Saturday Evening

Thank you so much for letting Agnes go to the marionettes with us. I hope she got back and didn't over eat. She had ice cream for lunch then again after the theatre and I hope it did not disagree with her.

She was simply darling and so polite. She even remembered to say thank you in the midst of rushing to busses and all that.

I am dashing this off while I'm wating for my first attempt at pumpkin pies to bake. I have to make sandwiches in a moment for the party that is arriving to see the old year out here.

But I do want to thank you again for letting Agnes go. She is such a darling little girl. She is certainly a credit to your bringing up, as she is so gentle and thoughtful and so fond of her little sisters.

We nearly exploded with amusement when she said lavender was her favorite color for a hair ribbon. She knew it too when she saw it. We went into McCrueheons (sp?) to get some elastics as she was having difficulty with her socks. They didn't have any all made up and you were undoubtedly amused by the liberal use of safety pins. The clerk had wild ideas of the amount to sell us--- and what I knew about little girls garters wouldn't startle any one.

My nephew kept saying to her "Wouldn't you want a red one or a pink one?" He being devoted to red. But Agnes knew lavender when she saw it. She was so darling.

Many good wishes for a Happy New Year for all of you, and perhaps a nice boy.

Very truly,

Helen Bates Haines

Preparing dinner for 16 Baby Garter Snakes Found Tedious Process by Woman Expert

Miss Nellie Louise Condon, director of the Reptile Study Society of America faced a problem yesterday. A garter snake, captured at Montauk on June 15, recently became the indifferent mother of sixteen wriggling little snakes. Miss Condon, who has been collecting snakes for many years, found that the care of the baby reptiles was too much for one person.

The story unfolded at an exhibition of the mother and little snakes at 921 Madison Avenue. Miss Condon pointed out that the garter snake, contrary to common belief, had a penchant for warm-blooded prey. A field mouse is its favorite food. The baby snakes, however, must have live white worms.

Miss Condon says it requires more than a hour and a half to feed the litter. Each member of the family is taken to its meal separately. It the worm "plays possum" the snakes will not devour it. Having little or no sense of smell the only way the snakes identify food is by sight and motions, Miss Condon said. If one just dumped worms into the screened box the young snakes would fight among themselves, she added, in explanation of the necessity of individual feeding.

All the time two little girls, attending the exhibition, looked curiously at the little snakes and at the mother, which Miss Condon was holding. They were Agnes Goehle and Inger Kuhn, each 11 years old.

"Don't you love snakes?" Miss Condon asked. "Yes." replied Agnes with a deprecatory expression, "but no so close to me".

Miss Condon, on advice of C. W. Manzer, a naturalist, decided to struggle along raising the sankes for a few more days, in the hope that the table manners may improve suffiecity to allow group feeding.

New York Times August 26, 1933

Unfortunately this photo has a lot of damage that is very hard to clean up. The copy on the left was cleaned up as much as possible while trying to maintain the intregrity of the photo. The copy on the right is as scanned.

February 15, 1942