May 1919
Grécourt, France
Dear Everyone at Home,
We’ve been busy as clams since we got back to Grécourt in January. Or do I mean happy as clams? We’ve been working pretty much dawn to dusk getting everything up and running again. You should have seen the havoc those Boche wreaked on our poor old barracks—it’s as if they didn’t think they did the job properly the first time! But this time, at least, we have plenty of supplies and men to help us. All those French soldiers home from the war, and the men and women who were away avec les Boches have been filtering back home, and they’ve been building and plowing just as hard as they can—we’ve even got a bunch of German prisoners of war working for us, which is a little unnerving, although they’re sweet as lambs, most of them. I kept thinking they’d have spikes growing out of their heads and teeth like the wolf in Red Riding Hood, but they’re pretty much normal boys and bewildered as can be.
Kate claims she still can’t get used to being called director, which is nonsense, since she was pretty much director anyway, even when she wasn’t. Mrs. Barrett sends love and packages from home. Her husband was sent back home to the States after the armistice in November, so she felt she had to resign and go back with him, but she says she’ll always be with us in spirit and as long as the mails keep delivering. There are only four of us Old Contemptibles left—Florence Lewes is having a ball with chickens and cows, Emmie Van Alden is in charge of social work, Julia Pruyn is our medical department, and you’d laugh to see me in charge of the store, peddling away like anything. I’ve been setting up shops in all the villages and helping the locals to stock them.
The new girls are a good lot, even if they do keep asking us to tell stories about the early days at Grécourt and what it was like to be here under fire, which makes me feel like the Ancient Someone-or-Other from that poem.
We’ve had a rash of romances. Alice Patton—from the old crew—wrote that she’s married one of the engineers! The Unit sent her a silver dish as a wedding present. There’s an aviator from the Lafayette Escadrille who’s been calling on Kate—he shows off flying around in circles—although Kate claims he’s just a “friend of the Unit” (ha!). Oh, and you’ll never imagine who came riding in on a farm cart last week, with eight boxes of chocolates, five rosebushes, and a luxury assortment of DeWitt’s biscuits? None other than DeWitt’s Biscuits himself. (Although Emmie has asked us to please stop calling him Captain Biscuit; for some reason, she doesn’t find that the least bit funny.) He was demobbed in April, and they’re to be married next month from St. George’s Anglican Church in Paris, with Kate as maid of honor, and Florence Lewes, Julia Pruyn, the groom’s sister, and yours truly as bridesmaids. The dresses were a problem, with rationing, but in the end we decided we’d just wear our uniforms and brighten them up a bit with some flowers, of which there’s no shortage right now. We’ve got enough growing wild on the lawn to stock a shop. That little French girl Zélie is going to be flower girl and toss rose petals.
We were worried about losing Emmie, but she’s promised to stay on with her captain until we get the work done enough to hand off to the French, so we think of it not so much as losing a Unit member as gaining a source of biscuits.
Oh dear—Minerva’s got into the wash again and Marie is throwing a fit and threatening to have her turned into stew. At least, I think that’s what she’s saying. It’s in French and there are still some phrases I haven’t picked up yet. . . . More later.
With love,
Liza
— Miss Liza Shaw, ’09, to Mr. and Mrs. Robert F. Shaw Jr.
June 1919
Paris, France
I can’t imagine why I bothered to go all the way to Paris for Emmaline’s wedding. It was a most irregular affair—such a peculiar collection of women as bridesmaids, all dressed in those hideous gray uniforms instead of proper dresses. I know one can’t expect much of these college women, but you’d think they might have made an effort for the occasion. When I asked, they told me they’d done it on purpose! Emmaline had requested it! I can only imagine Emmaline thought it would make her look better by contrast, choosing a bunch of dowds as bridesmaids and putting them in gray wool.
I could have wept to see Julia there in that dingy gray. She ought to have been maid of honor—anyone would agree it was her right—but that honor went to that horrible little charity girl Emmaline dragged home with her from Smith instead of her very own cousin. When I pointed out to Julia what an insult it was, she only looked at me and said I knew nothing about it. I don’t know why anyone even bothers to have children when they behave like this.
In any event, you would think Cora would be delighted that she finally found someone to take Emmaline off her hands. There’s a title there, even if it is a new one, but with those feet, it’s a miracle that Emmaline found anyone. I suppose nearly dying does lower a man’s standards. Instead, Cora seemed positively disappointed that Emmaline had chosen to marry instead of demanding the leadership of that poky old Unit of theirs. I don’t understand it. There’s Emmaline, as plain as shoe leather, married to DeWitt’s Biscuits, while my Julia is off poking the tonsils of French peasants. There’s no justice in the world.
The only consolation is that the groom’s family seems quite as mad as Emmaline. There must be insanity in the family; it’s the only explanation. The father—Lord DeWitt—only wanted to talk about model villages, whatever that means. The sister, who was one of the bridesmaids, was the most militant sort of New Woman—all she could talk about was her college at Oxford and the vote for women and other perfectly boring things. She and Cora took to one another immediately. It gave me a crushing headache. Or maybe that was the champagne. I had to drink a great deal of it to alleviate the boredom.
There was no call at all for Cora to tell them to stop filling my glass.
There were a number of men at the wedding, including one of the Nelson boys (mother a Stuyvesant, father in railroads), who would do very nicely for Julia. Not as much money as the DeWitt boy but a far better pedigree. Union Club, Knickerbocker, etc. Yale ’08. Did something with airplanes during the war, but of course that’s all over now. I might have pointed Julia in his direction once or twice, but—just to spite me, I’m sure—she practically shoved him at that horrible little mouse of a Moran girl.
What’s the use of even trying? Julia’s complexion is quite ruined from tramping about the French countryside. When I gently suggested to her that some face cream might be in order, she only laughed at me and told me that her patients didn’t care what she looked like.
It has been a most trying day.
There’s no point in staying in Paris. There isn’t a person I know here anymore—at least, no one anyone would want to know. Besides, I can’t afford it. Cora refuses to pay my bill at the Ritz. She had the gall to suggest I stay somewhere within my means.
At least Emmaline has some family feeling. She’s booked me a first-class cabin back to New York and I mean to take it. Julia will just have to manage without me. . . .
—From the diary of Mme la Comtesse de Talleygord (née May Van Alden)
June 1919
Paris, France
That was a three-handkerchief wedding—the right sort of crying, not the wrong sort. Miss Van Alden floated down the aisle (yes, Lawrence, I know that’s not physically possible, but allow me some license). Her groom stared at her like he couldn’t believe his luck. Some might call it shell shock, but I’m pretty sure it’s love. Yes, I know, I’m just an old romantic. I married you, didn’t I? Betsy, being Betsy, claims full credit for the match, on the grounds that if she hadn’t formed the Unit they would never have met, and spent the whole time beaming maternally at them when she wasn’t using up my handkerchiefs because she’d forgotten to bring her own.
I’ll admit, it made me a little weepy to see the old crew again, from our new director all the way down to little Zélie, who served as flower girl and took her petal-tossing very seriously. They made her a junior version of the uniform to wear and you’ve never seen anyone look more pleased. With a bit of cutting of red tape in the right places, she is now officially the ward of our director, Miss Moran, although she’s really been adopted by the whole Unit. She has a bit of a limp from her experience during the retreat, but Dr. Pruyn did an excellent job of patching her up. (I may have taken a look during the reception.) I’ve told Julia that there’s a job waiting for her in Philadelphia at College Hospital whenever she’s done at Grécourt. She pretended not to be interested, but I think she’ll take it. Eventually.
It was a beautiful thing to watch the bride rush back to hug everyone again and again. Even yours truly came in for a hug or two. She was the sort of happy that wants everyone to be happy with her, and it was wonderful to see how delighted the Grécourt crew were for her and how they welcomed her husband (well, roasted him, really, but that’s how they show their affection, these girls). When I think what these girls were when they arrived—it warms even my flinty heart to see how they’ve come together, particularly Dr. Pruyn, Miss Moran, and Miss Van Alden, whom I must try to remember to call Mrs. DeWitt now. The way they look after each other is something beautiful to behold. It seems a shame that they’ll be separated once the work is done, but I don’t imagine they’ll let anything keep them apart for long. . . .
Oh, bother. Now I’m getting weepy again and Betsy’s walked off with all my handkerchiefs.
—Dr. Ava Stringfellow, ’96, to her husband, Dr. Lawrence Stringfellow
July 1919
Grécourt, France
Darling Emmie,
Yes, we have everything in hand, and no, you don’t need to come back early! Please do stop writing us and just enjoy your honeymoon. That’s a request as your friend, not an order as your director, but don’t think I won’t pull rank if I have to.
Zélie loves the beads you sent her from Venice. She won’t take them off, which means we can always hear her jingling everywhere she goes. Julia loves the ticket you sent her mother. She’ll never tell you herself, but she’s terribly grateful to you for sending her packing.
There really isn’t anything to say about Lieutenant Nelson, but I promise to tell you whatever there is when you come home.
I won’t say you aren’t missed, because you are, but we want you to have a little time for yourselves before we put you both back to work. You’re always so busy taking care of everyone else that you never stop to think of yourself, so we’re going to think of you for you and absolutely forbid you to return for at least a month. We’ll set Minerva on you if you do.
All my love,
Kate
P.S. Tell Will we’ve proclaimed him an honorary Unit member and Mme Gouge is sewing him a uniform as we speak.
—From Miss Katherine Moran, ’11, to the Honorable Mrs. Fitzwilliam DeWitt (née Emmaline Van Alden), ’11
August 1919
Grécourt, France
Venice was lovely and so was Rome, but I’ve never seen anything so lovely as sunrise through the gates of Grécourt. . . .
It’s a wonderful thing to come home.
I wish I could shrink it all and put it in a snow globe, to put in my pocket and take with me when we’re done here. Kate says we have it anyway, in our memories. Julia tells me not to spew sentimental tripe.
And Will—Will made me a snow globe with the gates of Grécourt in it.
Has there ever been anyone as lucky as I?
—From the diary of the Honorable Mrs. Fitzwilliam DeWitt (née Emmaline Van Alden), ’11