Inspiration: A quartet of my favorite femmes

I am one of those readers of the New York Times newspaper who always turns to the obituaries first. The reason I always look at NYT obits is that they often include many people who I've never met but feel I know. 

Sometimes I feel a personal connection because the person opened up a new world to me via their own passionate interests like Mary Hunt Kahlenberg with Navaho rugs and Indonesian textiles. Or it may be because I've spent a lifetime enthralled by their bohemian style like Loulou de la Falaise. Sometimes I was charmed by their story-telling ability like Florence Parry Heide of Kenosha, Wisconsin. Or, like Phyllis Love, they embodied an imaginary character so totally that they have remained a capricious teenager in a role committed to film 55 years ago.

Suddenly, many of my quirky interests collided in one brief moment as these four women all looked out at me the last few days from their final stories in the Times.

. . .

In the 1970s, when Mary Hunt Kahlenberg was head of the costume and textile department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, she organized “The Navajo Blanket” with Anthony Berlant, an artist and textile collector. The exhibit — which I saw at the Elvehjem Museum in Madison when I was a textile student — stunned the art world as she presented American Indian blankets hung on the wall as works of art. Being in the presence of those wonderful creations was one of those rare moments when you know you are seeing something that will forever change how you look at the world. “The Navajo Blanket” was one of the first textile books I ever bought and it still has pride of place on my bookshelf today. For those who love textiles, a number of Kahlenberg's books on the subject are available locally through the South Central Library System.

For decades, Loulou de la Falaise was both St. Laurent's muse and collaborator; and as such, she was a fixture in the fashion pages in the days when I poured over them. Loulou was one in a long line of famous family beauties. But now I realize that what was perhaps most lovely about her is that she at once looked wonderful and her age.

LOULOU DE LA FALAISE

I discovered the books of Florence Parry Heide when I was an elementary school art teacher on the East Coast. It was a job that gave me access to new generations of children's books published long after I had stopped reading such things. My contact with young people — along with a wise school librarian — and brilliantly inventive book's like Heide's "The Shrinking of Treehorn," showed me that I would never be too old to enjoy kid lit! 

I've known and loved Martha True Birdwell since I first watched "Friendly Persuasion" with my mother when I was ten years old! Actress Phyllis Love played many more well-known and well-regarded roles during her career, but for me she will always be the young daughter — Mattie — in this story of a Quaker family on their Indiana farm during the Civil War. The cast has a pair of perfect parents: a rueful Gary Cooper matched with a feisty Dorothy McGuire. Anthony Perkins played the older son in a breakthrough role. The parents were a long-married couple who put up with each other's foibles out of both love and respect. And they watched with amusement and concern as their children struggled toward adulthood with a war and an outside world moving ever closer to tempt them from their Quaker — and pacifist — beliefs. In many ways it is a throwback 1950s movie, but one with such sweetness and charm that I never grow tired of watching it. Or watching Mattie/Phyllis fall in love with the soldier pictured below.

The Birdwell family with a soldier neighbor in the Civil War movie "Friendly Persuasion." Phyllis Love is on the far right.

Comments

[Erin @ The Impatient Gardener]

What an interesting assortment of fascinating women. As for the obituary page, it's a first stop for me as well when I pick up the NYT (not as often as I'd like to). It's also what I miss most about working at a newspaper. I loved writing obituaries. Most people think I'm morbid or weird when I say that, but what I found was that every single person in the world has done or been something interesting in their life and it's amazing to tell that story. Also, there's an interesting thing that happens when a reporter calls a family shortly after a loved one has died. Rather than be offput by a "pesky" reporter meddling in their business, as is the all-too-prevalent assumption about reporters, most family members are thrilled to be to tell a stranger about their loved one. Back in my Freeman days I always offered to write the story obits (no one was going to arm wrestle me for them) unless they were on a person already covered on a beat and then when I came back to work at the weekly, every obit was (and is) written by a reporter so I got plenty of opportunity to write them there as well.

[Linda Brazill]

Youre right — everyone has a story if only someone asks!

I had no idea you had that background in obits. I assume that is the Waukesha Freeman you refer to. I always look to see who wrote the obit as well. I have a couple of books of obits (not sure where they are in the morass of books at our house or I would give you the titles).

I always used to read NYT obits by  a guy name McG. (Robert McG. Thomas). I remember reading the obit of a famous person written by McG. and published in the Times — after McG himself had died. Added an extra bittersweet layer to the whole thing.

I have a whole file of newspaper clippings of favorite obits!

LB

[Sarah Laurence]

Your morbid habit is quite lively! These women were impressive. Loulou has such a marvelous face. I can almost hear her inner laughter.