Madelyn Cannon Stewart Silver: Poet, Teacher, Homemaker

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200 MADELYN CANNON STEWART SILVER Meanwhile, Elizabeth had returned from school in fine fet­ tle and had hurried to the store for extra "canned heat." Harold helped the Public Service men. He had expected me to be in hysterics, he said. But I was benumbed or amazed our guests began to arrive. We the menu changed enough so that everything was delicious. into calmness. At 6:45 The extra caterer who came was a wonderful waitress, known to most of the guests. They thought me very lucky to have her. Judith stayed in bed, but Elizabeth and Brian helped and made me very proud. All in all, the evening was success­ ful.' III The large number of letters from Harold to Madelyn and the children suggest that he was away from Denver, not just fre­ quently, but repeatedly: at sugar beet factories in California, Nebraska, Michigan, and Ontario; at sugar cane factories in Louisiana, Hawaii, and Egypt; at civic and business functions in New York, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco; and at pro­ fessional engineering and financial conventions and board meet­ ings in many cities in the nation. Sometimes Madelyn accom­ panied him; at other times, when practical, he took one or more of the children. Madelyn joined him for the 1948 and 1949 European and Middle East tours, which provided them with lengthy time together. In the spring of her junior year in college, that is, in 1951, Elizabeth was notified that she had met the qualifications to attend a summer school at the University of London. It was not a simple matter for Madelyn, who favored it, to obtain the per­ mission of Harold. But once he decided Elizabeth could go, he organized her itinerary so she would see all the high points. It was an experience Madelyn, a dyed-in-the-wool Anglophile, would have relished. In November-December 1952 Madelyn and Harold spent almost a month on a trip to Europe in connection with his sugar machinery inventions. They visited London and Ipswich, in England; Liverpool and the Isle of Man, where the Cannon family had lived; Brussels, Ghent, and Bruges, in Belgium;