July, 2009
Kay and I both love England. In my case, the country figures in some of my earliest memories. Both my mother and my aunt Sigrid were fans of the British Royals. On a fishing trip to Canada with my father, circa 1953, I recall seeing objects – plates, toffee and biscuit tins, etc. – commemorating the young Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. Because of a correspondence he had with a British friend, an uncle of mine would regularly receive copies of Punch, The Illustrated London News and Country Life. These he would circulate among the relatives. I remember being fascinated by the real estate ads in Country Life, which listed large residential properties with multiple bed and bathrooms, libraries, conservatories, and other rooms curiously listed as “offices”. It was later that I learned these to be rooms such as the kitchen, pantry, laundry, etc. devoted to household work. For a boy living in a five-room bungalow on Chicago’s South Side, England was a world away.