Appetite for Life
Page 68
Library of Congress. Washington, DC. Reading Room.
Middlebury College. Abernathy Collections, Starr Library, Vermont. Bread Loaf Archives and Correspondence of Julia and Paul Child, Avis DeVoto, and Paul Cubeta.
National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD.
Pasadena Historical Museum. Pasadena, CA. Tania Rizzo, Archivist.
Pasadena Polytechnic School. Pasadena, CA. Alumni Office.
Pittsfield Public Library. Pittsfield, MA.
The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe College, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Eva E. Moseley, Curator of Manuscripts; Janes Knowles, Archivist; Barbara Haber, Curator of Printed Books.
Smith College: Library and Alumnae Archives. Northampton, MA. Margery N. Sly, Archivist.
University of Texas: Harry Ransom Hall of Humanities (HRHRC), Austin, TX. Knopf Archives.
TVFN. The Food Network. Sue Huffman, Senior Vice President, Programming.
United States Department of Justice. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, DC. J. Kevin O’Brien, Chief, FOI, Information Resource Division.
United States Information Agency. Lola L. Secora, FOIA/Privacy Act Officer, Office of the General Counsel. USIA Alumni Association, Dorothy Robins-Mowry, Director.
Veterans of the OSS. Jeffrey Jones, President, Rockefeller Plaza, NYC.
WGBH, Boston. The French Chef and other tapes, 1963+. Henry Becton, Jr., President; Mary A. Ide, Archivist.
NOTES
UNLESS OTHERWISE noted, all Julia Child quotations are based upon her numerous interviews with the author. Dates of Paul Child’s letter-diary to his brother, which numbers in the thousands of pages, are given only if they fall outside the time period of each chapter.
ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES
AD Avis DeVoto
AIWF American Institute of Wine and Food
CC Charles Triplett Child (brother-in-law)
DC Dorothy McWilliams Cousins (sister)
FC Fredericka Child (sister-in-law)
IACP International Association of Culinary Professionals
JC Julia McWilliams Child
LB Louisette Bertholle
MFKF Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher
NRF Noël Riley Fitch (author)
OSS Office of Strategic Services
PC Paul Cushing Child (husband)
SB Simone (Simca) Beck [Fischbacher] (partner)
USIA United States Information Agency/Service
CHAPTER 1
BEGINNINGS (1945, 1848–1912)
Unpublished Sources
Interviews: Basic to every chapter is the information drawn from numerous interviews with JC. Unless otherwise indicated, all JC quotations are based on these interviews. Family members: DC 3/30/93, 12/20/94, and 2/2/96, John McWilliams III 8/13/93, Dana Parker 6/6/95, Saba McWilliams 5/30/95, Philadelphia Cousins 3/31/95.
Correspondence: H. Alexander Smith to JC, 2/25/65 (Smith claims he introduced the Weston girls to McWilliams and Hemmings); J. Alexander McWilliams to NRF, 6/3/95; John McWilliams III to NRF, 1/2/95; Carolyn McWilliams to DC, 10/1/33.
Archives: Family archival materials generously provided by JC, DC, and John McWilliams III include: “Carolyn Weston Diary 1900–1905;” “Julia Mitchell Weston 1865–1897” diary. Smith College. Berkshire Athenaeum, Pittsfield, MA. Princeton University: alumni office records. Schlesinger: PC letter-diary to CC, 1945; JC to AD, 3/3/53. Pasadena Public Library. Pasadena Historical Society.
Published Sources
“How like autumn’s”: PC, “Birthday, 1945,” Bubbles from the Spring (n.p.: Antique Press, 1974): [39]
“There were a lot of women”: William F. Schulz, “Lunch Together,” The World [National Unitarian Magazine] (Nov./Dec. 1992): 32.
“Without Julia”: Donna Lee, “The Man Behind JC,” Boston Herald American Magazine (May 10, 1981): 10.
“earliest restaurant”: Peter Farb and George Armelagos, Consuming Passions: The Anthropology of Eating (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980): 194. Hon-Lo, the first cookbook, was compiled by Emperor Sheunung: 244.
“It wasn’t like lightning”: Edith Efron, “Dinner with JC,” TV Guide (Dec. 5, 1970): 46.
“going fever”: John McWilliams, Recollections of John McWilliams: His Youth, Experiences in California, and the Civil War (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, [1919?]): 47.
“Weston Field”: Thomas Weston, Jr., and Donald M. Weston, Jr., eds. Weston: 1065–1951 (Pittsfield, MA: Sun Printing, 1951): 27.
CHAPTER 2
A PLACE IN THE SUN (1912–1921)
Unpublished Sources
Interviews: This chapter relies heavily on a number of interviews with JC and DC as well as: John McWilliams III 8/13/93, Philadelphia Cousins 3/31/95, Orian (Babe) Hall [Hallor] 2/19/94, Charles Hall 2/9/94, Elizabeth Parker [Kase] 2/19/94, Elton Davies 2/22/93, Gay Bradley [Wright], 2/5/96, Eleanor Roberts [Phillips Colt] 9/11/94, and Freeman Gates 4/24/93. Group interview with Pasadena Polytechnic School classmates Mary Frances Snow Russell, James Bishop, William (Bill) Lisle, Kenneth O. Rhodes 1/31/94.
Correspondence: Byron S. Martin to NRF, 1/26/95; Marjory Ellen Lacey [Warren] to NRF, 10/14/93; Lora B. Bragin to JC, 2/27/95; Mary Stuart Batson to JC, 9/27/67; JC to Mary Stuart Batson, n.d.; Dana Parker to NRF, 4/5/95; Charles Hall to Mary Francis Russell, 1/15/94.
Archives: Family archives: Caro McWilliams letters to DC, “Carolyn Weston Diary 1900–1905,” JC diary written in the 1930s. Private: Babe Hall/Julia McWilliams childhood correspondence; Elizabeth Kase, “Betty Parker memoir,” 1986. Pasadena Historical Society. Pasadena Public Library: records, city telephone books, histories, Pasadena Evening Star, Pasadena Star-News. Pasadena Polytechnic School: records. Schlesinger: JC to AD, 3/3/53.
Published Sources
“First we’d do”: Susan Goodman, “Penthouse Potluck,” Modern Maturity (Nov./Dec. 1996): 35.
“I started doing”: Curtis Hartman and Steven Raichlen, “JC: The Boston Magazine Interview,” Boston (April 1981): 78.
“Our house”: Anne Bryn, “JC Aims to Keep Fun in Food,” Atlanta Journal & Constitution (April 12, 1990): W8.
“dismal place”: Lewis H. Lapham, “Everyone’s in the Kitchen with JC,” The Saturday Evening Post (Aug. 8–15, 1964): 20.
“Fletcherizing”: Donald Dale Jackson, “The Art of Wishful Shrinking,” Smithsonian (Nov. 1994): 147–48.
“Don’t eat fried food”: in “Plain Talk on Food,” Pasadena Daily News (Nov. 6, 1912): 6.
“whose theology”: Gerald Carson, “The Yankee Kitchen,” in The American Heritage Cookbook: An Illustrated History (NY: American Heritage, 1964): 82.
“All my mother knew”: Roberta Wallace Coffey, “Their Recipe for Love,” McCall’s 116 (Nov. 1988): 97.
“such an utter loss”: Ogden Nash, Food (NY: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1989): 31. In an essay on Boston food written with E. S. Yntema (“JC’s Boston Birthday Buffet,” Boston Globe Magazine, May 11, 1980, page 27), JC adds a small onion, 4 peppercorns, a bay leaf, specifies 2 cups of mashed potatoes, and calls it “Priscilla Weston’s Duxbury Codfish Balls with Egg Sauce.”
“Jell-O was distributing”: Robert Clark, James Beard: A Biography (NY: HarperCollins, 1993): 36.
“cut down your food supply”: J. C. Elliot and Arthur Taylor in Pasadena Star-News (March 7, 1916): 12.
“extrovert”: C. G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung vol. 6, 2nd ed. (Princeton, 1971): 157–58.
“When we went out”: JC, “What Is Your Favorite Place in California?” Westways (July 1995): 11.
“frontier legacy”: “Pioneer Californian Is Called,” Pasadena Star-News (Nov. 13, 1924): 1.
CHAPTER 3
EDUCATION OF AN EXTROVERT (1921–1930)
Unpublished Sources
Interviews: For Polytechnic School: JC, Charles Hall 2/9/94, John McWilliams III 8/13/93, Orian (Babe) Hall [Hallor] 2/29/94, DC 3/9/94 and 5/10/95, Mary Ford [Cairns] 9/14/94, Elizabet
h Parker [Kase] 2/19/94; Eleanor Roberts [Phillip Colt] 9/11/94; Robert Hastings 2/9/95, Gay Bradley [Wright] 2/5/96; group interview with Mary Frances Snow [Russell], William (Bill) Lisle, Kenneth O. Rhodes, James Bishop 1/31/94. For Katharine Branson School: JC, Dana Parker 6/6/95, Aileen Johnson [Whitaker] 3/21/94, Mary Zook [Beales] 3/11/94, Marjory Ellen Lacey [Warren] 10/14/93, Dorothy McWilliams [Cousins] (’35) 3/9/94, Clara Rideout [Noyses] (’33) 3/19/89, Harriet Kostic 3/11/94.
Correspondence: For Poly: Charles Hall to Mary Frances Snow [Russell], 1/15/94; Joseph C. Sloane to NRF, 7/19/95. For KBS: Viola Tuckerman [Hansen] to NRF, 2/15/94; Barbara Ord [Bryant] (through her daughter, Babs Bryant Pomilia) to NRF, 3/16/94; Mary Zook [Beales] to NRF, 2/16/94; Roxane Ruhl [Simmons] to NRF, 3/10/94 and 4/15/94; Dana Parker to NRF, 4/5/95.
Archives: Poly: Polytechnic School, Georgia McClay, archivist, 1030 E. California Blvd.; the school was founded when Troop Polytechnique Institute (founded in 1891) dropped its lower grades to form California Polytechnique University in 1907. Private: Julia McWilliams to Babe Hall, childhood letters [n.d.]; Elizabeth (Betty) Parker [Kase] memoir, 1986; JC fragmentary diary “Oh So Private,” 1935–42. KBS: Special thanks to Harriet Kostic, Alumni Director of Branson School, for opening the confidential records (with JC’s permission), history of KBS, KBS Scrapbook: 1920–1970, the Blue Print literary journal, Oral History Projects.
Published Sources
“I was always”: Molly O’Neill, “What’s Cooking in America?” New York Times (Oct. 12, 1989): 16.
“New Women success story”: Maureen Honey, ed., Breaking the Ties That Bind: Popular Stories of the New Woman, 1915–1930 (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma, 1995): 56.
“One of my earliest”: JC, From JC’s Kitchen (NY: Knopf, 1975): 431.
“courtesy, Christianity, and college”: Mark Baur, “A World of Its Own: The Katharine Branson School, 1917–1945,” typed transcript of thesis, n.d.: 40.
“the nut of Christianity”: JC to CC, 7/24/53 (from Matthew 22:37–38). She gave the same philosophy, in summary form, to “Proust Questionnaire,” Vanity Fair (March 1996): 212.
“enclosed, sprayed”: Bauer, “A World of Its Own,” 40.
“Father Love”: “Rites Close Father-Love Death Drama,” Pasadena Evening Post (Dec. 10, 1927): 1. Extensive coverage of the Stevens murders in Pasadena Evening Star and Pasadena Star-News, Dec. 8–10, 1927.
“love of jelly donuts,” Gayle Murphy, Ross Valley Reporter (March 19, 1980): 5.
“The peculiar nature”: Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, vol. 6, 2nd ed. (Princeton, 1971): 427, 332–33, 159.
CHAPTER 4
SMITH COLLEGE (1930–1934)
Unpublished Sources
Interviews: Classmates: JC, Charlotte Snyder [Turgeon] 8/14/93 and 5/23/94, Catharine (Kitty) Atwater [Galbraith] 8/9/93, Elizabeth (Betty) Bushnell [Kubler] 9/26/94, Mary Case [Warner] 11/3/93, Mary Coots [Belin] 11/93, Margaret (Peggy) Clark [VanderVeer] 2/13/94, Mary Ford [Cairns] 2/14/94, Anita Hinckley [Hovey] 5/25/94, Constance Thayer [Cory] 5/15/94, Gay Bradley [Wright] 2/5/96. Other interviews: DC and Sam Cousins 12/20/94, John McWilliams III 8/13/93, Mary Weston 5/19/94, Dana Parker 6/6/95, Orian (Babe) Hall [Hallor] 2/19/94, Charles Hall 2/9/94.
Correspondence: JC to Anne Dodge, 6/20/66; JC to Philadelphia Cousins, 7/8/79; Maida Goodwin to NRF, 9/23/93 and 3/4/94; JC to Carolyn McWilliams, 1932–34; Carolyn McWilliams to DC, 1933–34. Classmates: Catharine Carton [Smith] to NRF, 3/12/94; Anne Winton [Johnston] to NRF, 4/20/95; Frances Proctor ’37 [Wilkinson] to NRF, 7/96; Constance Thayer [Cory] to NRF, 5/23/94; Roxane Ruhl [Simmons] to NRF, 3/10/94 and 4/15/94.
Archives: Smith College: Sophia Smith Collection, Neilson Library, Smith Centennial Study Oral History, JC & PC, Oct. 10, 1972, transcript for College. A Smith Mosaic; Sophian; Smith Alumnae Quarterly; historical records of the college and JC. Private: Smith College Year Book, 1933 and 1934 (courtesy Mary Case Warren). Schlesinger: JC to MFKF, 5/29/86.
Published Sources
“It slipped”: Margo Greep, “JC Adds Spice to Banquet,” Smith College Sophian (April 13, 1978): 1.
“representing more than half”: Jules Tygiet, The Great Los Angeles Swindle: Oil, Stocks, and Scandal During the Roaring Twenties (NY: Oxford, 1994): 310.
“five percent”: Historical Statistics of the U.S., Part 1 (Wash. DC: U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of Census, 1995): 380.
“model food of the twentieth century”: Laura Shapiro, Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century (NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986): 214.
“Inspired”: Nao Hauser, “JC: Her Life, Her Great Love, and Her Future,” Chicago Tribune (March 3, 1980): 4.
“She will return here”: “Pasadena Girl Achieves High Honors in East,” Pasadena Star-News (clipping).
CHAPTER 5
CAREER SEARCH (1934–1943)
Unpublished Sources
Interviews: JC, DC, John and Josephine McWilliams III 8/13/93, Orian (Babe) Hall [Hallor] 2/19/94, Charles Hall 2/9/94, Peggy Clark [VanderVeer] 2/13/94, Mary Ford [Cairns] 2/14/94, Connie Thayer [Cory] 5/15/94, Charlotte Snyder [Turgeon] 8/14/93, Robert P. Hastings 2/9/95, Anita Hinckley [Hovey] (5/25/94), Katy and Freeman (Tule) Gates 4/24/93, Mary Frances Snow [Russell] 1/31/94, Gay Bradley [Wright] 2/5/96, John (Jack) L. Moore 5/20/94, Elizabeth (Betty) MacDonald [McIntosh] 11/3/93. Lawrence Deitz, a biographer of the Chandler family, on Harrison Gray Otis Chandler 1903–86. Transcript of Foreign Service Spouse Oral History, 11/7/91.
Correspondence: Carolyn McWilliams to DC, 1934–37; Harold J. Coolidge to NRF, 3/22/94 and 7/8/96; Catharine Carton [Smith] to NRF, 3/12/94; Edwin J. (Ned) Putzell, Jr., to NRF, 1/14/94 and 1/31/95; Alice Carson [Hiscock] to NRF, 2/6/95 and 2/23/95; Elizabeth Cathcart Tisdel to NRF, 3/4/97.
Archives: Private: JC (sporadic) diary 1935–42; JC unpublished writings, including essays and correspondence for W. & J. Sloane, Coast magazine, and plays for Junior League; “An Evening with JC: At the Valley Hunt Club,” tape 11/7/90; JC’s U.S. government documents; Richard C. Hiscock, “Development of Exposure Suits” (5-page report), n.d. (courtesy Alice Carson Hiscock). Smith College: alumni records; JC to Marjorie P. Nield (alumni office), 12/6/35; JC oral history transcription for College. A Mosaic, 10/10/72; Smith Alumnae Quarterly. Schlesinger: JC to AD, 2/12/53; JC to AD, 2/25/53; PC to CC, 10/25/71.
Published Sources
“Middle-class women”: Polly Frost, “Wild Child,” Interview, xix (Fall 1989): 63.
“I used to go to Grand Central”: Susan Goodman, “Penthouse Potluck,” Modern Maturity (Nov./Dec. 1996): 36.
“climate is a scandal”: John Steinbeck, “The Making of a New Yorker,” New York Times Magazine (Feb. 1, 1953): 27. See also Susan Edmiston and Linda D. Cirono, Literary New York: A History and Guide (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976): 235.
“The Intelligent”: JC, “The Intelligent Woman Voter,” Pasadena Junior League News (Oct. 19, 1939): 13.
“Oh why do you walk”: a slightly misquoted passage from Frances Cornford’s “To a Fat Lady Seen from the Train.” My gratitude to E. S. Yntema for identifying this verse.
“increase his needs”: Dorothy Thompson, “On the Record: The W.P.A.,” New York Herald Tribune (Oct. 21 [1942]), clipping.
“a bunch of college professors”: R. Harris Smith, OSS: The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency (Berkeley: Univ. of CA, 1972): 13.
“potential postwar clients”: Stanley P. Lovell, Of Spies & Stratagems (NY: Pocket Books, 1963): 194.
“largely unvouchered”: Smith, OSS, 3, 5.
“helter-skelter but brilliant”: Smith, OSS, 1–2.
CHAPTER 6
INDIA INTRIGUE (1944–1945)
Unpublished Sources
Interviews: JC, John L. (Jack) Moore 5/20/94, Elizabeth (Betty) MacDonald [McIntosh] 11/3/93, I. Guy Martin 9/30/94, Mary Livingston (Mrs. Dillon Ripley) 9/27/94, Fisher Howe 9/28/94, Thibaut de Saint Phalle 12/5/94.
Correspondence: OSS colleagues: Alice C. Carson [Hiscock] to
NRF, 2/6/95 and 2/23/95; Louis J. Hector to NRF, 11/96; Eleanor (Ellie) Thiry [Summers] to NRF, 9/7/94; Virginia (Peachy) Durand [Shelden] to NRF 2/3/95; Edwin J. (Ned) Putzell, Jr., to NRF, 1/14/94; Thibaut de Saint Phalle to NRF, 12/5/94; Catharine (Kitty) Carton [Swett] to NRF, 1/31/95 and 1/4/97; Byron S. Martin to NRF, 1/11/95 and 1/26/95; Elizabeth (Betty) MacDonald [McIntosh] to NRF, 11/27/96, Geoffrey M. T. Jones, Pres. Veterans of OSS, to NRF, 5/19/94. JC to Sue Van Voches (Encyclopedia of American Women), 10/20/72; Peggy Wheeler to JC, 7/18/44.
Archives: Private: diaries of JC (“Oh So Private”), Eleanor (Ellie) Thiry [Summers] (“excerpts from letters home”), and Joseph R. Coolidge; PC to CC letters, courtesy John Moore and Rachel Child; JC and PC private records. Schlesinger: copies of PC letter-diary to CC, 1943–45. Smith College: JC and PC oral history transcript for College. A Smith Mosaic, 10/10/72. National Archives: files #9300811 and #9300812, 1993–95. CIA: file #F93-0455 (obtained with JC permission under the FOIA, 5/95).
Published Sources
“had a veritable genius”: Jane Foster, An UnAmerican Lady (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1980): 134.
“Kandy is probably”: Philip Ziegler, Mountbatten (NY: Harper & Row, 1985): 279.
“direction [to] the sea” and “the future of Asia”: Barbara Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–45 (NY: Macmillan, 1970): 446, 455.
“a highly developed security”: Elizabeth P. MacDonald [McIntosh]. Undercover Girl (NY: Macmillan, 1947): 26.
“one hero in my life”: Donna Lee, “The Man Behind JC,” Boston Herald American Magazine (May 10, 1981): 9.
“Morale in her section”: Elizabeth P. McIntosh, The Role of Women in Intelligence, Intelligence Profession Series No. 5 (McLean, VA: Association of Former Intelligence Officers, 1989): 35.