Introduction
Previous: 1923 (France, romance and the Prince of Wales)
Next: 1925 and 1926
Dorothy stays in Paris and moves to 278 Boulevard Raspail, her home for the next few years.
Sometime that spring Geraldine Kirby came to stay with me to buy her trousseau; she was to marry Bob Breitmeyer of the 9th Lancers – I think they announced the engagement when we were all in Egypt. I took Gerry to a dressmaker I knew of and she got lovely things. She asked me to be a bridesmaid, but her father died just before the wedding so it was very quiet and there were no bridesmaids.
Frances Geraldine Kirby (1896-1982) married Geoffrey Wyndham Breitmeyer (1898-1952) at St George’s, Hanover Square, London on 19 May 1924. It was actually not her father but her mother, born Edith Smith-Dorrien in 1854, who died soon before the wedding, in early 1924; her father was Augustus George Kirby (1847-1926). Gerry and Bob had a son, Anthony, and a daughter, Fiona, and Fiona has living descendants. The Times reported the wedding the following day, 20 May 1924:
Mr. G. W. Breitmeyer and Miss F. G. Kirby
The marriage took place yesterday at St. Marks, North Audley-street, of Mr. Geoffrey Wyndham Breitmeyer, 9th Lancers, youngest son of Mr. L. Breitmeyer, 11, Connaught-place, W., and Rushton Hall, Kettering, to Miss Frances Geraldine Kirby, youngest daughter of the Rev. A. G. Kirby, of Southweald Vicarage, Brentwood, Essex. The Bishop of Barking, assisted by the Rev. W. A. Smith-Dorrien, conducted the service.
The bride was given away by her brother, Major H. A. Kirby, D.S.O., M.C., and was attended by Miss Pamela Strahan, Miss Avice Rowley, Miss Elizabeth Breitmeyer, and by two pages – Master Robin Oates and Master James Prioleau – dressed in costumes of Charles I. period. The wedding gown was of white georgette, with an old Valencienues lace train and veil, lent by Mrs. De Winton. Major the Hon. F. Crossley was the best man.
Mr. and Mrs. G. W. Breitmeyer afterwards left for the Continent.
Interesting that although Geraldine’s father was still alive, she was ‘given away’ by her brother; perhaps their father was too ill, or too old (he would have been 79), or still in mourning. Also interesting that even though Dorothy says there were no bridesmaids, three other women ‘attended’ the bride, and it doesn’t sound all that quiet an affair.
The best man, “Major the Hon. F. Crossley”, is Francis Savile Crossley, later the 2nd Baron Somerleyton (1889-1959).
I met an American named Ed Darrell, but I don’t remember where I met him. He had a great friend Hootch Hurditch who was up at Oxford – Exeter – and who came to Paris for Easter. We three met every day and usually lunched together. Another American friend of mine was Bill Ryan, a most devout Catholic, from Chicago, I think. Then there was a Russian, Oleg Tripet-Skrypitzine, whom I met through Gaston and Marietta Mills. I saw a lot of the Millses, who were angelic to me. Lyman and I dined one night with Virginia Harrison from Foxcroft, now Mrs. Gross – that is, we were invited, and I suppose we went, but I don’t remember it at all. Oleg and I used to go for long walks; we’d take a train out into the country near Versailles, and walk for miles and come back again by train.
Edward Fairbairn Darrell (1902-1974) was born in Connecticut and was studying at Princeton in 1924. As mentioned below, he bought one of Dorothy’s batiks, which otherwise do not seem to have survived. I’m very grateful to his granddaughter Lloyd Dallett and his great-niece Leigh Darrell for information about him.
“Hootch” Hurditch seems to be Percival Russell Robbe Hurditch (1902-1948), who was an early exchange student in anthropology from Princeton to Exeter College Oxford. He was also a contestant in the Wimbledon tennis championships in 1925 and 1927, but was knocked out in the first round in straight sets both times.
“Bill Ryan” is an unhelpfully common name. Dorothy’ future mother-in-law was born a Ryan, but there is no recorded ‘Bill’ or ‘William’ of the right age, or indeed at all, among our Ryan connections, and anyway this chap was from Chicago rather than Tipperary.
Oleg-Eugene Tripet-Skrypitzine was mentioned as a guest of the Mills’ back in 1920, but he was born in 1848 which makes him 76 in 1924, so it would be impressive that he was still up for long walks. Oleg-Eugene had a son, Francois Oleg Tripet-Skrypitzine, born in 1889, who would have been 35 in 1924, but he married a Canadian in 1910 and seems to have spent the rest of his life in Toronto.
Lawrence Heyworth “Gaston” Mills and Marietta Mills, nee Mariette Benedict Thompson, were family connections of Dorothy’s who lived near Paris, described in 1920.
Lyman Charlton Hibbard was Dorothy’s older brother.
Virginia Harrison (1901-1992) had a particularly exciting story. Oldest of the ten children of the six-times married Francis Burton Harrison, governor of the Philippines, she was left $2.5 million by her mother, Mary Burton Crocker (1991-1905) who died in a car accident when Virginia was four years old. She married war hero Christian Channing Gross (1895-1933), in Algiers or possibly Algeciras in December 1922, six weeks before the birth of their son in January 1923. In Spring 1924, when Virginia had her dinner with Dorothy and Lyman, Christian held the post of Minister at the American embassy in Paris; it is odd that Dorothy doesn’t mention him being involved with or present at the meal (but she doesn’t remember much about it anyway).
Virginia and Christian had another baby, a girl, in December 1925, but their marriage broke down, and a very bitter public divorce and custody battle ended only when Christian and the two children, along with his mother, were killed in another car accident in 1933. By this stage Virginia was in a relationship with Mexican artist Miguel de Zayas (1880-1961), and they already had a daughter together, Ana Virginia de Zayas (1928-2023); their son Rodrigo, who is still living as of 2025, was born in 1935, and both Ana and Rodrigo have descendants. Virginia married de Zayas in 1937 (though she had been using his name since a previous wedding ceremony in 1930).
Alastair Erskine had gone to America and I hoped that he’d see Papa, but I don’t think he did. Jan Juta had a studio in Paris but once when he was away Bunnie insisted on my taking it – though I really didn’t need it – but she thought he needed the money; I expect she paid for it though I don’t remember. I was very much taken with Jan at that time, but he was quite indifferent, which I think I had sense enough to realise.
Alastair Erskine is likely to be the younger brother (1901-1987) of Dorothy’s good friend Donald Erskine (1899-1984), if indeed not a mistake for Donald, to whom Dorothy was much closer.
Jan Juta (1895-1990) has been mentioned before. His most famous work is a 1920 portrait of his friend D.H. Lawrence.
More on Dorothy’s father here.
Bunnie is Dorothy’s aunt, Lady Frances Hadfield (1862-1949).
I had met a mother and daughter named Emslie, who had a flat with a big studio at 278 Boulevard Raspail, and they wanted to let it for a few months while they went to the south of France to see how they liked it. So I took it in May, but didn’t move in till June. In May I went to England for Geraldine Kirby’s wedding, although I wasn’t a bridesmaid as there weren’t any, still the Breitmeyer family gave a big dinner somewhere the night before and all who would have taken part were invited; I remember I enjoyed it.
Ten years before my grandmother lived there, 278 Boulevard Raspail was the base for Guillaume Apollinaire’s literary journal Les Soirées de Paris from 1912 to 1914, and hosted a concert by the musician and surrealist painter Alberto Savinio in May 1914. A later tenant was Dutch artist Piet Mondriaan, from 1936-38.
Dorothy is unable to spell the surname of her landladies. They were Ethel Grace Vivian Elsmie (1872-1941) and (probably) her daughter Gladys Vivian Elsmie (1896-1979). Both of them eventually died in the south of France, so I guess they liked it. Ethel’s husband and Gladys’ father, George Edward Douglas Elsmie (1866-1917), the Commanding Officer of the 20th Deccan Horse, was killed in India during the war (though apparently not in combat). Ethel is recorded as an off-and-on member of Shakespeare & Co from 1921 to 1929. There were two other daughters, Dorine Violet Elsmie (1899-1956) who had married by 1924, and Joyce Kathleen Elsmie of whom the only record is that she was born in 1902, and was still alive in 1911, so I suspect that she died young. A son, George Quintus Vivian Elsmie, was born in 1912 and died in 1913. All four siblings were born in India. Ethel was born in Middleton, Co. Cork.
But before I went Lyman had a belated birthday party for me – and I think Zora had had one in Cannes; if I remember correctly Marconi was there, and Maisie Bideleux (was she staying with us? I expect so) and François; we dined at the Casino and François and I did some of our trick dancing till Zora told us to stop. Colette was in Paris for Lyman’s party, and Vera was in Paris then too.
Dorothy’s birthday was 8 April. Easter was on 20 April that year.
Zora was Dorothy’s aunt, Lily Gordon Wickersham, who had informally adopted her after her mother’s death.
Yes, ‘Marconi’ probably does mean Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937), the inventor of radio; he was well-networked with engineers like Dorothy’s father and uncle. This is however the only time he is mentioned in the memoirs.
Maisie Biedeleux was another friend of Dorothy’s.
Count François William Marie Joseph Gerard de Buisseret (1899-1934) was a young Belgian aristocrat and diplomat who had been legally adopted by Dorothy’s aunt “Bunnie”, Lady Hadfield.
François and Dorothy had started “trick dancing” in autumn 1919, when she writes: “All the world was dancing mad at that time and in the evenings we used to dance to a gramophone, F and I, and we did some quite professional-looking steps; in one he more or less threw me up in the air; it was great fun.”
Colette Blanc was Dorothy’s friend from Romania.
Vera Bideleux was Maisie’s sister.
I sent a big blue batik square to the Salon that spring, and not only was it accepted but I got a “Mention Honorable” – mine was the only batik to get a prize or mention, so I was delighted. Ed Darrell bought it and took it to America.
Mariette Mills gave a dance for me also before the trip to London. Hootch Hurditch invited me to Oxford for Eights week, and of course, Ed was there too. We spent all day on the river, every day, I think. I remember wonderful weather but I don’t remember much else – where I stayed or anything; Hootch had arranged it all. He rowed in the Exeter boat but I don’t know how well they did.
Eights week is in May.
Dorothy shows no regret at not taking the place she had been offered at Oxford.
When I got back I went at once to the flat at 278 Bd. Raspail. I had engaged a maid before I left and she was supposed to have the place all ready for me, and to have got food in, and so on. But when I arrived nothing had been done. She turned up, but was very strange – I don’t know if she was drunk or unbalanced, but anyway I dismissed her that same evening. It wasn’t easy, as she refused at first to go without her wages, and I didn’t have enough money with me. However I finally made her understand that I’d get money from the Bank next day, and she could come back and be paid, and at last she agreed. Then Maisie Bideleux came to stay for six weeks or so, and somehow we managed till I got Rachel Duval, who stayed with me till I left Paris. She was a priceless old soul and I got very fond of her. She was honest and loyal and very economical, but she dearly loved to talk and she hated me to go away. She came every day about 9.00 a.m.; the concierge brought me my breakfast about 8:15. Rachel did everything else. If I had people for tea or dinner she stayed, but when I was out she went home early. Rachel washed all my underclothes and mended everything so as I wrote to Papa she was a real economy, and I was running the place for 20 francs a day; I think the exchange was then about 80 francs to the £, or 16 to the $.
Carol Iredell came to Paris that summer, and Kitty Merrick came too – it was seven years since I’d seen her.
Carol Iredell (1902-1988) was a friend of Dorothy’s from her childhood in Plainfield, New Jersey.
Kitty Merrick (1900-1988), later Countess Wielopolska, was a friend of Dorothy’s from her first boarding school in upstate New York.
Lyman and Rudi took Maisie and me and some others – including Enid Alexander – to the last two days of the Olympic Games. That was the year that the Finns swept all before them, and we saw the great Nurmi win the 10,000 metres, looking perfectly fresh at the end of it, though many of the other contestants fainted.
Rudi is Lyman’s flatmate, Baron Rudolf Theodore de Wardener (1887-1962).
Enid Alexander was previously mentioned as Lyman’s girlfriend. I found an Enid Alexander, born in 1891 in Iowa, who applied for passports to visit France in 1919 and 1921.
These were the Paris Olympics depicted in that great film Chariots of Fire, where Harold Abrahams won the 100 metres and Eric Liddell won the 400 metres. But Paavo Nurmi actually lost the 10,000 metres race to fellow countryman Ville Ritola; it was the cross-country race that Dorothy saw Nurmi win, where notoriously only 15 of the 38 competitors finished the course. (The cross-country race was never held again at the Olympics.)
Hootch and Ed went back to America, and I missed them.
I wrote Papa a description of my place; how well I remember it! It was one of four studios built out along a gallery behind a big block of flats; the gallery overlooked a courtyard, and there were three doors on the left – mine was the third – and one at the end. You came straight into the studio a very large one with a huge skylight. At the back stairs went up from right to left along the back wall, and at the top went straight into the bathroom, so one had to go through it to get to my room, which opened on a terrace which was the roof of the studio. More stairs wound down from the studio to the kitchen – which had no outside window – and through the kitchen one reached a small room which I used for my dyeing, and to the left from that there was another bedroom. Both the last two rooms had windows overlooking the courtyard. That bedroom was my guest room, but there were also at least two divans in the studio which could be used as beds. There were still more stairs – a very short flight – going down from the kitchen to a door that couldn’t be opened; it made quite a useful place to store trunks, on those stairs.
I went with Maisie to Havre in July and met Colette, who had been in England, and we came home together; by that I mean we came to Paris, and Radu Cuţarida met us, but Col had to go on to Roumania the same day.
Radu Cuţarida was another Romanian friend, who later became a diplomat until he was purged when the Communists took over in 1947.
I had acquired a Polish friend, the Baron de Puget, who was a sculptor, but I don’t remember much about him.
Ludwik du Puszet Puget (Polish Wikipedia), born in 1877, was a noted Polish artist and writer, murdered in Auschwitz in 1942.
I was seeing a good deal of Waldo Pierce and his wife, both of whom painted, Waldo, a giant of a man with a red beard, did very delicate little paintings.
Waldo Peirce (1884-1970) has been described elsewhere as “Rabelaisian, bawdy, witty, robust, wild, lusty, protean, lecherous, luscious, the kind of man Ernest Hemingway wished he could be”, though Dorothy gives no hint of this. In 1924, he was married to his second wife, Ivy Troutman (1884-1979), who is now better remembered as an actress than an artist.
In August I went to stay with Zora and Dollie at the Villa Germain in Houlgate. Lyman came too for a time, and I think that is when he brought Jimmy, the French bull-dog puppy. Zora meant to give Dollie a bitch puppy, and asked Lyman to get her one, but Lyman couldn’t resist this poor little dog and brought him instead. He’d been taken from his mother too young and got all sorts of things wrong with him and had to be most carefully nursed. Zora, of course, did most of the nursing, and Jimmy always thought he was her dog, though nominally he was Dollie’s. I don’t think he ever cared much for me, I expect he was a bit jealous. After Lyman left Vera came to stay, and one day we went to Bayeux to see the famous tapestries.
Houlgate is on the Normandy coast. Previous tenants of the Villa Germaine included Astor heriress Hester Pickman, who appears to have acquired Picasso’s Femme retenant son peignoir soon after staying there the previous year, 1923.
Dollie Sperling, born Blanche Lucy Rigg (1872-1946) was a close friend of Dorothy’s aunt Zora.
When I got back to Paris I had a series of minor operations on my nose – burning off the septum on one side to straighten it; this was a thing that had been talked about since I was a child, and I’d always rather dreaded it. Bunnie paid for it and took me to a doctor called Krauss – German or Austrian – she came with me for the treatments. Until the last it wasn’t too bad but at the last he cut a bit out and I nearly fainted; they made me lie down and gave me brandy. And then I went to a clinic or something for the night and next morning he took out what was left of my tonsils and adenoids; that was the 3rd time; I’d had it done when I was only 5, when my mother was alive, and again at 15, in New York, and now at 25 in Paris. But at least that finished it. Afterwards I was feeling rather feeble and Bunnie sent me down to her villa to rest.
I find a Dr Eugène or Eugen Kraus, who specialised in what we now call ENT, who was born in Vienna in 1865, became a French citizen in 1897 and died in 1941. I have no personal memory of my grandmother’s nose looking unusual, which perhaps demonstrates the success of the operation more than 40 years before I was born.
Carol and Eleanore Iredell had been in Paris in September and I’d seen a lot of them, but in October they went home.
Eleanore Iredell (1896-1981) was Carol’s older sister. She married Donald Stillwell Warman (1902–1983) in 1937. I don’t have a record of any children.
I had a very peaceful pleasant time at the Sounjarello, wonderful food, and I went for long walks. There were several dogs there; a big Pyranees dog of Sam Barlow’s which always went with me, and Bunnie’s little Peke, Chui-Chu, which slept on my bed. I wrote to Papa that I was reading Herodotus and Plato’s Republic and also Froissart’s Chronicles. Hootch was at Nice and sometimes came to see me. I think I was there for only about two weeks, as I wanted to get back to Paris, and get on with my work; I had a great many orders.
The Villa Sounjarello was the Hadfields’ wee place in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, near Nice. It is still standing, and undergoing refurbishment.
Sam Barlow is the composer Samuel Barlow, who famously renovated a castle at Eze near Cannes.
Papa must have written sometime that autumn suggesting that I should go back to America. But though I couldn’t exactly say that to him, it was a fact that my step-mother and I didn’t get on well and she wouldn’t really have wanted me, though she could hardly say so. And I was very happy – no, that isn’t altogether true. I was getting restless and thinking quite seriously of going to live in Rome; I’d never been there since I was a child and I began to want to see it again. Once when Maisie was staying with me I suggested we should go to Italy and we had a few Italian lessons but somehow the scheme fell through.
There were a number of men I’d been attracted to; in Egypt I had liked Minnow Palmer very much for a time, and then there was Loïc, and Oleg I was really fond of but not to the point of wanting to marry him. Jan Juta wasn’t at all attracted to me, and I think that was the real reason that I was fascinated by him. I saw a lot of Simon Elwes, but he was in love with Gloria Rodd, whom he later married, and we were just good friends – as I was with Hootch and Ed Darrell. Mariette Mills thought that Rudi and I would suit very well, but I really think he thought of me just as Lyman’s sister, almost as though I were his own sister.
Minnow Palmer is probably Otho Leslie Prior-Palmer (1897-1986), later MP for Worthing.
Loïc Antoine Marie Petit de la Villéon (1896-1978) was briefly Dorothy’s fiancé the previous year, 1923.
Oleg Tripet-Skrypitzine and Jan Juta are mentioned above.
Simon Edmund Vincent Paul Elwes (1902-1975) later became famous as a portraitist of the British Royal Family and as a war artist.
Gloria Ellinor Rodd (1901–1975) married Simon Elwes in 1926. Her father, Sir Rennell Rodd (later Lord Rennell) had been the British ambassador to Italy during the First World War.
By the way, speaking of Rudi, once when Zora was in Paris she went to see him and Lyman in the rue Jouffroy. It was the first time she had been there, and she wasn’t sure of the door – there were two or three on the same landing. So she rang one bell and who should open it but Mlle. Leroy, the governess I’d had in Cannes: So they had to talk for a few minutes but Zora hoped she wouldn’t attach herself to Lyman. However she didn’t. She came to 22 [ie 22 Carlton House Terrace, the Hadfields’ London home] once during the first War and tried to see Uncle Bobby – as I said earlier she had tried to make me think that he was very attentive to her. But he had no idea who she was and got Zora, who was there, to see her – I think he flatly refused to see her at all, and I have no idea what she really wanted. Perhaps just to see Uncle Bobby again, but if so she was disappointed.
The story of the flirtatious governess was told in the memoir for 1912.
I have forgotten to put in several things that happened this year. When the family were here in the summer we did a tour of the chateaux in Touraine; we went to Orléans, Tours, Chenonceaux, Blois, Chinon, Loches, Azay-le-Rideau, Chambord – I have the order all wrong but put them down as I remembered them. I think Loches and Chinon impressed me most; Loches of course is much better preserved, Chinon is all in ruins. Papa was very anxious to find a double-flued chimney older than one he’d seen in Scotland, but I don’t think he ever did, though it wasn’t for want of trying. Sally used to find us very tiresome as we really liked exploring and she just wanted to look at a place for a few minutes and then go on.
Sarah “Sally” Ames (1858-1946) was Dorothy’s stepmother.
Anyway I wanted to go back to Chinon, and as Lyman was at a loose end in October, I got him to go with me. We stayed in a little inn there and spent a lot of time in the ruins. One glorious moonlight night [the moon was full on Monday 13 October 1924] we went up and with some difficulty got the guardian to let us in; he kept telling us that we’d see it much better by day! But in the end we managed to persuade him. I was half hoping to see a ghost, but I didn’t. There is a house in Chinon which was supposed to belong to Rabelais, or else he was supposed to have been born there, but I believe now they say it isn’t so. I tried to read Rabelais but I simply couldn’t get through it; it’s the sort of thing that men like, but not many women, I think.
I tried to do some writing there, but it was very poor, I’ve torn it up. I think we spent about a week there; I went to Mass in the Parish church and heard a very young curate preach. Speaking of Mass in small country churches, in the one at Clairfontaine, where the Millses had their place, they used to give out pain bénit during Mass. I’ve never quite understood about pain bénit.
For some reason Lyman wrote a most glowing account of me to Papa at Christmas – he said that I was developing into a most unusual young woman. He said in the whole Quarter there were only three women who stood out from the crowd because of personality, charm, and ability and that I was one of them. I never read that letter till many years later and I can’t think what he meant – or who the other two were – I think there were many with more personality, charm, and ability than I ever had; Lyman himself was having a hard time; I think he’d lost his job with the Bank – or did he leave it? Anyway he later had a job with the Reparations Commission and something went wrong, I never did know the entire story.
My great-uncle Lyman’s career is a bit of a mystery to me. Having dropped out of Yale, and after being fired from a couple of post-war jobs in Paris, he ended up doing well at something or other on Wall Street; he married a widow with two children, but had none of his own. His stepson, Carl Tiedemann, did much better on Wall Street, and was able to provide much needed and appreciated hospitality to my mother when my father died unexpectedly in New York in 1990.
I went to London for Christmas, and in a letter I said I’d had a wonderful time, but gave no details. Bee de Buisseret was there; she was only 14 and was to go to school in Paris, so I brought her back with me for two nights and saw her safely to her school. She went to another one later but she didn’t like either of them and was fairly miserable, poor child. I think her grandmother in America, who had had her since she was sent over at the beginning of the first war, was too old to keep her, or too ill – or perhaps she had died? I don’t remember that, but Bunnie seemed to be more or less in charge, though François was I think her legal guardian. Uncle Bobby gave her a pound when we left, and she changed it in Paris and asked me to go with her to buy some ornaments for her room at school. We went to the Printemps, or one of those shops, and she was fascinated by a china figure of two Pekinese puppies playing. It cost 55 francs, nearly half the money she had to spend and I thought it was too much, but she had set her heart on it. And then when we got back to my place she put it on a table and asked me if I didn’t think it looked nice, and when I admired it she said she had got it for me! I was terribly touched, and I’ve kept it ever since.
Beatrix Caroline Marie Josephe “Bee” de Buisseret (born 1910) was the daughter of Count Conrad de Buisseret and his American wife, who had died of diphtheria during the war, and the sister of Michel and François. She married first, Roland Toutain (1905-1977), a French actor, writer and stuntman, and second (from 1939 to 1969) Pierre Vanlaer (1904-1985), also an air pilot and stuntman; both marriages ended in divorce. I have not been able to find details of Bee’s death, though she was still alive when her brother Michel died in 1967.
I am pretty sure that I remember Dorothy keeping the porcelain Pekinese puppies into her old age, and my aunt Ursula keeping them also for the next twenty years, and her husband Alastair Downie also keeping them for the decade that he survived Ursula. I have no idea where they are now.
The currency conversion websites tell me that 55 French francs in 1924 is about the same as 55 euro today (2025), which is indeed quite a lot for a teenager to spend on a gift for an adult friend.
Next: 1925 and 1926