Dear Barbara,
You asked me to retell the story of what you called the “Miracle on the Hudson” because you couldn’t believe it happened. I’m laughing even now, because I still can’t believe it happened either.
To share that miraculous, hilarious tale again, I have to tell the whole story.
It’s the story of an unexpected friendship–the lost art of the handwritten letter.
A story told through travel and art…the whimsical and the common.
It was 1990 and I was a spunky second grader in Houston, Texas. It was Christmas Time and my teacher, Mrs. Lucy Kuhn, had just returned from a trip to Manhattan. While there, she and her husband visited a small corner bookshop on the upper west side, right near Columbia university. That day, there happened to be a local author signing her newest book, The day before Christmas: A story of Charlotte and Emilio. Charlotte and Emilio were the author’s dogs, and that author was you.
Mr. Kuhn had the great idea to give each of his wife’s students a signed copy as a Christmas gift (I have often wondered how they traveled with so many books…a book for each of us!). As you know, I still have mine and we read it every Christmas…it’s one of my Everley’s favorites now too.
One of our writing assignments upon returning from Christmas break was to write you a thank you note. To our complete surprise, you wrote us back. You, a bonafide New York City author, took the time to respond to a class of second-graders in Houston, Texas. You even answered all of our silly and imaginative questions.
You wrote that you were working on another book about your crazy dogs and that they were learning to dance! I had even more questions, so my mom asked Mrs. Kuhn for your address. That summer I wrote to you, and you wrote back. That correspondence is the true beginning of the miracle we encountered on the Hudson.
Later that year, I received a package with your new book, Dancing Dogs, and on the front page you wrote: “For Keely Orr – special greetings from Barbara Westman and ‘woof, woof’ and ‘arf, arf’ from Charlotte and Emilio too, of course!”
You included an adorable sketch of me with the caption “Keely, who Loves to Sing!”
Gosh, I felt so special that you remembered I liked singing.
The letter with the book told about the proofs–the years of waiting to get the manuscript published, the editors and publishers on your team, and the celebration you shared when it was done.
The celebration continued with a letter that soon followed saying Barbara Bush had read your book and you received a HANDWRITTEN letter in which she wrote “P.S. Millie loved Dancing Dogs.”
I wrote you back. And you responded.
You almost always included doodles in your letters like the one you sent with the book. Like the time you drew the Robins outside your window that were making a beautiful racket. You said it was the FATTEST Robin anyone will ever see. You imagined them having a concert in front of the Forsyth bush, with music hidden under their wings.
Our letters were made up of the mundane. For example, once you asked me:
Do you have changes of seasons in Houston? Like REAL changes. Summer, winter, spring and fall.
I love Spring. it’s my favorite and April is my most favorite because April 3 is my birthday.
But I’d get letters and notes from you in extraordinary times, too. I loved when you sent postcards and quick hellos from your travels.
You sent a postcard from California, when you and your husband, Arthur, stayed in San Francisco for the summer. You wrote how the city is full of hills and houses “perched high.” And how your house had a beautiful garden with a patio–something you didn’t have back home in NYC. And we definitely didn’t have houses “perched high” in Texas, but we did have lawns and gardens.
There was another postcard I received when you were in Charleston for a festival. You wrote to tell me about the opera “Tales of Hoffman” and the piccolo circle and the jazz music. And I received a letter when you had returned from Barcelona, saying how you cannot wait to go back. It is…“Gorge.o.so.”
And a letter from Holland, which told how the country is one of your favorites because “the Dutch are so friendly and funny – they have good senses of humor!”
You wrote from train cars as you traveled…from exhibits in Boston to Seattle to Portland, and then to Rotterdam–all in one Summer! One particular letter was written with shaky handwriting wishing me a happy Halloween from a metro line bound for Baltimore. I felt like I was bouncing next to you as I read.
You wrote of galleries and art shows in other countries, New Yorker covers you illustrated (you did so many), music, books, art, funny scenes from your walks and travels and stories of old buildings with rich history. Like how you ate dinner in a 1700’s hand-painted house in Oslo.
Some letters were strictly business, like the news of your brother’s heart attack and later his quadruple bypass surgery, and how grateful you were for new technology and how he was alive.
And one day you wrote, “now I can spill the beans” when you got word that your precious dog book about Charlotte and Emilio would be published in French and Spanish!
My responses weren’t as well-traveled or grand, but I also wrote from experience and the mundane. I wrote about homework, my family, and our travels. I told you about the Broadway shows I loved and music I wanted you to hear. You heard about the shows I was in, my dog Ginger…then there was Tanner…and books I was curious if you had read. I think I even included my attempt at my own doodles.
Once, I wrote to tell you that I was taking a trip to New York City. I imagined you would be in a far-off land with Arthur while I was in your city…maybe you’d be Paris or London or Belgium, Iceland. I did not assume we would be able to meet, but you responded enthusiastically: “I am home!” So we arranged to meet for the first time for tea at your apartment.
Oh, your apartment. Your studio had art on the walls, with frames stacked in the corner and drawings piled on tables. There were doodles on scraps of paper pinned up around the studio, and books…so many books. We shared our tea at the breakfast table by the window, next to a cactus. Of course, the famous Charlotte and Emilio were there too!
We continued to write years of letters with stories of travels and daily life, with tokens of affection. We both loved sunflowers. I can’t pass a sunflower without thinking of you and your drawing of the field sunflower you saw in Burgundy. In another letter, you even mailed an artificial sunflower from a newsstand near central park. It reminded you of me and our shared adoration of them. You even drew me a doodle of the newsstand and I felt like I was stopping there with you.
In middle school I went through a hat phase (I suppose everyone does) and a clumpy envelope arrived with a folded-up hat you found at a market in Paris…I think.
In 1995 you wrote with the news of Charlotte and Emilio passing just weeks apart from each other. You said your apartment was so quiet, and I could imagine it. That was a very sad letter.
One of your next letters told of how you were taking time off from writing books because you had a very large blank canvas staring at you ready to be used! You wrote: “One has to make choices as to [the] time to do this or time to do that”.
But I always wondered if Charlotte and Emilio’s passing was the prompting for moving on to visual art.
You told me I was “full of peaches and cream and energy and enthusiasm.” I believe you, because this is how I would describe my daughter, and she is my mini-me. You would correct my penmanship and spelling, but one day you wrote: “I MUST compliment you, Keely.Your spelling used to be atrocious – now it’s really Good!!”
In one letter, you said you thought of me often because my photo hangs on your fridge. Another letter told me that the heart-shaped paper mache box I made you sat on your desk, full of colorful paperclips. That also made you think of me.
I thought of you, too. You made sure of that. Like the time you sent me a polaroid photo of yourself and said: “Here’s a funny pic of me. I thought you might like it”
I loved it then, and I still love it now.
Just like I loved that your wedding anniversary was Feb 15th because Arthur thought it was “too schmaltzy” to get married on valentine’s day, so you said “ok, the 15th will do”
And I loved that you almost always ended your letters with a “heart” and one of the two signoffs: “Lots of love" or “Onward and upward!”
As I grew, I ebbed and flowed between various phases of “cool.” In the late 90’s I got my first email–an AOL mail account–and was curious If we should move our correspondence into modern times instead of snail mail. I asked you if you had an email address and you wrote back: Email is for the birds…lets stick to letter writing baby. I think you never had an email address (even though your nephew tried). The bottom of your hand-designed stationery read: “Sorry, no e-mail. Thanks.”
And so, we stuck to letters. 30+ years “baby”.
You had a gallery in Paris, so you were often there. You said the gallery was a real beauty situated in the back of a courtyard. The Parisian gallery happened to be down the street from a shop where you bought your pens, brushes, and paints as a traveling scholar from the Boston Museum years ago.
One letter you told me how you would take the busses all over: “…to the end of a line this way and returned to my hotel, then would get on another and go that way to the end of that line.”
You’d regale me with tellings of the dinners you and Arthur had at the old fashioned and famous restaurant, La Coupole (you later drew an incredible ink drawing of your memory of the place and based on napkin sketches of the night). You asked: “Do you have a salon sans fumeur?” at restaurants…that’s “do you have a room without smokers and usually there is always one in the nicer restaurants.”
In those days I wasn’t sure what “smokers” were, but in Texas we had smokehouses for our BBQ.
In the spring of 2001 I took a trip to Paris, and you had written about a gallery showing your new linocut prints. In the letter, you included a map to your gallery and some instructions :
“Wear good sturdy shoes. Take a raincoat and plenty of sweaters. It can get chilly. Also a small umbrella.
On the international flight, wear long pants and perhaps a hat (and you drew a hat!) or bandana to guard against the cold air conditioning. Take a bottle of water too.”
And with them, the note:
“I hope you’ll have a grand time, Keely! I’d love to be a fly on the bus to watch you all”
Once in Paris, I set aside a day to journey to the gallery, following your instructions. When I arrived, I spoke with the gallery owner and she asked how I knew you. I told her we were pen pals, and you had written me with the gallery’s address and directions for how to find it. The owner told me that she was just about to call you to give a shop update, so she called you right then. “Bonjour!” we said.
That was the first time we talked on the phone.
Before I left the gallery, I bought your painting of a jazz singer that now hangs my music room at home. Later, you told me it was a singer at the Corcoran art gallery in Washington, which was around the corner from the White House. The piece came from your notes, memory, and sketch book from a brunch you had there during a performance.
In my retelling of my trip to France, I told you that I visited Normandy. I was thinking about everything that place represented, and how my grandfather fought in the war. He was stationed in Italy at Anzio beach, and was deployed to Normandy Beach on D-Day. You said that you had never been to the memorial at Normandy but would love to visit, and you told me that Arthur was also stationed at Anzio beach. It was possible he and my grandfather fought side by side in Italy! Wouldn’t that have been crazy? Oh, how our lives were so cleverly intertwined.
You were so moved that I took the time to find your gallery–but the trip was a no-brainer to me–and as a gift you sent me a stunning watercolor of the Paris Opera House in 1961, made when you were a traveling student! The gift arrived with these instructions: “Watercolors should never be hung in bright sun, and that Texas has very bright Sun! So make sure you hang that watercolor in a safe place.”
Eventually, you moved on from drawings and linocuts to doing paper collage cuttings. “Art on Paper,” you called them. My favorite is the self-portrait that hung in your studio. It’s just, so very you; down to the iconic big glasses.
You seemed to enjoy my life as much as I enjoyed living vicariously through yours.
One summer, I visited you with a group of family friends and you were very inspired by my friend’s hat. You promptly went to J.Crew and purchased not just one hat, but four!
In 2001 I wrote to tell you of my latest address change as I was moving to Nashville, Tennessee. When I arrived, I visited the apartment mailbox and you had already sent a box with a note that read: “You will need this. Tennessee is much colder than Texas” Inside the package was a vintage navy pea coat with red lining. The letter ended with: “Have you gotten to observe a lot of country western?”
Oh, have I observed.
You sent me a small sewing kit, which I still have…and I still have not used. Oops. Later, you sent a purple feather boa and told me they were all the rage in NYC. But you weren’t sure Nashville was ready for it yet.
The first letter after September 11th, you wrote from your apartment in Manhattan on a snowy day. You told of how amazing the city is and how everyone worked together to keep it going. How your door man had been on call and was stranded due to snow and how you were hopeful the relief man would get through soon, to “help like the city does.” You talked about how slowly the buses and snow plows drove on the streets, which was in contrast to the chaos still in the city. You said you tell yourself to have: “BIG faith and optimism…[we go] onward and upward and must have patience.”
You loved the city, and so did I. Years later you’d send me this note: “I realize….Suddenly 11:03am on July 13 2005…I have a subject for a book on NYC! Hooray. ‘Rudy, Rudy, Rudy!’”
You never did write the book about Rudy. But the three doodles on that postcard were enough for me to consider it a great work of yours. Your postcards were works of art. You once gifted me a Richard Avedon postcard that you had been saving in your collection because you knew I loved his work, and another time you sent a New York Times article about a photographer you thought I would enjoy.
In college I took an Art History class and our professor assigned an essay from a philosopher on the meaning and definition of art, written by Arthur C Danto. I thought it was a coincidence that it was your husband’s name. I would later find out that it was indeed THE Arthur I knew from your letters! The very Arthur that signed his name on some of our letters to say hello. Apparently, he was quite the prestigious philosopher! Despite his esteem, he still got to hear all the latest news from a college student like, "I met a boy and we are getting married." Barbara, your reply to that news was: “Brian is so adorable” and “I am just happy your folks like Brian”.
I still laugh when I read this letter, because his name was Gabe.
The letter from spring of 2004 read:
Dear Precious Keely, we are so happy to receive your wedding invitation and thank you. Alas, we will be on our way or in Iceland when you and your adorable guy tie the knot so we’ll send kisses and please when you have a min. or two send us a flick so we can see what you all look like on that special day… anyway here’s looking at you, kid. We love you and think about you. love Barbara and Arthur….I will send kisses on the 26th.”
And when we sent our Christmas card photo a few years later, I chuckled at your response to a photo I sent of Gabe and me and our dog, Willis: “Dear Keely and Gabe, You are cute but your dog is cuter.”
You accompanied me to and through adulthood with your handwritten notes. I love knowing that I was one of the many addresses in your very organized (according to Arthur) address book. You had a gift for handwritten letters. And they were a treasure to those that received them. One year you sent your Christmas letter to friends at Thanksgiving, explaining that sending a Christmas Letter at Thanksgiving felt better since everyone writes a letter at Christmas. As you wrote the letter, you were sitting by the fire waiting for the chicken to cook. The note was filled with stories of your travels, journeys your paintings took, and Arthur’s speaking engagements…but my favorite part of the letter was how you closed it. “We are still producing a lot of work and hope that will go on for many years. Our time by the fireplace is very important. It lets us slow down, take count of all those glorious experiences, remember our friends and wish we could say ‘Hi’ in person–another time”
Oh, that was such an encouragement for me: the hope of slowing down and for the years of work still to come.
For many years, I was a humanitarian photographer. In between flights one day, I had a layover in NYC and came to the apartment to see you two. It was surreal to have you and Arthur look through my photos while I told the stories that brought them about. You asked questions and we discussed the meaning behind the images.
I also brought some of your letters and postcards for us to look through. You were amazed at how I kept them, and you loved seeing the book that bound them all together (I still have the book on my shelf to this day). As you and Arthur re-read the letters, you relived your love story and I got to hear it for the first time. When you told me you met and married within six months, I was astonished. You said, “you bet your boots, baby.”
What a sweet memory that was. I captured that moment with a photo of you holding the “funny” polaroid you sent me years before.
As I made my way to the airport after our time together, I remember walking towards Central park and crying as I clutched onto your letters I brought with me. That’s when I realized how special our relationship was. When we met, I was just an inquisitive little girl from Texas, who loved reading about silly dogs and asking questions that needed answers. You had some of those answers as a big-city art icon married to a well known philosopher, who talked to art critics and gallery owners and traveled across the world. Ours was an unexpected friendship, and one I am so grateful we both invested in.
I will forever hold the gratitude I felt in that moment like I was clinging to the letters, all the way up W 110th.
Arthur passed before my next visit, and I was so glad for our time together when you called to tell me the news.
Anytime I could find my way to the city, I was sure to come and see you. One day I called to say I was going to be in town again–this time with my husband. I offered to finally bring him for a visit, and after having only heard of him for ten years you replied, “You bet your boots, baby.” That phrase again.
The apartment felt quieter without Arthur there. But I was glad to see you, and I was glad for you to meet my husband for the first time. You two shared a common love of pies and music.
Next we saw one another was at Arthur’s memorial service some weeks later. I wished he could’ve met Gabe.
In 2017, I wrote a letter with a baby announcement photo…“It’s a Girl”. Your children’s books were proudly on display in her nursery.
As the years passed, writing became harder for you. So I would call to check in. How fortunate I was to see you several more times. 2022’s visit was particularly memorable. You finally got to meet my girl Ev.
I showed you videos from her school’s Christmas program, and I wondered at how you watched my daughter sing on a phone, while thirty years ago you heard me sing through a cassette tape. You couldn’t get over her Barbie doll with purple hair from FAO Schwarz. She thought you were hilarious because you said you were the true “Barbie”. A nickname some called you.
Seeing my daughter standing in your studio is frozen in my mind. Not much had changed–except that the cactus in the window by the tea table was taller and unruly. She was mesmerized at your artwork and the drawing table–just like I always was. And just like me, she was excited to see the drawings of two, long-gone dogs she recognized from her books…Charlotte and Emilio.
And it was on my next trip that “The Miracle” occurred.
On December 7th, 2023 I was in town for a work engagement. I called to let you know, and asked if I could come visit. On my way, I had to get one of those rainbow-dyed bagels for Ev (a total tourist move, I know). I was on a phone call, so missed the cross-street for my hotel where I was meeting my Uber. so I went up a block further which was out of my way.
I stood on the corner of the busy 5th and Madison intersection, made busier with the Christmas time crowds. I was in such a hurry to see you, but at that moment I happened to cross the street as a bus passed by and noticed a familiar face. Mrs. Kuhn. Yes…Mrs. Kuhn my 2nd grade teacher. The one that introduced us over 30 years ago.
I thought I was surely imagining it. But throwing caution to the wind as the bus passed between us I cried out “MRS. KUHN?” and in response I heard “ KEELY ORR?”.
Sure enough, walking across Madison Avenue toward me were Mr. & Mrs. Kuhn. It had been fifteen years or more since we saw each other in person, but thanks to Facebook we had stayed connected (maybe technology wasn’t completely “for the birds,” as you quipped). They were visiting from Texas for the first time in over ten years (because they love the city at Christmas…and who doesn’t?).
After our hugs and “what in the worlds” she asked what I was up to. I said, “You won’t believe this…but I am going to see Barbara.” Mrs. Kuhn’s eyes immediately filled with tears. I asked them what they were doing and she replied, “Going with you to see Barbara!” I couldn’t believe it was real.
Together, we made our way to the Upper West Side, touching arms and pinching ourselves the whole way to be sure it was real. As we arrived at your apartment, we commented that it looked just like a cover you had done for the New Yorker in October of 1985. The image featured a tree across from your building, and that day in 2023 the tree had a few of the bright yellow leaves from fall still hanging on, just like the ones you drew in full on your cover.
We made our way upstairs to apt 1c and your nurse let me in. I went first into your room and as soon as I walked in you said: “Keely Orr all the way from Texas”
I loved that you still considered me from Texas, though you knew I had lived in Tennessee for over two decades.
You and I chatted for a bit, and I was bursting at the seams to tell you about what had just happened and who joined me for the visit. I told you everything, about the bagel and the crowds, and the disbelief of seeing a familiar face, and then revealed Mrs. Kuhn, my amazing teacher that brought us together. And all three of us stood in the same room for the first time. You were weak but tried to sit up on your own in surprise. We helped you up and your hand went to your forehead. Shaking in disbelief, you kept repeating: “Lucy Kuhn…Keely Orr…here in my apartment. TOGETHER. It’s a miracle on the Hudson.”
Over and over you said it. A Miracle on the Hudson.
Not knowing when we’d see each other again and still in shock, we both offered our thanks to you. I shared with you the gratitude I’d been holding for years as you were diligent in responding to my letters–investing in a little girl from Texas. I held your hand and told you how much you meant to me, and I got to thank the woman who made it possible, Mrs. Kuhn, this teacher who taught me something more than just learning to read in 2nd grade…her simple gift of a Christmas book and an assignment to write a thank-you note made way for an incredible gift of an unlikely friendship and exploring the world through letters.
We visited your studio as we left…art still on the walls, frames still stacked in the corner and drawings still piled on tables. The doodles on scraps of paper were still pinned up around the studio, and books…so many books. The cactus, now even older and taller and more unruly, remained by the window right next to your breakfast table where we had our tea all those years ago. And as we walked out the door, I saw your framed art-on-paper self-portrait for the last time.
As the Kuhns and I waited for our car, snow flurries fell. We were reminded of yet another piece of your art with a fresh snowfall on the very tree across from your apartment. It was serendipitous.
Truly, it was a Miracle on the Hudson. Our miracle.
Today I received the call that you had passed.
As I processed the news of the loss, I gathered my copies of your books, looked at the framed New Yorker Covers that hang above my desk, and sat in my music room looking at the jazz singer linoprint and your watercolor of the Paris Opera house. Stories of our 30-year friendship fill my home and I am overwhelmed with gratitude that I got to be a part of a story like ours.
Just the other night I was at a party and the topic of letter-writing was brought up–that it was a lost art. I shared that I started writing to my friend Barbara in 1990 and we still kept in touch. The room was in awe.
Tonight, as I write you this one last letter, I too am in awe of the miraculous gift Mrs. Kuhn gave us that Christmas so long ago.
It was the gift of you and the story of our beautiful friendship: a story told over letters between an artist on the Hudson and her little friend from Texas.
Missing you.
The Miracle on the Hudson Project is a true story by Keely Orr Scott.
The project was edited and designed by Leslie Thompson.
For licensing, click HERE.
About Barbara Westman
Barbara Westman was born on April 3, 1929 in Boston, Massachusetts. Barbara graduated from Goucher College in Baltimore, Md and the Museum of Fine Arts School in Boston. She lived in Cambridge and later resided on the upper west side of Manhattan with her philosopher-husband, Arthur Danto, and their two springer spaniels who inspired 2 of her childrens books, Dancing Dogs and Charlotte and Emilio’s Christmas. She was an illustrator and fine artist whose work could be found in group and in one man shows around the world. She was known for her cover art for The New Yorker magazine from 1983 - 1991. And her work has been represented and shown in The Boston museum of Fine Arts , The Philadelphia Museum of Art to the Galerie-Mantoux in Paris and the Galleries of Norway.
She continued to reside in her upper west side apartment overlooking Riverside Park until she passed in April 2024.
About Keely Scott
Keely Marie Scott was born in Texas and resides in Nashville, TN with her husband Gabe and their daughter Everley. She works for Compassion International as their Director of Influencer Partnerships. She is the creator of the FAITHFUL Project which is a creative collaboration of 25+ female authors and artists that gather to write songs and stories together that look at the heart of God seen through a woman’s eyes. Prior to that she was a humanitarian photographer documenting the work of Compassion around the world. She has always had a love for art and creativity. The perfect weekend for her includes stopping by Ladybird Taco (a Texas-style breakfast taco shop owned by her and her husband), hunting for antiques, going on walks in their neighborhood, creating a colorful craft with Ev & enjoying a delicious meal with friends. One thing you can always find in the Scott family home is a puzzle table at the ready.