From the time she was a young child, Jane Hall had an interest in Native American culture, particularly that of the Hopi Tribe, a northeastern Arizona sovereign nation. My mother adored her childhood home in Arizona; she had learned about the Hopi from her father, Dick Wick Hall, who spent time with the tribe as…
I came across an article recently about Thanksgiving in the 1930s thanks to journalist Julie Chang. She notes that, for those who could not afford to dine in an elegant hotel or club, making recipes from scratch compensated for inflated food prices during the Depression. And many Americans remained optimistic despite their troubles. At that…
October 2020 Alice is inside today. I don’t usually name plants but this one reminds me of the resilient lead played by Ellen Burstyn in the movie Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Usually Alice is on the balcony of my 5th floor apartment; the 97° heat and sharp gusts of northeast wind make that perilous.…
For the last several months I’ve been preoccupied with planning a move across the U.S.A. to the East Bay. (Obviously not with writing posts on this blog. That should change soon.) Both of my daughters and grandsons are permanently in California. So I’ll start a new adventure living in Oakland near Lake Merritt in…
Once again, the town of Salome, Arizona, and the surrounding community will celebrate Dick Wick Hall Day. Years ago, I was fortunate to participate in these festivities with each of my daughters. My grandfather’s most visible legacy still lies in Salome (where he’s pictured here), and in the other towns of the McMullen Valley among…
“Movies teach us all sorts of things: how to aspire, whom to fantasize about, (all those princes will come), how to smoke, dress, walk into a room (always like Bette Davis). They teach us whom to love and how, as well as the ostensible necessity of sacrificing love along with careers. . .…
Happy August to you all who have been following Jane Hall’s story and other posts. Please disregard the much older post you just received about Poplar Springs history as it was not supposed to be resent. I simply looked it up for some info. But there is news. Poplar Springs has a new owner…
Jane Hall’s experiences in Arizona and California before she became an orphan in 1930 did not expose her to as many people from other nations as New York City. Although her guardians introduced her to an exclusive social world, when she went to art school at The Cooper Union on Manhattan’s Lower East Side,…
The November 21, 2022, New Yorker cover, “Low Tide” by Barry Blitt, features a huge grey elephant on a red surfboard looking less than confident about the future. How different his mood from a fellow pachyderm that appeared on the December 31, 1938, cover of the magazine, a gleeful pink elephant by Rea Irvin (1881-1972).…
As many of you know, for quite a while I’ve been reading magazines published in the 1930s and 1940s; I’ve been interested in the values that women’s magazines, such as Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping, imparted to their women readers. In those days, magazines were filled with articles about current events as well as fiction by…
Dorothy Thompson on the cover of Time magazine, June 12, 1939 She was one of the most celebrated journalists of her era. On June 12, 1939, she graced the cover of Time magazine which called her “‘the second most popular and influential woman in the country behind Eleanor Roosevelt.’” And Dorothy Thompson…
One soggy March Sunday a few years ago, my daughter, Carlyn Maw, and I headed to Manhattan Beach where Jane and her small family lived between 1927 and 1930. First stop, the small cottage in Polliwog Park that is home to the Manhattan Beach Historical Society. Steve Meisenholder, the society’s former president, has spent most of his…
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