Or maybe, in the early years of the 20c. polite formalities were still operating in those levels of society where Letts moved.
Thanks for all your help and interest, Jeffrey. Re E G Edwards, I only know that Letts changed at 'Crewe for Derby and visited Edwards'. Letts attended S. Anne's Abbots Bromley from c1891-1898, and then changed to Alexandra College in Dublin. To the best of my knowledge, she did not work at all until signing up as a VAD in 1915. I wondered was the EG and MG a reflection of Letts's own use of WM instead of Winifred Mabel. I shall keep on with the jigsaw. Thanks for sending the Nottinghamshire query.
It's very easy to create a wrong "scenario" by just overlooking one detail or misinterpreting another. I realise I put "Little" Una outside of the doctor's family by misreading your "1.5" as "15"....I should have gone to Specsavers !
I surmised that M G Truman could well have been female from the "Days in school" reference in the dedication. The use of initials in the dedication seems very formal as a way to address people who surely must have been close acquaintances in earlier years. Did Letts, by any chance, hold a post at any school which might render the possibility that the dedicatees of the book were former male staff members? Have you been able to identify E G Edwards ?
I have, today, e-mailed the Nottinghamshire historical society to ask if they have any information in their archives about the Truman sisters and, by chance, any reference to M G Truman. If they are able to supply me with any relevant information I will pass it on to you.
Having an interest in old films I have seen the actor Niall MacGinnis many times. I guess one of his best-known roles was as the sinister Doctor Karswell in "Night of the Demon."
So having trawled through letters, diaries and BMD here since yesterday, I realise I have led myself and you astray in the details - apologies for that. I have now worked out that the Chesterfield family was Dr Patrick MacGinnis and his wife, son Niall (b. 1913, actor) daughter Mary (b.1914), son Dermot (b. 1920, W M Letts's godson), daughter Una who died aged 8 in 1926, and three other boys. She had known this family when they lived in Dublin preWW1.So 'Una Truman' may be a coincidence.
In her 1937 diary, Letts went to Liverpool from Dublin and'stopped at Crewe for Derby, went to Edwards'. So this suggests the Edwards also lived in this area. Unfortunately the Trumans don't appear in her diaries at all, but the 1912 book was dedicated to E.G Edwards and M.G. Truman, and another of Letts's many godchildren (Pomona and Co. published in 1924 was dedicated to her 'Family of (8) Godchildren) was a Margaret Truman. As you said, the MG might have been to hide gender - Winifred Letts wrote mainly as W M Letts and she felt critics were less kind to women writers.
I can bring up the Amazon link by searching for 'Dan O'Shee Letts' (on the general search engine, not on the amazon site)
It's most
unlikely that 7-year-old Una was the Una in question as the 1935 listing gives that particular Una as being an LRAM, having performed as solo pianist at Queen's Hall and being a violinist, conductor and orchestral leader. At the age of 16 she would have been quite a prodigy !
But does the mention of her by Letts specifically state that little Una was a daughter in the household in which the letter was written. The age-range of 10-15 appears to rule this out.
What I failed to mention before was that Irene Truman was married to a certain Mr. Brooke and she appears to have performed two-piano recitals with her sister Una under her married name Irene Brooke. If the Una mentioned in the Chesterfield letter wasn't referred to as a daughter of the household it's possible she might have been the daughter of the Brookes...maybe named after her aunt.
In 1935 the two sisters were living at the same address in Langdale Grove Ave., Nottingham presumably with Mr.Brooke . Maybe the census records might yield some information.
If Irene was a close contemporary of Letts and, IF little Una was her child it indicates that Irene must have been in her mid to late thirties when she gave birth to her...perhaps, although far from unknown, a little late in the day to have a first child but, were there others that preceded Una ?
This, of course, doesn't bring us much closer to an identification of M G Truman, but in my other reply in this thread - written before I had seen this particular contribution you had made - I speculated that the the unusual way of presenting the composer's name with initials might have been a way of concealing certain bits of information. A thought did cross my mind that M G Truman might have been the name under which Irene published her own compositions.
Maybe the jigsaw will come together and begin to form a recognisible image that you can work on in the near future.
Jeffrey - thank you so much for such a detailed reply. Interestingly, in a Sept 1926 letter Letts does mention a 7 year old called Una (and yes, it's an Irish name - the Irish version of Winifred, actually!) and the letter is written from Chesterfield so it's very likely that there is a link between Una Truman and M G Truman. The father in this house was a very hard-working doctor and there were six children, one at Stonyhurst, one at a convent school and 4 at home ranging from 10 to 1.5 years.
The Amazon.com listing - thankfully I screenshotted it at the time - gives Escott and Co as publishers on 1 January 1916.
Thanks again, Jeffrey - one jigsaw piece at a time!
Bairbre
I looked up these pieces on Amazon but could find no listing. Did the listings of the no-longer-available publications that you saw give the name (s) of the songs' publishers?
I also consulted a Who's Who in Music dated 1935. I found no mention of M G Truman but there was a listing for two sisters , Irene and Una both born in Nottingham and both still resident there at the time. Both were apparently professional performers (piano, violin and cello) and regular broadcasters and Irene was also a published composer.
There might be no connection at all between these ladies and M G Truman but the close proximity of Derbyshire and Nottingham suggests the possibility that there is one. And isn't Una an Irish name ?
As both these ladies appear to have had successful musical careers in the 1930s it could be that investigation might prove a family link with the elusive MG who , as far as I can see, has left no record that can be found among a number of archive and library records - both at home and abroad - that can be accessed on the internet and which I've searched although , perhaps when the British Library has recovered from its cyber attack - something can be found there.
I am researching the life and works of the writer W M Letts (1882-1972). She dedicated a 1912 book to E G Edwards and M G Truman who she knew from 'days in Ireland, days in Derbyshire, days in school' - I don't know which category Truman falls into but I discovered that M G Truman set three poems by Letts to music - Sails', 'Old Dan O'Shee' and 'The Beggar Girl' - 1916 sheet music is "now unavailable on Amazon". Could anyone give me more information on Truman? Many thanks
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