not out of the ordinary.


Other noteworthy telegrams include a request from Mary to send salad "at once" and another from Samuel to send "a quantity of celery and some lettuce."


Another odd request reads "Do not send laundress tomorrow. Send David's gun by Charles tomorrow. Mary J.B. Chew"


And finally, this request: "Please send some linen and underclothing today."


This last request is, it turns out, quite poignant. Samuel Chew was, at this time, taking care of his brother Ben before his death. In one 1885 letter, Samuel writes to Anne that Ben had lost all control of himself, and that he had used up all of the linen and underclothing in the house because of the constant changing that was required. It is unclear what disease finally caused Ben's death, but the symptoms Samuel describes include inability to express himself or understand what was happening around him and the inability to control his bodily functions. These letters (and other series throughout the collection) offer graphic representations of disease and care for the sick in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Let them eat cake

A different monarch, a different century, but this letter to Anne Sophia Penn Chew (1805-1892) includes not only an interesting reference to a remarkable cake, but fragments of the cake itself! Anna Maria Rush wrote to Anne on March 13, 1840, including crumbs from Queen Victoria of England's wedding cake. Rush had received some crumbs from another woman, Mrs. Stevenson, who attended the February 10 wedding, and sent on to Anne a few of them, "as a curiosity at least."

(click on images to enlarge them)

The crumbs are encapsulated to prevent them from harming the letters they are filed amongst. The envelope that the encapsulated crumbs are stored in dates from earlier processing of parts of the collection, in the early 1980s.





I am beginning to sort Anne's correspondence this week and my first impression of this Chew is that she was a strong and independently-minded woman. I wonder if her friend Anna's opening comment in this letter provides a clue to a less-than-orthodox range of womanly interests: "I do not know that you will value any thing so trifling as Queen Victoria's wedding cake..."