Isadora Duncan Image via Wikipedia
Once upon a time, a lawyer friend of mine wanted me to go hang out in a small Arkansas town, pretend I was someone I wasn't, make friends with a few people, and do a little investigative work for a suit he was trying. Should I have said, yes? Well, I didn't. Seemed a bit creepy to me not to mention the fact that the town was in south Arkansas (think a little north of True Blood), and who knew what could become of me. What creatures lurk in those dark fields?
But I have solved a couple of my own mysteries in Paris. As some of you will recall when I first wrote about Isadora Duncan on these pages (click here for a little refresher), I said that Ms. Duncan was supposed to be interred in Le Cimetière du Père-Lachaise next to her children who drowned in the Seine. I fretted over the poor lost babes, because I hadn't found them in the columbarium. Their whereabouts haunted me, and I recently went back to the famous cemetery to see if I could discover any clues as to where they might be.
Patrick and Deidre, the plates of Isadora Duncan's children
It turns out I merely hadn't raised my eyes high enough. The dear children are above Ms. Duncan when I'd been looking for them right beside her. Clearly, I was swooning from the heat on that scorching June day when I thought they were playing hide-and-seek.
As I said before...May Ms. Duncan and her little ones rest in peace with gentle dreams of barefoot dancing.
They are together after all--in this world and a more ethereal one.
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Mr. Ilya Bass had read my piece about Ms. Gertrude Stein, and he wrote saying he'd been told that the place of birth as well as date of death were inaccurate on Ms. Stein's tombstone. He asked me if could clear up the mystery.
Well, yes. In fact, Mr. Bass was correct.
One can see that Ms. Stein's tombstone is difficult to read, and I hadn't taken the time to actually study the lettering. It is hard for people to find Ms. Stein in Le Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, partially because of this.
Personally, I wish her grave could be a little grander somehow--befitting her mark on the world-- or, at least, the tombstone better engraved. I don't want this remarkable woman to fade into oblvion for these new generations of kids who are being trained to have the attention span of a flea.
I read a piece today by one digital guru criticizing news organizations for actually publishing longer pieces--and not having links to, yes, opinion. I wondered how the writer couldn't be sick and tired of all the opinion he's bombarded with. Instead, he was sick of reading a thoughtful piece of actual "news." I'm not including a link, because I don't want him to get any more clicks when he doesn't deserve them.
I have enhanced this photo so that one can clearly see that Allegheny (Pennsylvania) is miscorrectly spelled here. One would have thought with the French attention to detail that this might have been rendered accurately.
For that matter, why hasn't it been corrected?
And somehow the day of her death (July 27th) was listed as her brother's. Gertrude Stein died on July 27, 1946, and Leo Stein died on July 29, 1947 in Florence, Italy.
*
So there you are. Two mysteries solved.
May both these women who solidly stamped the world in their distinctive ways--and made our vision brighter and wider because of it--keep burning bright in our consciousness.
Amen.
---Beth Arnold in Paris
Unless otherwise indicated, photos by Beth Arnold and not available for use without permission.
