Description
The materials in this archive span the years 1922 and 1986. The majority of the
materials, however, are from the 1920s and 1930s. Correspondence made up the bulk of the
archive; they are letters between Howe and her mother, and letters between
Arthur Mendeland Howe. Other materials include
some photographs, letters and telegrams from Bloch (many other
letters from Bloch were donated to the library by Howe in 1987 but are sealed until the
year 2000). There are also writings by Howe when she was a music critic for the
Monterey Peninsula Herald in the 1930s.
Background
American pianist, critic, and educator. Winifred Bliss
Howe(1904-1990) was the daughter of Henry Warren Howe and
Katherine McFarland Howe . At the age of one, her father committed
suicide, leaving her mother to bring up her sister, Katherine Howe(later Jones, 1894-1971), and Winifred. A brother, Warren, died at the age of
10 (1900-1910). Her uncle left money for the two sisters for college. Winifred attended
Mills Collegefrom 1922 (August) to 1924 (May). She then went to
England to study with Tobias Matthay (1858-1945) and to Paris to
study with Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) between 1924 and 1927. She
met and fell in love with the noted musicologist, Arthur Mendel(1905-1979), who was then a fellow student of Nadia Boulanger.Their romance lasted until the early 1930s even though Mendelwas living in New York, and she was in living in California most of that
period.