Typescript of correspondence between Elspeth Giles and Julian Lathrop 1919-23: edited by Julian Karhumaa and Christopher Ross, Bucks County, Pennsylvania 1993, for private circulation only. 144 pages. (Two copies in file.) Comprises transcripts of letters between Elspeth Giles and Julian Lathrop, transcribed by Julian Lathrop's grandson, Julian Karhumaa, together with photocopies of photographs and an introductory note. The letters are interspersed with extracts from E G’s diary and occasional letters from G F Oakden of St John’s College to J L.
The introductory note provides brief background on Second Lieutenant Julian Lathrop, an American officer who spent 3 months at St John’s College, Cambridge just after the end of World War I, and his connection with Elspeth Giles, who was at the time in her first year at Girton College.
Section One: Tea on the River: early meetings, social events, invitations, activities of ‘The Duds’ (Cambridge University Services Club);
Section Two: An Ocean Wide: correspondence July to December 1919;
Section Three: To the Back of Beyond: 1920, while J L was working for an oil company in Texas;
Section Four: How Many More Years? 1921, when J L was back in New York; discussion of possibility of him returning to Cambridge;
Section Five: The Arrows of Love and Death: 1922 January - February, followed by: a letter to J L 26 February 1923 from E Mary Giles (E G’s mother) informing him of Elspeth's death on 25 February from Hodgkin’s disease / lymphadenoma [which had almost killed her in childhood]; later letters from J L to E G from which it appears that he did not know of her death until March; news clipping relating the details of E G’s funeral in Emmanuel College Chapel and burial at St Andrew’s Cherry Hinton; letters of condolence to J L from various - Dorothy Marshall, G F Oakden, N C Laughton and E G’s sisters Isabel and Catharine March-June 1923;
Postscripts (pages 142-144): extracts from memoirs containing references to J L, 1972 and 1973, and a letter to J L from E G’s mother, E Mary Giles, 2 December 1926.
The file also contains the following:
Biographical details of William Langson Lathrop, painter and etcher, father of Julian Lathrop;
Extract, transcribed by Barbara Wallis, of a letter from Elspeth Giles to Julian Lathrop, 23 November 1919, concerning Christmas 1919.