William Thompson was a very practical, honest, hard-working man. But he also had some some annoying personality quirks, friends and acquaintances weren’t impressed with his looks, and his children were scared to death of him. That’s the very mixed portrait of this great American pioneer that emerges from interviews done 80-odd years ago with the people who knew him. The sometimes snarky reminiscences […]
Colonel Boyce Thompson Dressed Down in Senate Hearing
Called before a Senate Committee investigating campaign financing in 1920, Colonel William Boyce Thompson accused Democratic presidential candidate James D. Cox of “making his millions” on Wall Street. “Don’t forget that your candidate has his millions, and he got it on Wall Street,” the Colonel alleged, according to a September 23, 1920 article in the New York Times. At […]
Hugh Simmers Thought His Mother’s Cooking Would Be the Death of Him
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 […]
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.
The Magnate Came Up Largely Empty Handed in His Genealogy Research
Stop the digital press–this blogger recently obtained copies of genealogy reports commissioned by William Boyce Thompson that shed light on the family’s distant past. Unfortunately, researchers working for The Magnate ran into the same dead-ends that befuddle family researchers today. That said, The Thompson Reports include some exciting new information. H.H. Plate, Thompson’s secretary who in 1923 was sent on a fact-finding mission to […]