“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, March 16, 1923, 58 Central Park West, New York City, New York

The host, corporate lawyer and art collector John Quinn, 52, has planned this as a double celebration.

His niece Mary is turning 16 today, so he has invited her; her mother, his sister Julia Anderson, 37; Julia’s good-for-nothing husband; and a few friends to his apartment for the festivities.

Central Park West

In addition, today he is un-crating his most recent art acquisition, Le Cirque by the late French post-impressionist Georges Seurat.

The Circus has been sitting in the building’s basement since arriving from France about a week ago. Today, when the workmen try to bring it upstairs to Quinn’s penthouse, they discover it is too big to fit in the elevator! They figure out a way to safely place it on the roof of the cage and carefully get it up to the apartment.

And it is worth the effort. The painting is exquisite; Quinn has instructed his French buyer that he will leave it to the Louvre in his will. Champagne toasts all around, both to Mary and Le Cirque!

Le Cirque by Georges Seurat

The Circus didn’t come cheap. Quinn paid a couple thousand pounds for it, in installments. But he is now focusing his collection on French artists and selling off a lot of his other works.

Quinn feels it is important for him to host family parties like this one. At the beginning of this year he had quite a health scare, waking up to find himself lying on the floor next to his bed, unable to move for an hour until his valet found him.

Quinn needed rest so he went to Hot Springs spa in Virginia—but stopping off on the way to attend to one of his corporate tax cases in Washington, D. C.

In the past six months he has litigated over 50 cases for millions of dollars, but he had to turn down an offer to buy a van Gogh from his London art dealer. Too pricey.

The health scare has made Quinn realize that he needs to slow down, exercise more, get a good night’s sleep. Spend time with his family.

Recently he received a letter from one of the many writers he supports, American ex-pat poet living in London, T. S. Eliot, 34, who wrote: 

I have not even time to go to a dentist or to have my hair cut…I am worn out. I cannot go on.”

Quinn wants to tell him, make the time. It’s important. Don’t allow yourself to be so driven.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through III, covering 1920 through 1922 are available as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

This summer I will be talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, Late September, 1922, 23 rue de Boitie; and Morgan, Harjes et Cie, 14 Place Vendome, Paris

Olga Picasso, 31, is recuperating at home after an emergency operation.

She and her family—husband Pablo, 40, and their son, Paulo, almost 20 months old—were having a lovely holiday, despite the bad weather, in Dinard on the Brittany Coast.

Suddenly Olga became seriously ill and they had to rush her to the hospital in Paris, 400 km away. The five-hour trip was a nightmare:  Paolo was car sick and Pablo kept putting ice packs on Olga’s head.

She’s feeling a bit better now that she is home. But Pablo has gone back to Dinard to retrieve all the paintings and drawings he’s been working on since they arrived there in July.

Women Running on the Beach by Picasso

The Spanish painter has never learned to drive, saying that it would affect his wrists and hands. So he bought a posh new car and has hired a chauffeur to take care of the driving for him. He tells Olga that, back in Dinard, he is quite a celebrity. His arrival is in the local paper and everyone wants to see his new car.

Olga is more concerned about her “woman’s problems.”

*****

Nearby in the city, about 2 km away, American ex-patriate Harry Crosby, 24, is at his desk in the Morgan, Harjes et Cie bank in Place Vendome.

Morgan, Harjes et Cie bank in Place Vendome.

Harry’s not doing much work. He rarely does. His aunt, Jane Norton Morgan, 54, wife of the bank owner, J. P. Morgan, Jr., just turned 55, arranged this job for him. Harry had already walked out on a banking job in Boston, after only eight months of putting up with it and a six-day drinking binge.

But Aunt Jane didn’t send him off to Paris this spring just to restart his career. She wanted to get him away from his mistress, Mrs. Mary “Polly” Phelps Rodgers, 30, with whom he has been conducting a scandalous affair for the past two years. All of Boston is talking.

Didn’t work. Polly finally divorced her husband earlier this year, and at the beginning of this month she finally said yes to Harry’s most recent marriage proposal, via transatlantic cable.

Harry was over the moon. He collected on the $100 bet he’d made with his roommate, raced to Cherbourg to get the next boat, used the money to bribe officials so he wouldn’t have to quarantine, and managed to sail to New York City on the RMS Aquitania on September 3^rd. He won some money gambling on the ship but used that to buy champagne for his fellow passengers. He dressed up and crashed the posh restaurant on board, but while he was eating caviar, mock turtle soup and hummingbirds on toast, a steerage inspector tossed him out.

RMS Aquitania

Harry arrived in Manhattan after six days at sea, broke, and Polly was waiting for him at the dock. They got married that day and made a quick trip to Washington, DC, to try to reconcile with his family. That didn’t work.

Wedding picture of Harry and Polly Crosby

Back in New York City they collected Polly’s two children, and the responsibility of actually being a stepfather sunk in to Harry. He disappeared for a few hours.

But all four members of the newly blended family boarded the RMS Aquitania for the trip back to Paris.

Harry returned to this cushy job, and Polly found them an impressive apartment on the Right Bank so they could move out of the hotel they had been living in. And every workday, Polly, in a stunning red bathing suit, rows her new husband—somberly dressed in a business suit, hat, umbrella and briefcase—down the Seine to Place de la Concorde. He disembarks and walks the few blocks to his job here at the family bank. Polly rows back, often to the delight of the Frenchmen who whistle and wave at her and her large breasts. She loves it.

Harry likes this life, too, but not the job. He spends a lot of time reading poetry rather than banking and has even tried writing some himself.

Right now, he thinks it’s time to leave this office and go across the street to the Ritz Hotel Bar.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through III, covering 1920 through 1922 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, and as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

Later in the year I will be talking about the centenary of the publication of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes at Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 years ago, November 21, 1921, Girl Scout Tea House at Peirce Mill, Rock Creek Park, Washington, D. C.

Opening day at the tea house operated by the Girl Scouts of Washington, D. C., is going well.

This is the first time the public has visited the former restaurant, now redecorated with new curtains, furniture, and a fresh lick of paint, all in cheery blue and yellow. There was a nice write-up in the Washington Post yesterday, which is bringing out the crowds.

Peirce Mill, Rock Creek Park

The official grand opening was held two days ago for invited guests only, with the First Lady and honorary president of the national organization, Florence Harding, 61, doing the honors.

The specialty of the house is Florence’s “Harding Waffles,” made popular last year during her husband’s presidential campaign. President Warren G. Harding, 56, loves waffles—smothered in chipped beef gravy [although the Girl Scouts serve them with butter and syrup]—and Florence’s recipe swept the nation. She is particularly careful to use ingredients which were rationed during the Great War, to underscore her husband’s campaign theme of “Return to Normalcy.”

Florence Harding’s Waffle Recipe

Serves four

INGREDIENTS:
2 eggs.
2 tbls. sugar.
2 tbls. butter.
1 teaspoon salt.
1 pt. milk.
Flour to make thin batter. (I use about 2 cups flour)
2 large teaspoons baking powder

INSTRUCTIONS:
Separate the eggs.
Beat yolks and add sugar and salt.
Melt butter then add milk and flour and stir to combine.
Beat egg whites until stiff (but not dry) peaks form.
Stir one spoonful of whites into the mixture to lighten and then fold remainder of egg whites and baking powder.
Bake in a hot waffle iron.”

From the 1921 Atlanta Women’s Club Cookbook

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I and II covering 1920 and 1921 are available as signed copies at Riverstone Books, Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA, and in print and e-book formats on Amazon. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

Early next year I will be talking about the Centenary of the Publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 years ago, November 11, 1921, Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington Co., Virginia; and Westminster Abbey, London

Just across the Potomac River from Washington D. C., the first entombment of an American “unknown soldier” is taking place to commemorate the third Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of the Great War.

Chosen randomly by a U. S. Army sergeant from four sets of remains taken from four cemeteries on the French battlefields, this soldier has literally had a stormy journey to get here.

On its way to France to collect the precious cargo, the USS Olympia was hit by a tropical storm in the Atlantic.

On the way back, the weather was even worse. The ship took on water and the Marine Guard assigned to the casket was almost washed overboard. Hit by the same tropical storm, the Olympia sustained 13-foot waves.

But the remains have arrived safely. Speaking at the ceremony, President Warren G. Harding, 56, remarked, “We know not whence he came, only that his death marks him with the everlasting glory of an American dying for his country.”

Armistice Day ceremony

*****

In London, this is the third year that the United Kingdom has commemorated Remembrance Day.

Last year the UK government, along with the government of their ally, France, buried remains of an “unknown warrior” and a “soldat inconnu.”

Lord Field Marshall Haig, 60, who commanded the British Expeditionary Force, has felt that the country’s reverence for the importance of the day is already waning. So he proposed asking his countrymen to remember those who are buried under the poppies in Flanders Field by buying and wearing commemorative poppies. And shaming those who don’t.

The first Poppy Day appears to be a success. They are on track for sales of eight million poppy pins.

Remembrance Day leaflet

Poppy Day continues to this day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_Day

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I and II covering 1920 and 1921 are available as signed copies at Riverstone Books, Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA, and in print and e-book formats on Amazon. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

Early next year I will be talking about the Centenary of the Publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 years ago, May, 1921, Howard University, Washington, D. C.

The May issue of the Howard University magazine, The Stylus, is out and Zora Neale Hurston, 30, is feeling so proud.

Zora Neale Hurston at Howard University

Zora never even thought she would get into Howard, let alone finish her associate degree last year. She was one of the first women chosen for the new sorority, Zeta Phi Beta, and her grades have been strong.

She not only has a poem published in this issue, but also her first short story, “John Redding Goes to Sea.” That means she is now accepted into the university’s prestigious literary club, also called The Stylus. Quite a coup. The professor who founded the group, Dr. Alain Locke, 35, chair of the philosophy department, is the only African-American ever chosen to be a Rhodes Scholar.

Her story is about African-Americans in the small, all-Black town where she grew up, Eatonville in Orange County, Florida. Zora feels that this is a community few authors write about. She’s starting to think that she might pursue writing rather than anthropology as a career.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volume I covering 1920 is available on Amazon in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

This summer I will be talking about The Literary 1920s in the Osher Lifelong Learning programs at Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”: Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends” 100 years ago, March 4, 1921, United States Capitol Building, Washington, DC

Ohioan Warren G. Harding, 55, is standing on the East Portico of the Capitol Building, waiting to take the oath of office to become the first sitting Senator and the first Baptist to be inaugurated President of the United States.

Inauguration of Warren G. Harding

Given the state of the nation’s economy, at his request the whole day will be relatively quiet. No parade. No inaugural ball.

However, at the insistence of his wife, Florence, 60, Harding is planning to announce that this week the White House will be open to the public for the first time since the start of the Great War. It’s time for his promised “return to normalcy.”

In keeping with tradition, his predecessor, President Woodrow Wilson, 64, has invited the Hardings to a small luncheon at the White House after the swearing in ceremony. Harding, a Republican, has greatly appreciated the professional courtesy Wilson, a Democrat, has shown during this peaceful transfer of power, despite Wilson having suffered a serious stroke just five months before.

But first, Harding is planning to break with tradition by going directly to a special executive session of Congress to personally present his nominees for his Cabinet (all agreed to by Florence), including Andrew W. Mellon, 65, for Secretary of the Treasury and Herbert Hoover, 64, for Secretary of Commerce.

Fingering a printer’s ruler that he keeps in his pocket for good luck—leftover from his days on the newspaper back in Marion, Ohio—the president-elect puts his right hand on the George Washington Bible and says,

I, Warren Gamaliel Harding, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volume I, covering 1920, is available on Amazon in both print and e-book versions. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

This summer I will be talking about The Literary 1920s in the Osher Lifelong Learning programs at Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle formats.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”: Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, 8 am, EST, August 26, 1920, Washington, DC

U. S. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby, 50, certifies the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment by the Tennessee legislature eight days before, signing the Proclamation of the Women’s Suffrage Amendment to the U. .S Constitution. Women’s right to vote in all elections throughout the country goes into effect as law.

The suffragists who worked for more than 70 years to get the Amendment passed breathe a collective sigh of relief. They immediately turn their energies to getting an Equal Rights Amendment introduced in Congress.

Suffragettes celebrating

For a brief history from 2012 of how the amendment became law, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWX4H6sAgtY

For more in-depth context from Soledad O’Brien, click here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhgXsY4osvM

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the book, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s, to be published by K. Donnelly Communications. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

You can register for free for my webinar, “Such Friends”: The Founding of the Abbey Theatre, to be held this Friday, August 28, 2020, at 2 pm EDT, on the website of PICT Classic Theatre. A recording will be available a few days afterward. My previous presentation, “Such Friends”:  Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Round Table, is available to view here. The program begins at the 11 minute mark, and my presentation at 16 minutes.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.

This fall I will be talking about writers’ salons before and after the Great War in Ireland, England, France and America in the Osher Lifelong Learning programs at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie-Mellon University.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”: Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.