Please Don't Eat the Daisies (and please don't feed Daisy)

I love stumbling upon references to the Tailored Woman store. For example, when I opened Jean Kerr’s 1957 classic Please Don’t Eat the Daisies (the basis for the Doris Day movie of the same name) there on the first page was this passage:

I had a feeling all along that this book should have an Introduction... but I was getting nowhere until I received this dandy questionnaire from the publicity department at Doubleday.  Now, I'm an old hand at questionnaires, having successfully opened a charge account at The Tailored Woman.  But this was a questionnaire with a difference... Of course, there were a certain number of routine questions.  List your pen name.  (I just call it Ball-Point.) What do you do when you're not writing?  (Buy geraniums.)  Husband's name? (Honey.)  List your previous addresses.  (Funny, that's what The Tailored Woman was so curious about.)

Kerr, a playwright in addition to wonderful essayist, chronicled her exploits as a suburban wife and mother in several bestselling books that made the mundane hilarious.  Though many elements of her life were glamorous, Kerr wrote in her parked car (a Chevrolet, of course) to get some peace from her brood of six children and their numerous pets.  Here's my favorite of her witticisms: "Marrying a man is like buying something you've been admiring for a long time in a shop window. You may love it when you get it home, but it doesn't always go with everything else in the house."

Incidentally, zany married writers Beverly West and Jason Bergund collaborated last year on a book called Please Don’t Feed the Daisy featuring the world’s hungriest Chihuahua. (I assume the dog doesn’t shop on Fifth Avenue, as Kerr did, but one never knows these days. Certainly the average canine in my neighborhood of Lincoln Park is better dressed and sports a cuter pedicure than the average human.)

Hoarders I Have Known

The hitherto not well understood compulsion of hoarding is having its moment in the sun, what with the A&E show Hoarders and a resurgence of interest in the infamous Collyer brothers of New York, one of whom literally died under the weight of his possessions.

This isn’t just prurient interest on my part. There are a couple of hoarders bowing down the branches of our hereditary tree with their clutter, so holding onto masses of stuff we don’t need appears to be something of a family tradition--along with playing touch football on Thanksgiving, or just missing out on making it big.

The most notorious example is my late maternal grandmother.  She was a genuine collector and bequeathed the substantial Howard and Caroline Porter Collection of Modern Japanese Prints to the Cincinnati Art Museum.  (When I searched the museum website just now for a link to the collection I couldn't find one, but I was surprised to find that she donated this risque Henry Farny print!)
 
But paper was also my grandmother's nemesis. Everything was equally important, and she couldn’t seem to discern the difference in value between a Frisch’s Big Boy restaurant napkin (honestly, I found one once) and a tender love letter written from her father to her mother. It all went into boxes, never to be dealth with.
 
The disorder drove my neat, organized mother to despair. We kids, on the other hand, thought it was kind of cool. You never knew what treasures you might unearth. (And as I sift through the remains of this rubble, now organized and labeled by my mother, I’m grateful to have such splendid excess to draw upon for my research.)

Girard College

Posting about Laurel Hill cemetery yesterday has Philadelphia on my mind.  I spent six years there and always had somewhat of a love-hate relationship with the city; it could be a tough place in many ways, and certainly getting mugged at a train station in the middle of the day did nothing to help that impression.  What I miss most is the history; walk down just about any block in Philly and you'll stumble across something of historical or cultural significance.  Chicago seems by contrast such a new city, albeit a cleaner and safer one, as well. 

My family has a similarly complex relationship with one of Philadelphia's most interesting and controversial stories, Girard College.  Girard is actually a boarding school providing an entirely free education to mainly underprivileged children, 80% of whom are now African-American.  But the school was created by bequest of Stephen Girard, the fabulously wealthy financier who left $7.5 million (equivalent to many billions today) and no direct heirs when he died in 1831.  His will is famous for two stipulations: 1) that no religious figures ever be allowed to enter the campus; and 2) that the school bearing his name be for "poor, white, male orphans" only.  Both provisions were famously broken, the latter after much bitter legal wrangling in the 1960s.

My great-great-great-grandfather, Henry Duval Gregory, was Vice-President of Girard College from 1883-1892.  According to family lore, Gregory once gave a tour of the school to visiting Chinese dignitaries who spoke no English.  He solved the communication problem by talking to them in Latin, a language they all knew.  (Is it any wonder that I can be such a bookish geek sometimes, with genes like this?)  My grandmother was proud of our association with Girard College and gave me a print (pictured here) of Founder's Hall and the surrounding campus.  She was, however, distressed that the will was broken.  Her discomfort seemed to resonate less from sexist or racist reasons and more from her belief that one's stated final wishes should be legally binding forever.

I was interested to see that the story of Girard and his will is somewhat buried on the school's website; I had to dig into the Founder's Hall link to find it.  But in a Philadelphia magazine interview from last fall, new President Autumn Adkins tackles the issue directly.  I like her candor and her commitment to the principles of education for all.   I hope she will continue to restore Girard's legacy to prominence, for ultimately it proves that what unites us is indeed stronger than what divides us.

Memento Mori

Cheery title, no? But I thought the Latin phrase meaning “remember you must die” would be a fitting title for Lent, a week before Good Friday.

I just finished Audrey Niffeneger's most recent novel, Her Fearful Symmetry. Niffenegger is a Chicago resident but also spends time in London, where she is a guide at storied Highgate Cemetery. (So yes, she lives my dream life.)  Highgate and its living and dead residents figure significantly in the novel, which I enjoyed very much despite the truly strange ending.

I don’t know Niffenegger, but she appears to be a kindred spirit, as I also adore cemeteries. When I lived in Philadelphia, I spent hours happily searching for my Gregory ancestors in Laurel Hill, a lush, rambling cemetery overlooking the Schuylkill River and Boathouse Row.  (Okay, maybe I wasn't so happy the whole time.  It was a very large cemetery and the map was vague as to the exact location of my family's plot.)

Laurel Hill boasts a number of lovely mausoleums, some still with the original Tiffany stained glass windows.  The cemetery is famous for the Warner monument, an Alexander Milne Calder sculpture of a soul escaping the sarcophagus while an angel stands guard, but my favorite monument belongs to the most handsome (and clearly, most modest) man in America at the time of his death.  The park-like setting offers a lovely refuge in the middle of a hectic city, exactly as was intended when Laurel Hill was established.

Probably because it was an age when people died much younger, the Victorians were far more accepting of death than we are today; they didn’t think of it as something to be “cured” by science, or legislated away by overprotective governments and ambulance-chasing lawyers. Instead, our forebears built cemeteries such as Laurel Hill and Highgate so they could commune with those who had departed, sometimes even picnicking at gravesites.

When I finally located those elusive Gregory folks, I didn’t dine with them, but I did sit down under a nearby tree to enjoy the pleasure of their company for a little while. I trust they were equally happy to entertain me.

Photo of Warner Monument courtesy of Fairmont Park Art Association

A Guide to Society Libraries, Part 2

In yesterday's post about private libraries, I neglected to mention the Mercantile Library in my hometown of Cincinnati.  My grandmother used to belong, but the library has long since shed any staid associations it once might have had.  Indeed, its website trumpets that anyone may belong, and the very modest annual fee of $45 backs up the claim. 

While trolling the library's website, I noticed with delight--and a certain amount of envy, since I live too far away to attend--that Jonathan Kamholtz is leading a series at the Mercantile on literary thrillers.  He is one of the smartest and funniest English professors I ever had the pleasure to take a course from.  (Oops, I ended a sentence about an English professor with a proposition.  So sue me.)

Maddeningly, however, the link to an intriguing member group called the Chic.lits ("fashionable friends of fine art, fine reading and the Mercantile Library") does not work. The elusive Chic.lits, whoever they may be, do not write the Mercantile's saucily-named blog, Stacked.  It appears to be helmed instead by a man.  But it's a good thing when a library's website makes one laugh out loud, right?

Social Libraries

I caught a few minutes last week of the reprehensible new reality show High Society starring New York socialite Tinsley Mortimer.  I happened to hit on the moment when her mother enters the New York Society Library to look up the ancestry of Tinsley's arrogant and supposedly aristocratic German boyfriend.  The show tries to intimate that the Society Library is a snooty social club, or a library full of books about genealogy and social history, but this isn't the case.  I remember visiting when I went to college in New York.  The library, while private, was very welcoming and had a low yearly membership fee for students.

All circulating libraries used to be private, limiting books to those of means. In the early 20th century, Andrew Carnegie gave an astounding $60 million to found nearly 3,000 free libraries in the United States and all over the world, bringing "books and information to all people."  But private libraries still have their uses today, and are adapting with the times. 

Here in Chicago, we have the wonderful Newberry Library, which houses a collection of rare books for researchers but is open to the public. On the other end of the spectrum, the Chicago Underground Library collects independent and small press media, including books, magazines, journals, and "zines."  The Underground Library accepts and archives everything submitted by everyone. 

(Except, one guesses, Tinsley and her pals.)

Look what just popped up

I had to share this great note I received today from Keith Belling, Founder and CEO of Popchips, the subject of a previous post.  While I may not have become a convert (yet), I'm swooning at the company's customer outreach.  (Such nice manners these chips have!)

hi there elizabeth. definitely not a handwritten note, but only because we don’t have your address :)

popchips (like most things) aren’t for everyone and we definitely won’t come between you and your bowl of potato chips!!! the good news is we’ve got a growing list of snackers that seem to be enjoying popchips, and like you said, hopefully won’t end-up like that lonely bag of munchos.

and you’re right, snacking is all about taste, and curious to know your favorite(s)? . . . and in the meantime, look forward to enjoying your blog from time to time.

To answer my new friend's question, my favorite things are long walks on the beach, romantic candlelit dinners, and monkeys.  Oh wait, he wants to know what sort of chip I prefer.  Silly me.  Well Keith, I have a weakness for Chicago's own Jiminy Chips, especially their sweet potato and mustard varieties.  Heavenly, though not low fat.  But I think we can agree that there's room in the snacking universe for all of us.  (Tell you what, I'll even try another flavor of popchips, just for you!) 

Jihad Jane and Me

I'm occasionally prone to making kneejerk, conservative sorts of statements, to wit: "When terrorists start to look like me, then I'll understand being pulled out of the security line for a patdown."

Well, guess what?  My time has come!  Wacky white women are now would-be jihadists.  (To quote the great Tina Fey, who is white and wacky but does not, to my knowledge, want to kill cartoonists: "What the what?!")

Looks like I'd better get ready for the full body scanner... thanks, Colleen and Jamie!

Slaves in (my) Family

Chicago is celebrating St. Patrick's Day today, even though the famous South Side parade was canceled this year.  Since I'm a Northsider, have no Irish blood, and descend instead from the English oppressors, I'm avoiding the whole subject (though I already had to dodge a bunch of drunken people in green on my morning run).  Instead I thought I would write about something much less controversial: slavery.

I just caught up on last night's episode of Who Do You Think You Are? featuring football (and dancing) great Emmitt Smith discovering that, while he is of overwhelmingly African ancestry, he likely also descends from a white slaveowner.  The episode reminded me of the finest ancestral-search memoir I've read, Edward Ball's Slaves in the Family.  Ball is a descendant of the once wealthy and powerful South Carolina clan of the same surname.  He explores his family's slave-owning heritage on their massive plantation, then tracks down his present-day black cousins, many of whom welcome him into the fold.    

When I was growing up, my family talked in whispers about our slave-owning ancestors--the Phelps family of Richmond, Kentucky, who had a plantation called Dreaming Creek Heights.  (The house and property have long since vanished.)  We have a Phelps will from the early 1800s in which a handful of slaves are named, but in this book excerpt, Samuel Phelps's estate is listed as 2,000 acres with 100 slaves.  I cannot explain how my direct ancestors--people who were Christian, highly-educated and charitable--could believe this to be right. 

While the memoir I'm working on is meant to be humorous and light in tone, the challenge will be to write about the ugly discoveries as well as the funny ones.  As many more talented voices than mine have pointed out, a thin line separates comedy from tragedy--whether one is speaking of the complexities of Irish nationality or of our country's (and my family's) not-too-distant past.

A Guide to Wasp Literature, Part 1

Sociologist E. Digby Baltzell is generally credited with coining the acronym “Wasp” (for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant), but we don’t read him or Thorstein Veblen (inventor of the phrase “conspicuous consumption”), for that matter. Much too heavy going. Mystery writers such as Agatha Christie, Dick Francis and Josephine Tey are more my people’s cup of, well, tea.

Here are a few other preppy classics, as well as some guides to the species. Curiously, many of these works are now out of print. (Though perhaps that is fitting, since Wasps are a dying breed and may well find ourselves out of circulation soon!)

1. The Great Gatsby. Perfection, though thank goodness the publishers didn’t use F. Scott Fitzgerald’s proposed title, The High-Bouncing Lover. That doesn’t sound our sort of thing at all. Wasps sigh over gorgeously tailored shirts just as Daisy does, are bred to believe in the green light, yet we are all borne back ceaselessly into the past. (Bonus—the book is fairly short for a classic.)

2. The Catcher in the Rye. Prep school perfection, but so revered that it’s impossible to say anything about the book or its late author, the reclusive J.D. Salinger, without sounding trite.

3. Who Killed Society? Those in the know will recognize that the cover is meant to mimic the distinctive black and orange of the Social Register. Readers in 1960 flipped through Cleveland Amory’s book looking for names they knew, no doubt in much the same way they perused the Register.

4. The Preppy Handbook. Often imitated (c.f. The Official Filthy Rich Handbook) but never surpassed. I’m astonished that this has yet to be reissued. Hasn’t aged much at all. (Mummy was right; pastels and tennis do keep one youthful!)

5. First Garden. When I was growing up, young ladies received a copy of this gracious guide to green thumbs by the arbiter of high Wasp taste, the late C.Z. Guest. (Her daughter Cornelia’s 1986 book, The Debutante’s Guide to Life, does not make the list. Nor does Paris Hilton’s more recent Confessions of an Heiress.)

6. The Way of The Wasp. Written during the first, altogether more benign, Bush administration, Richard Brookhiser's book is a plea for a return to values such as civic-mindedness and industry. (It appears that W never read it.)

7. The WASP Cookbook. I’ve cited this one before; I’m a big fan of the author, comedienne Alexandra Wentworth. She is the star of Head Case but is perhaps better known as the “Schmoopie” girlfriend from Seinfeld and the wife of political pundit George Stephanopoulos. (Of course, the real Wasp cookbook consists of recipes from Campbell’s soup labels carefully pasted into a notebook handed down from mother to daughter, for cook’s night out. If that fails, there’s always the local Junior League compilation.)

8. Wasp, Where Is Thy Sting? Scathingly funny examination of preppy mores with a Dixie twist, from Florence King, the author of the perennial favorite Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady.

In Which Super Hot PopChips Leave Me Cold...

I don't care for chocolate, ice cream or pastries.  Mom didn't really believe in serving dessert, so I never developed much of a sweet tooth.  But as I've said before, my people do love a good salty snack (perfect for cocktail hour) so don't step between a bowl of potato chips and me!

Since I try to avoid succumbing to high-fat chip temptation too often, I was excited when PopChips were finally available in Chicago.  I kept reading tantalizing things about these lower fat chips that are "air-popped" rather than fried or baked.  Supposedly they are all the rage on the West Coast with svelte actress types (at least, the ones who still eat carbs).  I also love that the company is so consumer-friendly, giving samples away and supposedly even sending handwritten thank you notes in response to fan comments.  

Alas, I don't believe I will be receiving such a note.  I tried to love PopChips, I really did, but I don't understand the appeal.  They strike me as overly salty, and their texture is reminiscent of that of Munchos, the odd "potato crisps" that seem as though they should be low fat (which is to say, they feel and taste like cardboard), yet aren't.  Check any depleted vending machine and you'll likely see a lonely bag of Munchos hanging forlornly in the corner, the last choice of a desperate snacker.

I trust, however, that the wildly popular PopChips will avoid a similar fate, even without my support.

Who Does That Dudley Girl Think She Is?

In my last post I wrote about the episode of Who Do You Think You Are? where Sarah Jessica Parker learns, to her surprise, that she has Puritan roots. She says something to the effect of how strange it is to be connected to early American history.

I played the wanton seductress Abigail in a high school production of The Crucible, but until recently never gave much thought to the fact that I was descended from some of the real women who called each other "Goody" (instead of "Mrs.") and got into a tizzy about witchcraft. 

I've mentioned that my family tree includes hapless pilgrims who boarded the Speedwell, the Mayflower companion ship that didn't make it to Plymouth Rock.  Another Puritan ancestor, Thomas Dudley, came over later as part of the Winthrop Fleet.  Dudley was colonial governor of Massachusetts after his rival John Winthrop, and signed the charter founding a little college called Harvard.  

Dropping Dudley's name has elicited interesting responses over the years.  Once I was out to dinner with a number of colleagues, including an eminent statistician and his brilliant wife, who had just completed her dissertation on the Puritans. I trotted out Dudley and she said, “Oh, his granddaughter is in my research!” I asked the subject of her thesis. “Fornication in 17th Century Massachusetts,” she replied matter-of-factly, causing me nearly to choke on my filet mignon. (Turns out Marguerite Dudley escaped prosecution and in fact sued her married seducer for paternity.)

Perhaps the thought of their daughters riding around in fast carts with boys is what has the church elders looking so concerned in this painting?  (Image courtesy of Wikipedia)

Who Do I Think I Am?

NBC heavily promoted its "heartwarming" new ancestral-search show Who Do You Think You Are? during the equally warm and fuzzy Olympics.  (Alas, it runs on Friday nights, so I'll likely watch it via On Demand.)  The premiere episode featured fellow Cincinnati native Sarah Jessica Parker finding out that she has Puritan ancestors, including one who was accused of witchcraft and narrowly escaped the hangman's noose. 

Make no mistake, this is a reality TV show, complete with obviously staged moments of "shock" and "delight."  (Not to mention lots of conspicuous product placement for Ancestry.com.) When SJP finishes her quest and goes to her mother's home to tell her all she has learned, they beam at each other and even shed a few tears.  Hmm.  When I was at mom's over Christmas and dug into some of the family papers and photos for my book research, there was a little less beaming and a tad more muttering under the breath (mom) and cursing (me--I couldn't get the stupid scanner to work).  Good thing mom and I are not famous actress and mother-of-famous-actress types, and thus have no cameras following us around.

Still, the new show is clearly an improvement over squat women getting punched in bars (c.f. The Jersey Shore).  I have high hopes that the nation will be swept up in a craze for genealogy and wacky true family tales, thus increasing interest in my memoir (not to mention decreasing interest in overly-tan people with strange hair and few apparent manners).

Drunken Flower

Recently I had a fabulous champagne cocktail at The Gage, the Irish gastropub on Michigan Avenue opposite the ‘Bean.’ The drink had a hibiscus flower in it and I confess I ate the garnish once I drained my glass. (Quelle horreur, I know.)  The hibiscus was blood red and nicely sweet, with a tart edge. It's sort of like a fruit, so it has to be healthy, right?  (Never mind the champagne and sugar.)

Bars use the lovely version steeped in syrup pictured here, but Trader Joe's carries dried sweetened hibiscus flowers as an inexpensive alternative.  The texture is similar to that of an exotic gummy candy.  I’ve found that the dried flowers are splendid in green tea, adding a touch of fruit flavor and a hint of sweetness to balance out the bitterness of the tea. (Plus they look really cool and a little freakish, resembling some sort of small sea creature that one can pluck out of the mug and eat in front of one’s horrified coworkers.)

Kiva - Loans That Change Lives (and Republicans)

I’m a huge fan of Kiva, the microloan organization. This despite the fact that I was raised by conservative Midwestern Republican Wasps (all redundant terms), and my people tend to believe in the “up from your own bootstraps” approach. (Not to mention the “no estate tax” approach, just in case those bootstraps don’t stay up on their own.)

My current Kiva portfolio includes loans for a bakery in Tajikstan, a beauty salon in the Dominican Republic, a general store in Tanzania, and a used clothing store in Lebanon. So far my loans have been 100% paid back, and I re-lend the original funds as soon as they are returned to my Kiva account. (Adding loans to my basket is as fun as online shopping, with the added virtue of feeling like an Oprah-type benefactor at a relatively small cost.) I try to spread my dollars around the globe, and tend to be prejudiced in favor of women-owned businesses. When women achieve an income of their own, good things tend to happen for their families and their communities. (And maybe even their inheritances!)

According to Kiva, I've made more than the average number of loans, but I'm sadly lacking in invitations to others to join.  So we'll consider this blog post one big group invitation.  Head on over to Kiva now, and tell them the Tailored Woman sent you!