Decca, p.15
Decca, page 15
Constancia is very well, specially since the autumn came; the summer here is much too hot for children, they get very pale and thin, and then spruce up in the autumn. I’ve still got the same terribly sweet black Honkert who adores the Donk. They are called the Two Sweet Things.
I left the R.A.F. Delegation about a month ago, and am now working with the Office of Price Administration, an American govt. agency.98 I like it much better; last week I went out on an investigation which was great fun. I started at $1440 a year, but have been “put in” for a raise to $2,000. Of course I don’t know if I’ll get it, it has to be approved by Civil Service, but if I do it would be swell—it’s about the equivalent of 500 pounds a year. Luckily I don’t have much typing to do, mostly things like writing manuals for investigators, etc….
I have 2 boarders here,99 one sleeping in the drawing-room and the other in Anne’s bedroom. Everyone in Washington has arrangements like that now; the room shortage is so terrific, we really are lucky to have a whole apartment. The 2 boarders are extraorder; I call us the three Boards; one is a bawd, the other just an ordinary board, and I am the bored (by them). Actually they only sleep here, and don’t have meals with me, thank goodness.
I go out to see the Durrs nearly every Sunday, and they come here to dinner very often. They are amazed by the Bawd and the Board, specially the Bawd, as being very respectable people they haven’t seen many before. Virginia is terrifically excited, as she has almost got her Bill through Congress (to abolish the Poll Tax in the Southern states100) she has been working on it for 5 years now, and at last it was passed in the House of Representatives, and only has to go through the Senate. Last Saturday all her friends gave a testimonial lunch for her, it was v. exciting, everyone got up and clapped and cheered and Old Virginie nearly burst into tears. She is becoming quite famous in Washington, specially since the Bill went through the House.
Some other boarders may be coming soon, a refugee Italian girl with two children. I invited them without quite realizing that it might be difficult to fit them in; but I suppose the children can sleep in the bathroom or somewhere. I do wish you could come to America; I know it is very difficult to get here now, but on the other hand I’m always meeting people who have just come or who are just going back.whites. A side effect of the tax was the disenfranchisement of women. As Durr put it in her oral his-tory, Outside the Magic Circle (edited by Hollinger F. Barnard, University of Alabama Press, 1985),“As a result, much of the South was run by an oligarchy composed of white, usually middle-aged, gentlemen, or men—some of them were gentlemen and some of them weren’t.”
I have definitely decided to stay here, partly because the Donk seems to love it here and I think it’s a much better place to bring up a child in, not because of the war, but in general. They seem to have so much fun, and they can go to college almost free, etc. Also, it’s so long since I’ve been in England that I don’t feel I know anyone there much now. Of course I shall come back for visits when that is possible again, but I think I’ll live here for my permanent home. I do long to see you, and Blor, and my Boud (who hasn’t written for even longer than I have, tell her); but if I came back during the war I’d never be able to come back to America.
If you see Cousin Nelly,101 I tell her from me that I think she is the most horrible, vulgar and altogether thoroughly beastly person I know, and I certainly am not going to answer the pages of tripe she writes me.102 She is the sort of person who traps one into feeling sorry for her and then does something so vile that one just loathes and despises her.
I must scram now, and will try to write again in a few days time.
Give my Boud my love, also Blor. Henderson wrote the other day, I’ll write to her soon.
Best love, Decca
To Lady Redesdale
Washington, D.C.
November 24, 1942
Darling Muv,
Thanks so much for your letters. I do hope by now you’ve had my letters telling how much the Donk and I adored the dress you sent her…
I hope old Tud will be home soon, I suppose it is awfully worrying to have him out there. Is he a general or anything yet? The goats seem to be a great interest, I always read Virginia the part about them in your letters, she gets absolutely amazed. Never having been to Europe or England she is quite unable to understand life there anyway, and now I think she thinks of English country life as centering around goats, like those Central European countries where the cattle live in the house with the people.
You can’t imagine how fascinating my job is, much the best I’ve ever had. I really am getting along in it, and if it weren’t for the fact that I never went to college might get to be a Section Chief. So I’m planning to go next year, to night school, which will be rather strenuous, but they all say I should. How-ever, I may not be able to, as I’m now an Investigator, and may have to travel around the country. If so, the Durrs will look after the Donk while I’m away
We are going to the Durrs for Christmas, which is always fun, so many chil dren. They now have two sweet little black children there, belonging to their maid. Some of the Donk’s friends in the park are black, you can’t imagine how sweet they are. Sometimes on Sundays I take some of them to the zoo with the Donk. They are amazingly intelligent, much more advanced for their age than white children, some can talk at 10 months.
Give the Boud my love, I’ll write her soon, also M’Honkert. I suppose this will arrive about Christmas….
Best love, From Decca
To Katharine Graham
Washington, D.C.
ca. December 1942
Dear Kay:
Thanks v. much for your letter. I’m sure Sioux Falls103 isn’t nearly as bleak as you make out; do admit it’s really rather heaven. I may see you fairly soon, as I’m going to be transferred to the OPA office in San Francisco, which is probably quite near Sioux Falls. I have been made an investigator, and am supposed to get $2,000 a year after 3 months. I am frightfully excited about scramming to San Francisco….
When are you literally coming back? I do hope before I go. Actually the transfer is not absolutely decided yet, but they’ve written the S.F. office, so when the answer comes I’ll know for sure….
I must tell you about being an investigator, it is so extraorder. One gets sent out all over Virginia and Maryland on “field trips,” (right now only on rent cases) and you have to get signed statements from people and torture the horrid landlords who have been overcharging. Right now one of the landlords I have been investigating, who masquerades under the pretext of being a sweet old lady of 85, is about to be sent to jail. When I told Mrs. Foster she gave a ghastly shriek; I suppose imagining her turn would come next. It is so wonderful not having to do shorthand and typing any more. Next week I have to go and be a witness in court, so you can see what a fascinating job it is. The Donk insists on helping write this letter, so I suppose I’ll have to stop.
I really will write as soon as I get ANOTHER LETTER FROM YOU.
Give my love to old Phil….
Best love from Decca
To Lady Redesdale
San Francisco,
Calif. March 3, 1943
Darling Muv,
Thanks so much for your letter of the 8th Feb, which I just got. It didn’t take long, considering it had to be forwarded all the way across America….
We are living in a boarding house, there are also 2 marines, 3 boys aged 8, 6 & 3, & one girl about my age with the boy of 3. Mrs. Betts104 takes care of the Donk all day, & the D. loves it because she is boy-crazy & there are 3 boys here. It is very cheap, so I’m saving a lot of dough with which to buy furniture later on if I decide to stay here for good. So far I haven’t seen much of San F as I’ve been working pretty hard. The office here is very pleasant, but of course I don’t know everybody in it like I did at the Washington OPA, which makes it slightly less fun.
We write investigation drives to be used all through the region. I am in the Industrial Machinery Section, & so far am the only one in it! Luckily no one realises I don’t know anything about machinery
However I think it will be pretty nice out here. Of course it is so far one might be in a different country from Washington; but the OPA people come on business quite often. If I don’t like it in San F. after a few months I may skeke off to Mexico.
How is Hon Henderson? By this time she will have pigged,105 I suppose. Be sure & let me know what she gets.
Give the Boud my love, I’ll write soon but what with moving etc I haven’t had much time….
Love from Decca
To Lady Redesdale
San Francisco
April II, 1943
Darling Muv,
Thanks so much for your telegram about Debo’s baby.106 i am so glad it was all right this time. I think now she will gradually forget about the other one, which must have made her miserable….
We love San Francisco. The Donk is getting much healthier out here, which is partly why I came, Washington has a horrible climate. The people here are terrifically nice. We do work awfully hard, which is partly why I don’t write much.
You asked in one letter whether the Donk has Mitford eyes; no, she hasn’t, in fact she doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to any Mitfords either in looks or character, but is exactly like Esmond….
We are definitely going to stay over here. I feel that all my friends are here & those I used to know in England are all scattered around & I don’t think I would like it there. Besides America is a much better place to bring up children, people are so much nicer to them here, & the free schools are much better. Also I doubt I could make enough for us to live on there. I know you realise that we couldn’t ever come & live with the family. After all I was told once never to come home again, which I know wasn’t your fault, but it still means I never shall. Probably now Mrs. Hammersley107 will die while I am in America, too, so her deathbed reconciliation scene won’t come off! Of course I do hope one day I’ll see those members of the family I’m still on speakers with; probably after the war.
My job is heaven, tho unfortunately the reactionaries here are trying to prevent a lot of the things we want to do, & it may even result in us all losing our jobs. If so I know I can get another job very easily; but I do love the O.P.A. The FBI (like Scotland Yard) are investigating a lot of people in our division at the moment, including me. This is part of a general Red-baiting program. The Durrs were investigated, too….
Love from Decca
To Lady Redesdale
San Francisco
May 30, 1943
Darling Muv,
I just got back from Seattle & found some letters from you at the office. I’m awfully sorry to hear Farve is so ill, you must be worried about his eyes getting so bad. You do seem to be having a very thin time. I wish you could come out here & stay with us; I suppose it would be terrifically difficult to arrange, but do try. I’m sure you must need a change & a rest very badly.
I don’t think we shall leave America, or if we did it would be only if I got a job in one of the rehabilitation agencies, & then we would go to Africa, or wherever they are rehabilitating. I sometimes long to be nearer the scene of action, but from what I hear one wouldn’t really be nearer in England now than we are in America. I feel that in my job here I’m working for the cause I always believed in—the destruction of fascism— & that all my friends are working for the same thing, & that I’m really happier than I would be in England. I do long to see you all, & to show you the beautiful Donk, but I think you’ll admit that it wouldn’t be a good plan for me to come & live at Swinbrook….
Poor Virginia is sick, she is having some kind of nervous breakdown. Her anti poll tax bill almost got through last Autumn, but it was sabotaged by the reactionary Southern senators. I’m afraid this will happen over & over again as they are determined not to pass it.108 Cliff wrote me that Virginia is slowly getting better, but it will take a long time….
I came out here because I was getting rather restless in Washington, & I asked to be transferred. The work here is far more interesting. I was in Seattle for 2 weeks on a lumber drive, training the Seattle investigators. Just yesterday they asked me (at the office here) if I would go to Seattle permanently on lumber. They offered me a raise up to $2,600 (about $3,000 with the overtime pay—almost £700 a year) so I suppose I shall leave here soon. I’m sorry as this is a really fascinating town, & I like all the people in the office so much. I’m going to try to get a week’s vacation about June 12; a friend is coming out from Washington then.109 It is rather a nuisance about the Seattle job, as I just got moved into my new flat and bought all the furniture. The Govt. will pay for moving the furniture to Seattle, but I’ll have to get some arrangement for the Donk there…. I don’t even know for certain if I’m going yet; so if you write c/o Virginia she will forward it when I give her my address. By the way, please don’t put “The Hon”110 on the envelope, as when I get letters at the office they leave them around on my desk, & of course out here no one knows anything about my family. If they did, it would soon get around to some beastly journalist & all that publicity would start again.
Do consider coming out here if it can possibly be arranged. I know a change would do you so much good, & it doesn’t make any difference where we are (here or Seattle) there’d always be somewhere you could stay.
Best love from Decca—A kiss from the Donk
… Do give Blor my love & tell her we’ll be over to see her as soon as the war is over. She wrote me such a pathetic letter, all about never seeing me or the Donk. Love to Boud, Henderson & Nancy
With Robert Treuhaft in 1943, at about the time of their marriage.
A family Christmas in the early 1950s. The children, from left, are Constancia, Nicholas, and Benjamin.
In the early 1950s, a visit with sister Deborah (left) in California.
* Rebel: The Short Life of Esmond Romilly (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1985).
* See, for example, letter of January 6, 1964, to Betty Friedan.
† Her memoir A Fine Old Conflict (Alfred A. Knopf, 1977).
1. None of Decca’s family knows or can recall the origins of this nickname for Esmond Romilly.
2. Ervin (Red) James, who worked in Clifford Durr’s office at the time. In 1952, after the Durrs returned to Alabama, Clifford Durr started a law practice in Montgomery, sharing offices with James.
3. John Nance Garner, vice president from 1933, had split with President Roosevelt on a number of policy issues during their second term and strongly disagreed with Roosevelt’s decision to seek a third term as president in 1940. Garner put his own name forward as an alternative in order to stop Roosevelt’s renomination. Roosevelt easily defeated his challengers and chose Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace as his running mate.
4. Senator Burton K. Wheeler, a populist Montana Democrat, was a leading isolationist who told the Senate in one debate that the Lend-Lease Bill to send aid to the Allies “will plow under every fourth American boy.” Although nominally a candidate for the presidential nomination in 1940, he withdrew after securing passage of a platform plank on the intervention issue that satisfied him.
5. Former Indiana governor Paul V. McNutt was head of the Federal Security Agency. He withdrew from the vice presidential race when Roosevelt announced his preference for Henry Wallace.
6. Mayor Ed Kelly, Roosevelt’s friend and supporter, performed his electronic trickery when a message was read from the president coyly informing convention delegates that they were free to nominate whomever they wished for the presidential nomination. According to the Chicago Historical Society, “As this memo was being read, an amplified voice broke in shouting ‘No! No! No! We want Roosevelt!’… The voice belonged to Thomas D. Garry, Chicago’s superintendent of sewers. The convention went into an uproar and Roosevelt won the nomination with 946 votes.”
7. Congress of Industrial Organizations. On May 30, 1937, police had fired on marchers supporting a Republic Steel strike organized by a committee of the CIO. Ten of the marchers were killed.
8. Mount Kisco, in Westchester County north of New York City, was the site of the Meyer family’s estate.
9. In a letter sent July 21, Esmond had told Decca that “all I have to do is wait till the school certificate confirmation comes from Wellington, and the character letter from Meyer, and then I’ll be told when I’ll start training.”
10. Wendell Willkie was the Republican candidate for president in 1940, running against Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
11. Virginia Durr’s sister, Josephine, was married to Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black.
12. It’s unclear from the available copy of this letter whether this phrase is an obscure signature line or the beginning of a sentence that ends on a now lost page.
13. The Meyers’ daughter, sister of Katharine.
14. For Agnes and Eugene.
15. Virginia Durr’s brother-in-law Hugo black had been appointed by presented Roosevelt to the supreme court in 1937. During his confirmationbattle it was rumored and later confirmed-thet for a time the Alabama poitician and future liberaljustice had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
16. French politician Pierre Laval was a Nazi collaborator who had twice been premier in the 1930s and returned to the top echelons of the government in 1940 under Marshal Pètain, later succeeding him.
17. Henri-Philippe Pètain was the French war hero who became the collaborationist premier in June 1940 and championed the armistice with Germany.
18. The French writer.
19. Decca had worked briefly as a market researcher for the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency before she and Esmond left London for the United States.
20. The pugnacious, right-wing syndicated newspaper columnist was at the peak of his popularity in this period. He won a Pulitzer Prize the following year for exposing labor union corruption.
21. American Federation of Labor.
22. The daughter and assistant of United Mine Workers leader John L. Lewis, cofounder of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). She was a good friend of Virginia Durr. Like her father, Kathryn Lewis had become a thoroughgoing isolationist. They had split with Roosevelt and endorsed Republican Wendell Willkie for president.
