Archival Notes from Letters and Papers

Birger Sandzén placed an emphasis on individualism. This was expressed in the following observation: "Fortunately every artist has the opportunity of counseling with a teacher that is always ready to give the very best advice to the sincere and unsophisticated disciple. The name of the great master is Nature. Study various schools, traditions and masters as much as you like, but do not let them take you away from the most precious gift of the Creator, your own individuality. Individuality and Nature in honest partnership will always create new and fascinating works of art that will never grow old. If we study long enough with the Great Teacher (Nature) we shall gradually work our way through to free interpretation."

To give an idea of the wide range of materials in the Sandzén Archives, the following excerpts come from letters written sixty years ago concerning the war in Europe and Japanese occupation of China.

A Swedish friend, Carl Ferlin, working in Paris, is caught up in the European turmoil and writes September 14, 1939, to Margaret Sandzén, who had hoped to be in Europe.

. . . . I cannot say how glad I am that you are far from Europe and even far from the Atlantic and the German pirates. I am more than grateful to your mother for preventing you from coming over. . . .
It is nice to think of your quiet little town and imagine all peaceful and industrious people not having anything to do with the war and destruction and being out of reach of such terrible gangsters as Hitler and his followers.

Carl Ferlin


At the same time Margaret is hearing from friends in Europe about the war there, she also has letters from a Chinese friend, Han Dah L. Ling, she had met at the University of Colorado in the summer of 1939.

August 30, 1939
Shanghai, China

Dear Greta:
Your letter of July 26 with a picture was received. I should have replied to you earlier had the weather not been so hot. Since I came in I have suffered from heat, for I came from cool Boulder. I hate to dress up, for the most of the time I used to be almost half-naked. This is the second cool day we have since the hot tide came to Shanghai on the second of August. You are wrong when you say, "You will think of the U.S. vaguely…" In fact, I still linger at the bus depot.
Your quotations from Shakespeare are too deep for me. I don't know the meanings behind them. Write me plain English, so that I may understand your letter.
Life is hard in Shanghai even for the well to do, not to speak of the poor. Everything is dear in China today except life. Food is scarce, rent high. The price of rice has raised from $M12 (Chinese dollars) per hundred pound in 1937 to $50M today. Rent has raised four times since the war started. Formerly we had fourteen rooms, now two rooms only. One big room is used as sitting room, dining room, and bedroom for my five children and two servants. Two children sleep in a double-bed (one above the other), another two in two single beds, the youngest on a sofa. The two servants make their own beds on floor at night. Lilian and I are lucky enough to share an attic, which is bedroom and study room for both of us. The rent for these two rooms is $M100. I don't know how to keep on with such kind of life. Before the war I could get several thousand dollars a year from the royalty of the books I wrote. Now the Japanese publish my books without my knowledge. All my copyright was robbed.
The Union University shall begin classes one the fourth of September. I am to teach three classes: two in education, on in English, 15 hours a week at the salary of $M200 a month, which is equivalent to $15 American money, the exchange rate being 14 to one!
All of us sent you our best wishes.
Diu Bror
Han Dah


September 9, 1939

Terrorism reigns in Shanghai. Murders are heard everyday. The pro-Japanese are in danger of being assassinated by the Chinese patriots and the anti-Japanese are in danger of being murdered by the Japanese terrorists. Last week some principals and teachers of a certain school and an editor of a local newspaper were assassinated. Murder is carried on systematically. But I am afraid of nothing, for I am an unimportant creature, just a common plain civilian. I shall continue to be an unimportant man, interested only in art and books which have nothing to with politics. I can assure you that I am calm, sensible, and careful in my work, which is teaching and studying. Don't worry about me.

Han Dah L. Ling


In early January 1940 a letter arrived for Margaret Sandzen from a friend, Nicholette H. Dawson, in Suffolk, England. She reported lengthily on the English "home front."

November 30, 1939

Dearest Margaret,
I do not know when I should write to you for Christmas as I have no idea how long the mails take now. But I hope you will have a very happy one. Your New Year has more certainty in it than ours, but I expect the war has prevented any hopes of visiting Europe again till it is over. . .
Many people optimistically think it will be over by Christmas, but though an optimist by nature I cannot make myself think it will be so short. I am terribly sorry for the German people and hate the thought of the waste of money and war materials on our part. The whole world seems to be suffering from an enormous upheaval and I cannot see how we can foresee how it will end. It certainly is an extraordinary war and so far most of us feel it very little. The shipping disasters off our bit of coast are the only thing that really brings it home.
Dec. 4th
A good deal has happened in the world and to us since I started this letter a few days ago. Now Finland is defending herself. The leaders of Germany and Russia make me simply boil with rage. How any human beings can be so brutal and so distort the truth when they mention such words as the as the cultures they are fostering in their regimes, is past my understanding. It looks as if the whole of S.E. Europe will be involved in the war soon too. I wish one wasn't so helpless in one's rage! Meanwhile I have been at home since war broke out. . . .
I soon found various voluntary war-work jobs in the town. Most of them were connected with the evacuees. They are communally fed at a canteen and my mother cooks there on Sat. and Sun. and I help with tea at their socials. I also suggested that they make clothes for their children. Everything is being done for them and I thought it was about time they did something for themselves! I have two or three helpers and we teach them to sew and make up nightdresses, sleeping suits and petticoats etc. They simply love it and are very pleased with selves. About 20 mothers come. Many have gone back to their homes - incautious women.
We sew twice a week in the afternoon in their big warm sitting room at the canteen. It was a big shop and it has now been turned into a perfect evacuee depot with a big dining room, sitting room, kitchen's larder, store room, clothing depot room, then upstairs, a big clothes work-room which I am to be in charge of, another room for the babies and toddlers to play in on welfare days, with a waiting room for the mothers, doctor's room, nurse's room and the office of the Woman's Voluntary Services, which the whole lot comes under. If the house had been built for the purpose it could not have been better planned.
It was in a bad state of disrepair and dull and dark inside but buddies have done the main repairs, and we have colour-washed the whole place down and the dining room and sitting room have the most enchanting wall paintings which are most original. In fact we are rather proud of our canteen, as it is the best run one several Mayors of the London suburban towns have seen. It is run by an awfully nice girl of about 30, who has exactly the right way with the women and wins their cooperation in the most splendid way.
I am now to run the clothing of the mothers and children. There is an old clothing fund and any garment that is worn out in parts, I and my helpers, have to unpick and remake to fit a child. My work-room is being fitted up now - electric light, a stove, shelves, tables etc. It is a lovely big room and I am very encouraged - we shall really get going directly after Christmas and it will be a whole time job. . . .
After the [Cub Scout] meeting at 11 I trudge round the town with a builder's barrow and 6 of my scalawags and we collect paper for funds for the Red Cross. The waste paper is valuable, and every district has its paper collection for some war fund. Then I rush back to lunch and then go off again to another Pack, bicycling to a village two miles away. These boys are all evacuees. Sat's a hard day, especially when there is a dance in the evening given by the British Legion to cheer up the local troops. All the lads and lasses of the town come. . . .
My sister is doing a tough man's job - let alone a woman's job, by driving lorries and cars of every description in huge convoys all over the country. She is at a very big distributing depot. I should love to try it but it would soon kill me off, and then I should be a liability to the country, not an asset. . .
Nicholette H. Dawson
Aldeburg, Suffolk England

Letters and Papers: Oct 99 examples
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