📄 Letter, Isie Tone to F. J. Tone, Sep 28 1939

This letter is a photocopy of the original. Isie is so far unknown to me, but provides some of her personal history. She mentions her brother Harry, apparently the "H. Tone" in the 📄 Frank Jerome Tone family history letters.

414 W Morgan St
Denison Texas
Sept 28th 1939

Dear Frank:

Your letter with the interesting picture of my fore father followed me from Los Angeles to Denison, reaching me two days ago.

It was a very thoughtful gracious act to send it to me but it has been my observation since I have known them, that the men belingong to the Tone clan are not only very thoughtful but a generous hearted lot and I feel very proud of my kinship to them.

I agree with you that John Andrew is a very interesting looking chap, I think I would have enjoyed knowing him. I recall a very charming old English play on the screen some years ago in which your son Franchot played the leading role and at the first glance at this photo, I thought of him.

Of course I have never met Franchot personally but that was the impression I got. Are you not rather proud of your success in tracing your ancestry so many generations & getting not only the [unreadable] in your individual family [unreadable] but completing the history of such a network of relations.

I can understand your interest in delving into the past for I have something of a yen that way myself only mine goes more into the archaeologocal line.

Had I been a woman of independent means nothing would have delighted me more than getting out an expedition adn going digging in Mesopatamia and Egypt in out of the way places.

But I am wandering far from your letter and its request. It was very kind of you to include me in your book but really there is so little to tell. In my youth I had visions of becoming a great painter. My parents were far from rich and denied themselves many of the luxuries of life to give me the advantages I longed for. I was fortunate in spending five years at three different periods under the greatest teachers in Europe-- the last time was in London under the renowned Tobias Matthay when war broke out in 1914. But overwork earlier in my career abroad brought on a sort of paralysis of my arm which blasted all my hopes of a concert career and my interest was turned toward teaching. As my instruction was always under private masters I have no degrees, and all I can tell you is for many years I was a normal teacher of the Dunning system. I had private classes in Chicago and for many years in Los Angeles was member of the State Teachers Assn in Tex and California, and Chair and life member of the National Piano Teachers Guild, an organozation that is doung wonderful work in delivering interesting music study among the young people. I am telling you all this to explain why there is so little that could be of interest about me in your book.

At the risk of wearying you let me tell you that the death last spring of greatly beloved house keeper muse and companion for the past seven years in Los Angeles was such a stunning blow that, knowing I could never find anyone to fill her place, I took my brother Harry's advice, dismissed my music class, and returned to my childhood home.

I greatly miss the delightful climate, the fruits and the flowers of California but the companionship of my old time friends with devoted love of one of the best brothers in the world makes up for all I left there.

Please accept my heartfelt thanks for your remembrance of me and with the hope that some day I shall have the pleasure of meeting you, I am sincerely yours

Isie M. Tone

Notes:

• She mentions Texas as her childhood home, so perhaps she's descended from Thomas Tone (1791-1850)?
• Tobias Matthay (1858-1945) was "an English pianist, teacher, and composer."
• "Dunning system" appears to refer to a music textbook published in 1903. https://books.google.com/books/about/Teachers_Text_Book_Dunning_System_of_Imp.html?id=qMm_GwAACAAJ