Ellen Terry's Memoirs invoke the presence of the American thespian Velona Pilcher in her sphere during her later years. They recall the same scene on the evening of Christmas day 1925 that Pilcher herself was to capture in the article ‘Dame Ellen Terry’ published in 1926 in Theatre Arts Monthly, the influential American arts magazine to which she was a regular and valued contributor. The commentary added to the Memoirs for their publication after Terry's death by Christopher St John and Edith Craig described Pilcher as a ‘young writer’ and one of those ‘lonely people who wouldn't otherwise see a turkey or a pudding’ whom Terry had urged her daughter Edith Craig to invite. The letter inviting her had come from St John: ‘If you are not otherwise engaged we hope you will come here on Christmas Day about 6.30 to 7, and have some din-din and dindon [turkey]. No-one will be here except Ellen T. Edy, Tony and self.’ The intertwining of experiences of that ‘merry little gathering’ in the upstairs flat at 31 Bedford Street within the Memoirs captures one of several known historical points of contact between these two theatrical women.

Connections are also traceable through evidence of Pilcher's contacts with Terry's two children, Edith and Gordon Craig.