Extracts from the Scrapbook of Mary Martha O'Hara
12th July 1933
Emily Alethea is two! And a bonny baby she is too. I think Mark is sad that we haven't had any more. He loves Emily and has always been her father but he wants a child to be a natural father to. After all he is twenty years older than me so he must have less time left.
We will soon be moving into a new apartment in one of the new city blocks that President Roosevelt is opening here, but everyone knows that they were planned and begun under President Durant. We see a lot of Durants on the streets again, and other makes that Willy owns. That's how all the papers call him now - Willy! I even saw a huge Locomobile limousine yesterday. Mark said it was probably carrying the Secretary of State.
I bought the International Herald Tribune as a birthday present for Emily. She can't read it of course but she can read the news from when she had her birthday. Its funny being in America, we forget about the rest of the world sometimes. I read news from Europe and it was like another world. There is revolution in Germany! But it is not really Germany, not like it was when I was young. Its just Brandenburg-Saxony now, I think. Apparently Italy has a new king and they are going to crown him an Emperor because he rules Abyssinia. Won't that make him Emperor of Abyssinia instead of Italy? I suppose they can call it what they want, though. Its their country!
24th July 1933
I just realised what the date is! Its ten years since I last saw my father. I don't know if he is dead or alive. Its ten years since the Revolutionaries burst into the Herald singing Humpty Dumpty! I don't know what to think about those days now. Its easier not to and to pretend that it was another life that doesn't belong to me anymore. I am an American and though I can't marry Mark we are as if we were married. He has a good job and his salary went up this Spring. We move to the new apartment next week, and I think he is even going to take advantage of Willy's Liberty Purchase Plan and put down some money for a Durant! To think we might soon own a motorcar ourselves!
8th August 1933
New apartment, new car....and I think soon a new baby! I think I'm pregnant again. I daren't say yet until I'm sure but it would be the perfect new start for us all.
Our neighbours in the new apartment are Canadian. He's a diplomat at the embassy and his wife works as a clerk in a Canadian shipping firm here in Washington City. They speak a bit different from us but its not that strange. And they drive a funny make of car that they say is made in Montreal. I can't pronounce its name, its French![/i]
1st September 1933
I told Mark that I am pregnant and he said he thought so and took me to bed to celebrate. He already wants us to be choosing names for it, for a boy or a girl. He doesn't care which because its his baby. Emily is still too young to understand what he means and won't be jealous. She's always going to have a high place in his heart.
President Roosevelt made a good speech for Labour Day and I think he is beginning to find his feet. It must be hard being president after so many years of Willy. Everybody calls him Willy now! Nobody called him anything but President Durant for years and years. But now he insists he is not president, he is just Willy. He's going to open a new factory in Washington itself to make Stars. I think thats just another make of car but I don't think I've ever seen one. Thats probably why he's building a factory down here so he can get them to market easier. Mark said he will probably also ship some across the border into the Confederacy.
11th November 1933
Apparently President Roosevelt wants to name a new battleship after Willy but he won't let them. It wouldn't be called the Willy but the USS William Durant[/i] which sounds strange. Why isn't it the [/i]President Durant[/i]? Anyway Willy says he can't do it until he's dead. He's old but I don't think he will be dead soon. He's the kind of man who goes on and on. Next week they will break the ground at the new Star factory. I doubt they will do much building over Winter but it will all be ready for Spring.
Mark has been appointed to the office of the Secretary of State. He says its not much more money but that he will meet a lot of interesting people and if all goes well so will I. I don't know if pregnant women get invited to balls though? He isn't sure either. [/i]
25th December 1933
We had a lovely Christmas with Emily, the first that she might remember when she is older. Then Mark took us out in the Durant Six for a drive into Virginia! He has all the right passes now in his new job and the guards on the border didn't make any kind of fuss. We drove right into the hills as far as we could go before the road was blocked, and had dinner at a small inn where the woman who served us was amazed at our car and even more amazed to find we were from the USA!
We drove out wthout any problem as well. Mark seems to have magic papers now. We even parked the car in the Reserved car park when we went to the theatre and saw something I didn't really understand by one of the many British exiles who settled here after the Revolution. It was very clever but too clever for me.
1st January 1934
Another New Year. President Roosevelt made another speech on the radio - I think he likes making those. He promised us better times ahead but it is Willy and his kind who are giving us the better times. They build the factories and make the jobs that make money to buy things from the factories. Willy even owns one of the banks that loans money to himself to build the factories in the first place, but I suppose the money comes back to him when people buy what he's built. I understood how things worked until Mark tried to explain it to me. Thank God for the Willies of this world, anyway!
9th March 1934
Mark came home today looking very serious. I thought something was wrong in his job but he said no it is the world. Apparently there is revolution in Hannover and the Rhineland, against the French! London and Berlin are to blame and Paris is preparing to go to war. I don't know why that worries him so much but there is always a lot he cannot tell me.
4th April 1934
Poland has invaded Germany! I don't really know why it has done this but it must be because Germany is now at war with France. Mark says that Poland is after Posen and Silesia but I had to ask him to draw me a map. I think maybe I remember those names from my studies back when I was young but you don't think about such things do you? Not for years and years.
Mark says that the Secretary of State is worried that if these wars break out into a general European war then there really will be a World War 4 and if there is then no doubt we will all get dragged in. I can't see why we would! Who would we fight? Only the WU are enemies and they are in no condition to fight anyone! I heard they even shot their own president in Albuquerque and put in a general from Texas to rule them!
28th April 1934
I had a baby boy and we have named him Alan Declan after Mark's father and mine. I wonder if my father still lives. Maybe Mark can use his new position to ask in the State Department? But do I want to find out he is dead? He would only have one arm if he was alive!
30th April 1934
I think Alan Declan is going to be a quiet baby, Thank God! Emily is fascinated by him and spends long minutes staring at him. I think she thinks we went out and got a baby brother just for her! She even called him "my baby" which made us laugh and she scowled that little scowl of hers at us. I think maybe I see myself in her! We will have to be careful when she grows up!
1st May 1934
Mark says that there is revolution in Wurttemburg and civil war in Bavaria. Thank God the News printed a map of Europe last week so I can see where on Earth these places are. It looks like most of the old German Empire to me, though nobody has mentioned Austria. I said that to Mark over dinner and he nodded and said thats what the Secretary of State thinks! Which is amazing - I am as clever as the Secretary of State!
France sank a British battleship off Heligoland last week. I think I read about it but it didn't seem important. Mark says it was the one which was going to have been named King Edward VIII but after the Revolution they called it the Fraternity which seems a very silly name for a battleship. Its now lying on the seabed now with lots of dead British sailors in it.
9th May 1934
France has invaded Belgium in a move to cut across the German flank but it has made everyone condemn France! Do they want the Germans to win? Apparently they are all Revolutionaries - the British and the Germans and they are uniting into a huge army that will sweep French hegemony out of Europe. Or that is what the News said that they are saying.
I asked Mark later and he said that is the Revolutionaries aim as far as it goes, but what they really want is for their Revolution to spread into France and for the workers there to rise up and overthrow the Empire and join the Revolution! But why should they when they are being attacked by the Revolutionaries?
Emily has heard us talking about the Revolutionaries and asked where were these "vooshunries"? It was very cute. I told her they were a long way away and never going to hurt her. I hope that last bit is true but who can tell in this world?
12th July 1934
Emily enjoyed her third birthday very much! She kept showing off Alan Declan to all the guests that Mark invited calling him her baby! I think they were charmed. Mr and Mrs Laroux, our Canadian neighbours, bought her a lovely present, a doll with eyes that close and Emily examined it to see why it didn't do all the things that her baby did! I hope they weren't too disappointed by her attitude. It really is a lovely doll.
The news from Europe is of fierce battles all along the Ardennes but no idea who has won. Mark says that the Secretary of State thinks maybe it will settle down into trench warfare again but Mark told me he doesn't think so as the terrain isn't right.
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
12th July 1933
Emily Alethea is two! And a bonny baby she is too. I think Mark is sad that we haven't had any more. He loves Emily and has always been her father but he wants a child to be a natural father to. After all he is twenty years older than me so he must have less time left.
We will soon be moving into a new apartment in one of the new city blocks that President Roosevelt is opening here, but everyone knows that they were planned and begun under President Durant. We see a lot of Durants on the streets again, and other makes that Willy owns. That's how all the papers call him now - Willy! I even saw a huge Locomobile limousine yesterday. Mark said it was probably carrying the Secretary of State.
I bought the International Herald Tribune as a birthday present for Emily. She can't read it of course but she can read the news from when she had her birthday. Its funny being in America, we forget about the rest of the world sometimes. I read news from Europe and it was like another world. There is revolution in Germany! But it is not really Germany, not like it was when I was young. Its just Brandenburg-Saxony now, I think. Apparently Italy has a new king and they are going to crown him an Emperor because he rules Abyssinia. Won't that make him Emperor of Abyssinia instead of Italy? I suppose they can call it what they want, though. Its their country!
24th July 1933
I just realised what the date is! Its ten years since I last saw my father. I don't know if he is dead or alive. Its ten years since the Revolutionaries burst into the Herald singing Humpty Dumpty! I don't know what to think about those days now. Its easier not to and to pretend that it was another life that doesn't belong to me anymore. I am an American and though I can't marry Mark we are as if we were married. He has a good job and his salary went up this Spring. We move to the new apartment next week, and I think he is even going to take advantage of Willy's Liberty Purchase Plan and put down some money for a Durant! To think we might soon own a motorcar ourselves!
8th August 1933
New apartment, new car....and I think soon a new baby! I think I'm pregnant again. I daren't say yet until I'm sure but it would be the perfect new start for us all.
Our neighbours in the new apartment are Canadian. He's a diplomat at the embassy and his wife works as a clerk in a Canadian shipping firm here in Washington City. They speak a bit different from us but its not that strange. And they drive a funny make of car that they say is made in Montreal. I can't pronounce its name, its French![/i]
1st September 1933
I told Mark that I am pregnant and he said he thought so and took me to bed to celebrate. He already wants us to be choosing names for it, for a boy or a girl. He doesn't care which because its his baby. Emily is still too young to understand what he means and won't be jealous. She's always going to have a high place in his heart.
President Roosevelt made a good speech for Labour Day and I think he is beginning to find his feet. It must be hard being president after so many years of Willy. Everybody calls him Willy now! Nobody called him anything but President Durant for years and years. But now he insists he is not president, he is just Willy. He's going to open a new factory in Washington itself to make Stars. I think thats just another make of car but I don't think I've ever seen one. Thats probably why he's building a factory down here so he can get them to market easier. Mark said he will probably also ship some across the border into the Confederacy.
11th November 1933
Apparently President Roosevelt wants to name a new battleship after Willy but he won't let them. It wouldn't be called the Willy but the USS William Durant[/i] which sounds strange. Why isn't it the [/i]President Durant[/i]? Anyway Willy says he can't do it until he's dead. He's old but I don't think he will be dead soon. He's the kind of man who goes on and on. Next week they will break the ground at the new Star factory. I doubt they will do much building over Winter but it will all be ready for Spring.
Mark has been appointed to the office of the Secretary of State. He says its not much more money but that he will meet a lot of interesting people and if all goes well so will I. I don't know if pregnant women get invited to balls though? He isn't sure either. [/i]
25th December 1933
We had a lovely Christmas with Emily, the first that she might remember when she is older. Then Mark took us out in the Durant Six for a drive into Virginia! He has all the right passes now in his new job and the guards on the border didn't make any kind of fuss. We drove right into the hills as far as we could go before the road was blocked, and had dinner at a small inn where the woman who served us was amazed at our car and even more amazed to find we were from the USA!
We drove out wthout any problem as well. Mark seems to have magic papers now. We even parked the car in the Reserved car park when we went to the theatre and saw something I didn't really understand by one of the many British exiles who settled here after the Revolution. It was very clever but too clever for me.
1st January 1934
Another New Year. President Roosevelt made another speech on the radio - I think he likes making those. He promised us better times ahead but it is Willy and his kind who are giving us the better times. They build the factories and make the jobs that make money to buy things from the factories. Willy even owns one of the banks that loans money to himself to build the factories in the first place, but I suppose the money comes back to him when people buy what he's built. I understood how things worked until Mark tried to explain it to me. Thank God for the Willies of this world, anyway!
9th March 1934
Mark came home today looking very serious. I thought something was wrong in his job but he said no it is the world. Apparently there is revolution in Hannover and the Rhineland, against the French! London and Berlin are to blame and Paris is preparing to go to war. I don't know why that worries him so much but there is always a lot he cannot tell me.
4th April 1934
Poland has invaded Germany! I don't really know why it has done this but it must be because Germany is now at war with France. Mark says that Poland is after Posen and Silesia but I had to ask him to draw me a map. I think maybe I remember those names from my studies back when I was young but you don't think about such things do you? Not for years and years.
Mark says that the Secretary of State is worried that if these wars break out into a general European war then there really will be a World War 4 and if there is then no doubt we will all get dragged in. I can't see why we would! Who would we fight? Only the WU are enemies and they are in no condition to fight anyone! I heard they even shot their own president in Albuquerque and put in a general from Texas to rule them!
28th April 1934
I had a baby boy and we have named him Alan Declan after Mark's father and mine. I wonder if my father still lives. Maybe Mark can use his new position to ask in the State Department? But do I want to find out he is dead? He would only have one arm if he was alive!
30th April 1934
I think Alan Declan is going to be a quiet baby, Thank God! Emily is fascinated by him and spends long minutes staring at him. I think she thinks we went out and got a baby brother just for her! She even called him "my baby" which made us laugh and she scowled that little scowl of hers at us. I think maybe I see myself in her! We will have to be careful when she grows up!
1st May 1934
Mark says that there is revolution in Wurttemburg and civil war in Bavaria. Thank God the News printed a map of Europe last week so I can see where on Earth these places are. It looks like most of the old German Empire to me, though nobody has mentioned Austria. I said that to Mark over dinner and he nodded and said thats what the Secretary of State thinks! Which is amazing - I am as clever as the Secretary of State!
France sank a British battleship off Heligoland last week. I think I read about it but it didn't seem important. Mark says it was the one which was going to have been named King Edward VIII but after the Revolution they called it the Fraternity which seems a very silly name for a battleship. Its now lying on the seabed now with lots of dead British sailors in it.
9th May 1934
France has invaded Belgium in a move to cut across the German flank but it has made everyone condemn France! Do they want the Germans to win? Apparently they are all Revolutionaries - the British and the Germans and they are uniting into a huge army that will sweep French hegemony out of Europe. Or that is what the News said that they are saying.
I asked Mark later and he said that is the Revolutionaries aim as far as it goes, but what they really want is for their Revolution to spread into France and for the workers there to rise up and overthrow the Empire and join the Revolution! But why should they when they are being attacked by the Revolutionaries?
Emily has heard us talking about the Revolutionaries and asked where were these "vooshunries"? It was very cute. I told her they were a long way away and never going to hurt her. I hope that last bit is true but who can tell in this world?
12th July 1934
Emily enjoyed her third birthday very much! She kept showing off Alan Declan to all the guests that Mark invited calling him her baby! I think they were charmed. Mr and Mrs Laroux, our Canadian neighbours, bought her a lovely present, a doll with eyes that close and Emily examined it to see why it didn't do all the things that her baby did! I hope they weren't too disappointed by her attitude. It really is a lovely doll.
The news from Europe is of fierce battles all along the Ardennes but no idea who has won. Mark says that the Secretary of State thinks maybe it will settle down into trench warfare again but Mark told me he doesn't think so as the terrain isn't right.
Best Regards
Grey Wolf