Bertha Drew Hartzell papers

Bertha Drew Hartzell was born in Newton Massachusetts to prominent lawyer and Harvard graduate Charles Acton Drew and Harriet Jaquith Drew on July 10, 1876. She attended Radcliffe College, where she was class president and graduated cum laude in 1898. As a young woman she traveled through Europe, and in 1900, while living in Berlin and studying music and German Language, she met the young Artur Rubinstein, who was studying piano there. Artur became quite smitten with her, and she is said to have given him a kiss as his thirteenth birthday present. They became good friends and kept in contact throughout her life. Later, her son Karl kept in somewhat regular contact with Rubenstein as well.

Also while in Europe, she met Rev. Dr. Morton Hartzell. They kept in touch by letter in the first years of the 20th century while she pursued a graduate degree in German studies at Radcliffe and taught for a year at Brookline High School. Though she seems to have had many other suitors, and perhaps even one serious beau around this time, in 1904 she and Morton became engaged and married, which appears to have been very much supported by Bertha's friends and family. In 1905 or 1906, they had their first child who died at nine months of age. In 1906, their son Karl Hartzell was born in Chicago.

Said to be a dynamic personality, the Reverend Hartzell was very ill with bovine tuberculosis—contracted through drinking unpasteurized milk—through much of their marriage, and often preached from a wheelchair. At the recommendation of Morton's doctors, the family moved to Pasadena, California for Morton's health. Bertha is remembered as a dedicated helpmate to him during his declining years. In 1916, Morton Hartzell died in Pasadena, California, and it seems Bertha and Karl quickly returned to Massachusetts. Bertha obtained a degree in library science from Simmons College in 1918, and is said to have received the highest marks ever by a student up to that time. She then went to work as a librarian at the School of Social Work in Boston, and then at Dana Hall School in Wellesley. She later became supervisor of training at the Boston Public Library, where she worked until her retirement in 1946. Karl attended Newton High School and then Wesleyan University, graduating in 1927. In 1935 he married Ann Lomas and they had three boys, two of whom attended Wesleyan. He later remarried in Florida. In Bertha's spare time, she participated in church, music, and library organizations. She died in 1950 in Massachusetts.