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Letters of Henry S. Whitehead, 1942

Page 3

(To the Editor of Adventure, March 5, 1923. Chattanooga, Tenn.)

...I must say that I rather shrink from speaking directly about myself in such a fashion, although I recognize and can only approve the custom in the magazine. It is wholly desirable, and a very friendly thing. Perhaps you will allow me to indicate a few facts, along with preferences and dislikes, which commonly gauge a man better than any attempt of his own to set out things about himself.

Today, March fifth, is my forty-first birthday. I saw the light in the prosaic but useful state of New Jersey, in Elizabeth (of which, with the Amboys, and Newark, members of my family have been settlers). I was educated in Connecticut and New York City, at the Berkeley School in the latter. I later went to Columbia University and then to Harvard, and finally took a graduate course in Columbia again.

I wrote and sold my first story to Outdoors in 1905. Just after selling that story within three days to the first magazine I sent it to, I got into the newspaper game, starting in as a reporter on the old Port Chester Daily Record. We were strongly Democratic, and a local reform sheet operating in that field in Westchester County, N.Y. I rose to be editor and held various political offices. I had to resign from no less than fourteen different organizations when I made up my mind in the summer of 1909 that I had had enough of that side of things and that I'd better make a radical change. 

I entered the Berkeley Divinity School, Middletown, Conn., in the autumn of 1909, graduated three years later, and was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal Church June 5, 1912. I served my deacon's year in a Connecticut mill-town parish, and was called as rector "to take place after his (my) ordination to the priesthood," several months before I was eligible to take a parish of my own, in Christ Church, Middletown, Conn., the same city where my academic preparation for the ministry had taken place. I was rector there for four years. I then came to N. Y. City where I was in charge of a department of one of the great metropolitan parishes for more than two years. Then I went to Boston where I was for several years senior member of the staff of the Church of the Advent, under the famous Dr. van Allen, rector. Dr. van Allen devours Adventure regularly and is one of its most enthusiastic admirers. I started in to write short stories seriously two years ago.

I left there to do special work in the Virgin Islands of the U.S.A., and returned to the U.S. only last November, the occasion being that my father, who is seventy-five, was in St. Luke's Hospital and not expected to live. I have been here in Chattanooga, carrying on for a very good friend of mine, rector of Christ Church, since the end of December, while my friend the rector takes a much-needed vacation. My father, contrary to all expectation, recovered, and is now in good condition again, bless him!

Recently I have been elected rector of Trinity Church, Bridgeport, Conn., and should enter upon the duties September 1. 

I am in no way a remarkable person except perhaps that I have a capacity for acquiring a really extraordinarily diversified lot of friends. I take the keenest enjoyment in my friends, for I am naturally a gregarious person -- a friendly soul. These range through all manners and conditions of men,

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(To the Editor of Adventure, March 5, 1923. Chattanooga, Tenn.) ...I must say that I rather shrink from speaking directly about myself in such a fashion, although I recognize and can only approve the custom in the magazine. It is wholly desirable, and a very friendly thing. Perhaps you will allow me to indicate a few facts, along with preferences and dislikes, which commonly gauge a man better than any attempt of his own to set out things about himself. Today, March fifth, is my forty-first birthday. I saw the light in the prosaic but useful state of New Jersey, in Elizabeth (of which, with the Amboys, and Newark, members of my family have been settlers). I was educated in Connecticut and New York City, at the Berkeley School in the latter. I later went to Columbia University and then to Harvard, and finally took a graduate course in Columbia again. I wrote and sold my first story to Outdoors in 1905. Just after selling that story within three days to the first magazine I sent it to, I got into the newspaper game, starting in as a reporter on the old Port Chester Daily Record. We were strongly Democratic, and a local reform sheet operating in that field in Westchester County, N.Y. I rose to be editor and held various political offices. I had to resign from no less than fourteen different organizations when I made up my mind in the summer of 1909 that I had had enough of that side of things and that I'd better make a radical change. I entered the Berkeley Divinity School, Middletown, Conn., in the autumn of 1909, graduated three years later, and was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal Church June 5, 1912. I served my deacon's year in a Connecticut mill-town parish, and was called as rector "to take place after his (my) ordination to the priesthood," several months before I was eligible to take a parish of my own, in Christ Church, Middletown, Conn., the same city where my academic preparation for the ministry had taken place. I was rector there for four years. I then came to N. Y. City where I was in charge of a department of one of the great metropolitan parishes for more than two years. Then I went to Boston where I was for several years senior member of the staff of the Church of the Advent, under the famous Dr. van Allen, rector. Dr. van Allen devours Adventure regularly and is one of its most enthusiastic admirers. I started in to write short stories seriously two years ago. I left there to do special work in the Virgin Islands of the U.S.A., and returned to the U.S. only last November, the occasion being that my father, who is seventy-five, was in St. Luke's Hospital and not expected to live. I have been here in Chattanooga, carrying on for a very good friend of mine, rector of Christ Church, since the end of December, while my friend the rector takes a much-needed vacation. My father, contrary to all expectation, recovered, and is now in good condition again, bless him! Recently I have been elected rector of Trinity Church, Bridgeport, Conn., and should enter upon the duties September 1. I am in no way a remarkable person except perhaps that I have a capacity for acquiring a really extraordinarily diversified lot of friends. I take the keenest enjoyment in my friends, for I am naturally a gregarious person -- a friendly soul. These range through all manners and conditions of men,