Correspondence, programs, report cards, and clippings from 1903 to 1959 relating to Chicago dancer and dance instructor Virna Harman Walker Johnston.

The bulk of the collection are 1918-1919 courtship letters between Virna Harman Walker and Arthur Oliver Johnston while he served in the Canadian Army in England and France during World War I. Includes the first letter Arthur wrote to Virna, in which he describes what happened in his life since he first met her in 1914, his decision to enlist in the army, and his living conditions and assignments in the army. The collection also includes letters between Virna and Arthur after their marriage when Arthur was away for work and school in Canada and California. The bulk of the letters are from Virna and detail her everyday life in Chicago: her work, attendance of theatrical and dance performances, parties, books she read, health, explorations of her spirituality, housework, management and sale of property, house fires, and missing Arthur and her son. She discusses the Spanish influenza in Chicago and World War I and World War II homefront activities. Other noteworthy letters from Virna detail her experiences in a hospital after giving birth to her son, Robert, in 1920. Other correspondents include Robert Johnston writing to his parents, cousin Belva Harman Wise congratulating Virna on her marriage, and Ollie Rossner writing about the illness and death of Lillian Harman in 1929.

Report cards document Virna’s education at Emerson School from 1903 to 1904 and McKinley High School from 1905 to 1908, and her stepbrother George Harman O’Brien’s education at Spencer Elementary School in 1918. Programs document a 1922 exhibition by her dance studio and a performance by Sir Henry Lauder that she attended. An undated newspaper clipping describes a Woman’s Club home economics section luncheon at Virna’s home.