Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff

Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff ( Shoemaker, later Carr) (July 10, 1888 – December 15, 1967) was an American poet. Early life Blanche was born in Larchmont, New York on July 10, 1888 but spent much of her life in New York City. She was the only daughter of Henry Francis Shoemaker (1843–1918), a railroad magnate and close confidante of future Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks, and Blanche ( Quiggle) Shoemaker (1853–1928). Among her siblings were Henry Wharton Shoemaker and William Brock Shoemaker, who married Ella Morris De Peyster (a daughter of Frederic James De Peyster) in 1905, but died tragically in an elevator accident a few months after his wedding in 1906. Her mother was the sole daughter of railroad magnate and diplomat Col. James W. Quiggle of Philadelphia and Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. She began writing at age 7, and had sold her first poem, to Town & Country, by age 16. In 1905, her portrait was painted by the French artist Théobald Chartran. After she made her debut in New York City, she was presented at the Court of St. James and later had a private interview with Pope Pius. Career Blanche served for a time as the associate editor of The International, a magazine founded by her close friend George Sylvester Viereck, whose sensual, decadent verse mirrored Wagstaff's. She praised his work, although the two had a falling out over Viereck's support of Germany in the first World War, later reconciling in 1924. Her verse often dealt with sensual and classical themes, and twelve of her poems were anthologized in T. R. Smith's 1921 erotic verse collection Poetica Erotica. Her 1944 book for children, The Beloved Son, was a life of Jesus in verse.