Hugh Simmers, III, thought his mother’s old-world cooking, which included time-honored classics such as Yorkshire pudding and standing rib roasts, would send him to an early grave. Simmers made these allegations in a letter written to an unidentified recipient on December 30th, 1996. In it, he takes his mother, Mabel McCullen Simmers, to task for using butter to cook nearly everything and his […]
Society Pages Describe Marie Gingras as French Down to Her Highly Polished Fingertips
Marie Gingras Pickering lived her life, warts and all, under the harsh magnifying glass of the San Francisco society pages, judging by the countless references made to her and her family in newspaper accounts during the early 1900s. A cursory search reveals that she hosted countless bridge and tea parties, always with elaborate flower decorations; served as a patroness of a […]
Julius Kruttschnitt, Sr., Thought Sleep Was Over-Rated
Julius Kruttschnitt, Sr., the one-time chairman of the Southern Pacific Railroad, worked 18 hour days “for considerable lengths of time” during a 43-year career with the railroad that was interrupted by his untimely death. My seemingly indefatigable great-great grandfather was one of several industry leaders asked to respond to a 1920 Cosmopolitan article, “The Pace […]
Posthumous Letter Sheds Light on Kruttschnitt’s Yale Years
“I see you’ve found my scrapbook from Yale,” reads a letter recently sent from the grave by Julius Kruttschnitt, Jr. The talking letter suddenly appeared after this blogger opened Julius’s decrepit scrapbook of his undergraduate college years, 1903 through 1907. “As you can probably see, I had a pretty good time.” To say the least. Kruttschnitt received his degree in […]
B.T. Express Tries Out The Colonel’s New Recipe
As a connoisseur of all things Chicken, I was tempted to try out the Colonel’s new grilled chicken. Finding an outlet in Washington DC meant strolling from the comfortable confines of my posh M street office through the transitional wilds of 14th Street, past Bohemian mid-century used furniture stores, shabby chic new restaurants simply titled […]
Margaret Thompson Biddle’s Furs Barely Escaped German Bombs in Poland
The furs of Margaret Thompson, whose second marriage was to U.S. diplomat Anthony Biddle, Jr., were lucky to escape unharmed from German bombing in Poland in 1939, according to a diary she kept of what was apparently a very unpleasant evacuation ordeal.