Camden N J—1
April 19 '87
I was down at Glendale2 Sunday—all well—all ab't as usual—Your
father better, his back hurts some, but I think it will pass over—Ed3 was away—Harry4 has been here
to-day—is getting along favorably —I have
been to New York5–Send you a paper with acc't—Love
to Ruth6, [Jo?],7 and all—
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
Deborah Stafford (1860–1945)
was the sister of Harry Stafford, a young man whom Whitman befriended in 1876 in
Camden. She married Joseph Browning (d. 1931). See Daybooks
and Notebooks, ed. William White (New York: New York University Press,
1978), 1:35. Debbie and Harry's parents, George and Susan Stafford, were tenant
farmers at White Horse Farm near Kirkwood, New Jersey, where Whitman visited
them on several occasions. For more on Whitman and the Staffords, see David G.
Miller, "Stafford, George and Susan M." Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings, ed., (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998), 685.
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
Mrs: Debbie Browning | Care of Will Goldy | p o box 91 | Topeka Kansas. It is
postmarked: Camden, N.J. | April 19 | 8 P M | 87. [back]
- 2. Glendale, New Jersey, was
where the Staffords had moved after leaving their farm at Timber Creek, where
Whitman had often visited. [back]
- 3. Edwin Stafford (1856–1906) was one of
Debbie's siblings. [back]
- 4. Harry Stafford (1858–1918) was one of
Debbie's siblings. Walt Whitman met Harry in 1876, beginning a relationship
which was almost entirely overlooked by early Whitman scholarship, in part
because Stafford's name appears nowhere in the first six volumes of Horace
Traubel's With Walt Whitman in Camden—though it
does appear frequently in the last three volumes, which were published only in
the 1990s. Whitman occasionally referred to Stafford as "My (adopted) son" (as
in a December 13, 1876, letter to John H.
Johnston), but the relationship between the two also had a romantic, erotic
charge to it. For further discussion of Stafford, see Arnie Kantrowitz, "Stafford, Harry L. (b.1858)," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 5. Walt Whitman presented
his Lincoln lecture in New York on April 15, 1887, before a distinguished
audience including Samuel Clemens, James Russell Lowell, John Hay, Augustus
Saint-Gaudens, and Andrew Carnegie, who contributed $350. [back]
- 6. Ruth Stafford Goldy (1866–1939) was one of
Debbie's siblings. When Whitman wrote this letter, Debbie was visiting Ruth in
Kansas. [back]
- 7. "Jo" probably refers to Joseph
Browning, Deborah Stafford's husband. [back]