Kings of Hearts - Betty Tenney
“The youngest member of our family is to be called Elizabeth – as her next oldest sister put it - “Elizabeth for long, and Betty for short.” If you ever see the frivolous “Cosmopolitan Magazine” – please look at the cover of the September issue and you will see Betty – good as she is. It’s an excellent likeness. She’s the most responsive little mate imaginable …. loves to be sung to, will stop short in the loudest howl if her mother sings – and makes a funny little “high up” sound all the time one is singing, as tho’ she were trying to sing too. “ The quoted excerpt is from a September 4, 1916 letter to Gena Branscombe’s publisher, Mr. Arthur P. Schmidt, of Boston. The baby she refers to is the Tenney’s third daughter Betty who was born in June 1916. At the time of this letter, Betty’s two older sisters, Gena and Vivian, were staying with their maternal grandmother in Picton, Ontario. Mother Gena and her husband John were home in Ne...