November 25 2020

Quentin and Flora: A Roosevelt and a Vanderbilt in Love During the Great War (2014)

By Chip Bishop

A young couple whose families are among the most famous and influential in the US (or the world) fall in love just as the US gets dragged into the great War.  Quentin takes leave from  his studies at Harvard to train as a pilot.  He writes copious letters to his beloved Flora "Foufie", daughter of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, and it is these letters that form the basis of Bishop's account.

While Flora's family isn't thrilled with a prospective match with a Roosevelt, she finally breaks the news, even as Quentin is away in Europe.  The Roosevelts, on the other hand, adore Flora, and often host her in their home, including her as a part of their family.  They try to arrange for Flora to join Quentin in France, but the US government has just made a rule barring American women from joining a husband or fiancé abroad, if they also have a brother in the service so, although the war ended before "Sonny" Whitney completed his basic training, Flora never got to see Quentin again.

While we learn about Flora's and Quentin's growing up years, the story mostly concerns the couple's engagement and the move towards its inevitable conclusion, through different assignments in France (where Question is one of the very few Americans who is fluent in French), more training, billeting with French families, and to the tragic day in July 1918 when Quentin's plane is shot down, bringing such sorrow to the group gathered at Sagamore Hill.

The author adds an aftermath, in which Flora retreats to Sagamore Hill,then to the Maine coast, with the grieving Roosevelts.  She later puts her typing skills to work, doing some projects for Teddy, then working briefly for the government.  Sh marries a friend of Quentin's but the marriage is short-lived.  She met businessman/artist McCulloch "Cully" Miller, with whom she had a long and happy marriage and raised their 4 children, also succeeding her mother as directory of the Whitney Museum, a post to which her daughter Flora Miller Biddle would later succeed.

The French people erected a special memorial to the son of the beloved American's president, near where he was shot down in Chamery.  37 years later, his remains were moved to the American cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach, where he was interred next to his brother Ted, who died shortly after leading the highly successful American landing at Utah Beach.

November 23 2020

Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man (2020)

By Mary L Trump

As both a family member and a trained clinical psychologist, Mary Trump brings unique credentials to help Americans understand what makes their president the boastful, cruel and dishonest person he is today.  Fred Trump Sr made a fortune in real estate.  Through his connections to politicians and discrimination against non-whites, he managed to create an empire worth ~$1B at his death in 1999.  When Fred Jr (Mary's father) struggled with alcoholism, Donald became the favored child and heir to the empire, shutting Fred's children out of their share of the inheritance.  Fred provided funding for Donald's first project (turning an aging hotel into a classy Hyatt) and bailed him out of many unsuccessful efforts, especially in Atlantic City where Donald found that, without Fred's political clout, his efforts failed.  Donald still managed to squeak out a fortune, thanks to choosing not to repay investors, stiffing contractors, and creating fake opportunity zones where he could pretend he was building housing for needy renters.  Other efforts beyond real estate, such as Trump University, Trump airlines and Trump wine also failed, but Trump had become a huge media success with his flashy lifestyle, and so left his creditors to pick up the pieces.

I appreciate Mary Trumps insight - but it's still hard for me to see why people voted for a man who is so personally dishonest and unkind, and who has no experience in leading nor trying to building a consensus.

November 20 2020

 Having Our Say:The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years (1993)

By Sarah Louise Delany and Elizabeth Delany (with Amy Hill Hearth)

Sarah Louise "Sadie" (age 103 at time of writing) and Elizabeth "Bessie" (101) are two of the older siblings among a highly accomplished family of ten African-American children [though they use only the terms "colored" and "Negro" to describe themselves.]  Their father, Henry Delany, is an Episcopal bishop and priest at St Augustine (Historically Black) College in Raleigh.  Their mother, Nanny James Logan, whose ancestors are mostly white, raises the children on the campus, where they get a good education and good values.  Both Sadie and Bessie go on to earn degrees at Columbia University - Sadie as a teacher and Bessie as a dentist (their siblings included another dentist, a doctor, piano teacher [trained at Julliard] and a judge).  All of the siblings, except Lemuel who practiced medicine in Raleigh, ended up living in Harlem at the hight of the Harlem renaissance.  Their circle of friends included Cab Calloway, Marian Anderson, and Ethel Waters, among others  Though they relate incidents where they were mistreated, they write without rancor.  But they do note that, if you are colored, everyone is aways looking for your faults.  You have to be "entirely honest, clean, brilliant and so on.  Because if you slip up once, the white folks say to each other, 'See, what'd I tell you?'"

On one occasion, the sisters argue about the prospect of a Negro president.  Sadie thinks there will be - but Bessie doesn't think it could happen for 1000 years!