Interviewed by Jack W. C. Hagstrom
October 20, 1998
[0:00] Hagstrom: My name is Jack Hagstrom and I'm a graduate of the class of 1955 at Amherst College, and my guest today is Charlotte Turgeon, the widow Professor F.K. Turgeon, who taught in the French department from 1926 to 1969. He died in 1987. As I best can recall, Charlotte and I met in the spring of 1952 when I was a freshman, and over the years we've become close friends, Charlotte, quite apart from being a devoted faculty wife, is a mother of three children, two of whom are Amherst graduates and her daughter Nan, went to Smith College. She is a writer of esteem, distinguished alumna of Smith, cook beyond description, and confidant of many-Charlotte you didn't-you didn't arise de novo an Amherst College faculty wives. Where were you born? Where'd you grow up?
[0:55] Turgeon: I was born in, actually, in Marblehead, which was the summer place that my family had. But the family lived in Winchester, Massachusetts, which is a little town about nine miles north of Boston.
[1:20] Hagstrom: Why-why- Winchester? Family homestead or something like that?
[1:19] Turgeon: No, whatever family homestead that was there was built by my father-
[1:23] Hagstrom: I see.
[1:24] Turgeon: He came from Vermont- a farmers’ family, was born just outside of Stowe, Vermont.
[1:30] Hagstrom: Way up north?
[1:31] Turgeon: Way up north and he was of Dutch heritage
[1:35] Hagstrom: Really?
[1:36] Turgeon: and very proud of it.
[1:37]: Hagstrom: Really?
[1:38]: Turgeon: Oh, yes. And you spelled your name S N Y D E R.
[1:41] Hagstrom: Is that a particularly Dutch way of spelling it?
[1:43] Turgeon: Well remember this was during the war.
[1:44] Hagstrom: Okay. Fair, fair. And what was your father- Your father was a businessman but he-
[1:50] Turgeon: He became a businessman, he was left-- His father died when he was in the eighth grade, and left a wife and two boys. Dad being the oldest, older of two. And he went to Boston and worked in coal business.
[2:09] Hagstrom: In the coal business?
[2:10] Turgeon: In the coal business for two years. At that point, he was what 15 or 16? Hated, hated it. And he used to tell me stories of walking around Boston trying to think of what he really wanted to do. And it crossed his mind that everybody had to eat, come water, come water, war, or anything. People had to eat. So he was going to get into the food business. And he walked into a big place down on 55 Hanover Street, which no longer exists. Hanover Street does but all those buildings don’t. And he said to Mr. Batchelder, that he was interested and at that point was 18.
[2:53] Hangstrom: Just walked in off the street?
[2:55] Turgeon: Walked in off the street. And he was a very practical young man, and I guess presented himself well, because he was hired immediately. And he actually became president of the company when he was 23.
[3:07] Hagstrom: Really? What was the company called?
[3:10] Turgeon: It was called Batchelder to begin with, and then it was called “Batchelder and Snyder”. And he was that, he was the first man to bring frozen food to the south by overseas.
[3:23] Hagstrom: And your mother?
[3:24] Turgeon: My mother was born in Winchester, and where we eventually- well- where they eventually settled, and she was of English and Scottish heritage. And her mother came over to live in Wells, Maine as a girl. And that's how-
[3:43] Hagstrom: Why to Wells? Do you know?
[3:45] Turgeon: I haven't the faintest idea, haven’t the faintest idea. But she, unfortunately, was divorced, or her husband ran away. I'm totally- she had a bad temper that may be part of it. But anyway, she was left with three children. And in those days, divorce was frowned upon. Luckily for everybody, my grandmother had a devoted brother, who was the aide de camp for, oh, I’ve forgotten his name, but he's the colonel who runs on horseback in front of the- rides on horseback in front of the statehouse in Massachusetts. [[Hagstrom inaudible]] Slips my mind for the moment, anyway, he was aide de camp there. And then he made his fortune in the hotel business, and did not marry until he was about 70. So he took care of my mother's family and his sister’s family.
[4:36] Hagstrom: Where did your mother and father meet?
[4:37] Turgeon: She ran away at the age of 16 to Canada, and became a nurse lying about her age, because she said she was 19 but she wasn't, she was 16 and became a wonderful nurse, in fact, eventually became the head Night Nurse for Montreal General Hospital. And at that point, she was only 19. But her mother became ill and she had to come home to take care of her. So she started working as a nurse. And my father's wife's brother, first wife’s brother was a doctor. So she worked for him. And that's how they met.
[5:14] Hagstrom: I see, I see. And you had two siblings, your brother and sister, older?
[5:21] Turgeon: In all, I had a younger brother who died from peritonitis from appendicitis.
[5:29] Hagstrom: And Len?
[5:30] Turgeon: Leonard was my older brother, was my only brother, and then I had a sister, and have a sister who is 16 months younger than I am.
[5:38] Hagstrom: And you grew up in Winchester, did you go to public school in Winchester?
[5:41] Turgeon: Until I was eight years old, and unfortunately a truck ran over me.
[5:45] Hagstrom: What did you say?
[5:46] Turgeon: I said a truck ran over me coming home from school. A little boy, nasty little boy by the name of Henry Brown, chased me out in the street with a snowball and a truck came along. And broke every bone in my left hand- left hand side of my body.
[6:03] Hagstrom: What did that have to do with public school?
[6:06] Turgeon: Well it meant that by the time, I was in bed for a year, but by the time the doctor said I could go back to school he said I couldn't go to the state of schools that which schools were in.
[6:15] Hagstrom: Really? This is Winchester now?
[6:17] Turgeon: Winchester. So then I started going to school in Cambridge at Buckingham School.
[6:22] Hagstrom: Oh really? Which is still there is it not?
[6:24] Turgeon: It's now, it’s, not Moses Brown- What's the name of it? And Nichols, Brown and Nichols.
[6:32] Hagstrom: Nichols right. And then Bucknam School?
[6:36] Turgeon: Yeah, and then from there, I went to Dana Hall for a year which was not too happy for me and I went from there to Walnut Hill, which was very happy.
[6:48] Hagstrom: Really? But where- where's Dana Hall?
[6:51] Turgeon: That's in Wellesley, and the Walnut Hills is in Natick, which is the next town over.
[7:02] Hagstrom: From Walnut Hill, did you go to Smith?
[7:05] Turgeon: I went to Smith-
[7:08] Hagstrom: Was Smith your first choice always forever?
[7:08] Turgeon: No. no, no, no, no I didn't want to go to Smith. I wanted to go to Vassar.
[7:12] Hagstrom: Why?
[7:14] Turgeon: In fact, I wrote my thesis about the beer baron who was responsible for Vassar. I don't know why, but I thought it was the perfect place. And so did 25 in my out of my class of 26. And they only took two of us and I was not one of those two. And I did make Wellesley and I did make Smith and Radcliffe. But I chose Smith.
[7:36] Hagstrom: You didn’t make Vassar?
[7:38] Turgeon: I didn’t make Vassar.
[7:40] Hagstrom: Before we go on and talk about Smith. Let's go back and talk a little bit about your family. What was growing up in Winchester like?
[7:47] Turgeon: Well, that-
[7:49] Hagstrom: [Talking over Turgeon] I mean, was Winchester a typically suburban city of Boston or what?
[7:52] Turgeon: Yes it was. It was not quite as socially grand as Brookline. But way up there. And my father had done very well. And the year I was born, he built a lovely home on a huge piece of estate that was, well, it was so big because my mother was a very bad asthmatic. And the farm which he wanted to reproduce himself was so- had to be at least half mile away.
[8:30] Hagstrom: Really?
[8:31] Turgeon: So we were a long way from- between the house and the other. Yeah, dad did very well. He also lost his fortune more than once. He was a visual who loved to create great things and sometimes was wise-
[8:43] Hagstrom: [Interrupting] What sort of- in a day was your father very much a presence, how were days struc-, let's take, say age 10, how was the day structured?
[8:54] Turgeon: Well, in the morning, we were all had to be at breakfast at 7am. And if we had been naughty, which was rather frequent with my brother, he had his punishment administered by six o'clock in the morning. And everybody had to be at the table with a smile on his face at seven o'clock, no matter what. And then we were, if we were, if dad was going in early, say by 7:30 or quarter of eight, then we were all lined up to say goodbye to him. I don't know if mother read this book or what. But anyway, we sure had to do that. It was- it was strict, but very friendly. And, and I adored him. He was an older man, he was 45 by the time I was born.
[9:47] Hagstrom: You were born what? 1912?
[9:49] Turgeon: Mmhmm. And he was, I haven't, I’ve forgotten his birthday, but he had been married before to a singer, an opera singer, and she died of cancer when he was 28 and he didn't marry again until he was 40.
[10:03] Hagstrom: And your mother was she- Did she run the house? She cooked and she all that sort of thing? No?
[10:10] Turgeon: No, no, no, no, no, no. In those days, you had-
[10:14] Hagstrom: Help.
[10:14] Turgeon: Hot and cold running maids, that’s what you had. No, you had, we had an upstairs maid. We had a nurse. Mother was very act- dad was very active in politics and mother with him. They did a great deal of formal entertaining-
[10:29] Hagstrom: Boston politics? Winchester politics?
[10:30] Turgeon: Dad was on the Governor's Council. When I was hit by the automobile there, by the truck. Mr. Coolidge was the governor and he ordered a phalanx of police to [gestures] whoosh out to Winchester, because I wasn't supposed to live but I did.
[10:47] Hagstrom: Really. Mr. Coolidge, who later became- Cal-
[10:49] Turgeon: President of the United States Calvin Coolidge right from here.
[10:53] Hagstrom: Right, exactly.
[10:54] Turgeon: Also a graduate isn't he from Amherst College?
[10:55] Hagstrom: Absolutely, absolutely. Absolutely. And your-and your mother, what did she do? I mean, was she at all-?
[11:01] Turgeon: Mother- Mother was great on- in fact, she did a great deal to institute the visiting, visiting nurses, uh, association. And she certainly was the head of it in Winchester. And she was a wonderful nurse herself and a good organizer. And yes, her her life was very much outside the home. She had a very well run household. But we also did have a lot of help in those days.
[11:26] Hagstrom: And then-and then when you say five o'clock- what time- did people sit down for cocktails then? No-
[11:33] Turgeon: Of course not.
[11:36] Hagstrom: What do you mean of course not?
[11:37] Turgeon: We didn't drink anything. My father never touched a drop until prohibition. Now when-he when somebody else told him what he was going to do, he of course, he- By that time, he had a big, big business, and he had all these grapes sent on from California. I could still see those grapes being put in the cellar and he made it all.
[11:58] Hagstrom: Really? Is that right?
[11:59] Turgeon: He was not- he was very ingenious.
[12:04] Hagstrom: So you were at Walnut Hill, living in Winchester and applied to Vassar and Smith and so forth. Take me slowly by the hand from living in Winchester in the summertime, before going to Smith, what was that summer like? Roughly.
[12:19] Turgeon: Well, that summer varied a great deal. After my fam- after they left Marblehead they lived in, this is all summers, Scituate, Cotuit trying, you know, renting different houses. And then when dad was, when I was about 12, they decided that the mountains would be much better for Mother's asthma. So we moved up there but for three years, we stayed in this wonderful hotel called the Mountain View House in Whitefield, New Hampshire. And dad started, when he was 17, delivering meat in the buggy or at least, he was selling it from- from a buggy, horse buggy. Then he would call it into Batchelder and Snyder and it would come. But at that time was Batchelder. And so he had sold meat to this hotel. And he loved the people that ran it and they loved him. And he said, he swore then that someday he was going to have enough money to be able to send his family there for the summer-
[13:21] Hagstrom: Really. So this was an aspiration.
[13:23] Turgeon: Yeah, so we did it. We did that for three years. And we learn to dress up and my sister and I, and you know, pour tea. And we also were sent out on a farm every day from nine to five. And that's where I learned to churn butter and she learned to wash a pig and that kind of thing.
[13:40] Hagstrom: Really? Really, really, and how long did you-I mean, did you ever after Marblehead have a permanent summer house? Oh, yes.
[13:47] Turgeon: After, after the family gave up Mountain View House because it really was pretty stultifying for very active little girls. We were all sent to camp and dad and mother bought a place on Lake [Sunapee]. And it was owned by a man who was painted to me as a famous Shakespearean actor, I've heard since he was not so famous, but still he, he was up there. And some of, dad said to me one day, I'm gonna send you and your mother and your sister abroad for a summer. And I'm going to tell you, but I'm not going to tell anybody else that I'm going to build a house.
[14:39] Hagstrom: Really?
[14:40] Turgeon: In retrospect, I wonder if he just didn't want it just the way he wanted it. And that's why he shipped us all off. But we went supposedly for mother's health. And we did the grand tour, you know, of all the six countries, the six capitals-
[14:52] Hagstrom: [Interrupting] When was this Charlotte?
[14:52] Turgeon: I was 16. And therefore that would have been-
[14:57] Hagstrom: ‘28?
[14:58] Turgeon: Mhmm, ‘28. That was the first time I went to Paris. And we went complete with, each of us had a wardrobe trunk plus our own suitcases and my job was to count those every time.
[15:11] Hagstrom: Really? Traveling by freight- liner and then train.
[15:15] Turgeon: Yes we went, we went, we went from Canada on the Queen Elizabeth and on the Empress of Australia and, and we had a wonderful time. I was just- I was just about to go to college and I had lots of friends and-
[15:31] Hagstrom: Where did you land? Southampton or Cherbourg?
[15:35] Turgeon: Le Havre
[15:36] Hagstrom: Le Havre? Really. And then you were abroad all summer?
[15:38] Turgeon: Then we went to England- all summer, we left all our clothes, our fancy clothes that were just for the boat, you know, different evening dress every night. Those were the days. People don’t do that anymore.
[15:50] Hagstrom: And then-then came back-
[15:52] Turgeon: -and then came back and I went off to college. And-
[15:56] Hagstrom: When you went to college, you went to Smith, Northampton.
[15:56] Turgeon: Yeah.
[15:59] Hagstrom: Did somebody take you?
[16:00] Turgeon: No, but I hate to tell you- what I- went from-. Well, the first time that came up, we came up with all the stuff and yes, my mother and father came and all that. But after that, I was sent up and back by Pullman. Can you imagine it from Springfield to Boston?
[16:16] Hagstrom: Really, really.
[16:17] Turgeon: Sounds so, oh, so silly now.
[16:22] Hagstrom: Did yo- all right, you went off to Smith and how would-how look- What I’m really asking is: How old were your parents when they died?
[16:32] Turgeon: Mother died of- early- of- in her 60s when she was in her 60s, 68 I think she was when she died. Dad lived until he was 90.
[16:44] Hagstrom: Really?
[16:45] Turgeon: But partly in California partly when my brother and-and partly with us. He never established the home again after that.
[16:53] Hagstrom: Coming to Smith. What was the experience of coming to Smith?
[16:56] Turgeon: Well, for me it was a mixed blessing because I was put in what was called Park Annex, still is called Park Annex, over there and I was the only fuzzy little freshman, everybody else there was a junior, or senior, you know, 5 foot 10, skinny, long blonde hair, bows all around them and I was this fat little something or other, and the only undergraduate, I mean underclassman in the-that was, that was bad but, and I decided in February that I wasn’t going to take any more of this.
[17:32] Hagstrom: Is this the powder? [gestures to face]
[17:33] Turgeon: Yeah. You want me to tell that story?
[17:34] Hagstrom: Please [Laughing] I remember this.
[17:35] Turgeon: All right. I went to- over to see Mrs. Laura Lord Scales. Who was then called, at those days called the warden. I guess, advisedly so we-you know, we-
[17:48] Hagstrom: There was still a warden when I was in college,
[17:50] Turgeon: Well that was Mrs. Scales! But she died at 125. Just a few years ago.
[17:55] Hagstrom: [Laughing] Really?
[17:57] Turgeon: Yeah. Anyway, Mrs. Scales looked at me and I told my story and said that I thought I'd rather go back near Boston. And I thought probably I could get in since I'd made the college before. And she said, “You don't want to do that, Charlotte.” And I said, “Well, I'm not sure about that, but I certainly don't like living where I am.” No one spoke to me ever.
[18:17] Hagstrom: Really?
[18:18] Turgeon: It was really, you know, you’d go over to-
[18:18] Hagstrom: Was it because you were a freshman and-?
[18:21] Turgeon: I was a freshman, these were all juniors and seniors with loads and loads of beaus and even the housemother had a love affair going, and I just felt really out of it. So anyway, I, um, she said, “I want you to take my powder.” And her powder was the color of flour, okay, and of course she knew perfectly- I was such an innocent, I didn’t realize what was up. Anyway, she said, “I'm going to call the doctor,” who was a very close friend of hers, and the doctor lived between here and the front of the of the library in length, and she looked at me and said, “I don't think you look very well and I don't think you're living in the right place.” And in an hour and a half, I was in another house. And those days you only changed once a year- once a four years.
[19:05] Hagstrom: This is now your freshman year?
[19:07] Turgeon: This was my freshman year.
[19:08] Hagstrom: And where did you move to?
[19:10] Turgeon: Ellen Emerson house in the quadrangle loved it. I still do. And I still keep up with all the girls.
[19:17] Hagstrom: Really, really.
[19:17] Hagstrom: And you live there the rest of your time at Smith?
[19:19] Turgeon: Except for my junior year abroad.
[19:20] Hagstrom: Right, right, right. What did you do after your freshman year at Smith, the summer?
[19:26] Turgeon: That summer, went back, had fun at Sunapee.
[19:30] Hagstrom: And then came back to Smith?
[19:33] Turgeon: And then came back soph-
[19:33] Hagstrom: And did you-did one pick out majors in the same way we do now?
[19:35] Turgeon: Well I knew that my father had said to me, “I want you to come out with a tool. And I don't mean a typewriter.”
[19:43] Hagstrom: Really?
[19:45] Turgeon: In fact, I never learned to type until after I was out of college.
[19:47] Hagstrom: What did he mean?
[19:49] Turgeon: I don't know. But he wanted me to be able to earn my living. And I had always been interested in languages and I just decided that was it. So I did it. So I took both French and Italian.
[20:01] Hagstrom: Starting?
[20:01] Turgeon: Freshman year.
[20:03] Hagstrom: Really, really. And then Ju-sophomore year, and then you went abroad?
[20:08] Turgeon: And I went abroad for my-and I, I took both tests, French and Italian, and got- passed them both. But then I heard they were going to be 58 in the French group and 8 in the Italian group and there was no question in my mind, what I wanted to do.
[20:24] Hagstrom: Who were the- who is- first of all, who was president of Smith at that time?
[20:26] Turgeon: My hero, William Nielsen.
[20:29] Hagstrom: Was he? And-and who were the important people in the French and Italian departments then?
[20:33] Turgeon: Well, we had some very outstanding people. I worked personally with a man by the name of Cantarella, you've heard me talk about Helene. Helene, his wife, is still alive. And-
[20:43] Hagstrom: Is that? She's the widow of Professor Cantarella.
[20:47] Turgeon: Yeah. And I had her in French, at Smith and him in Italian. But, uh, so that's how I got to know them so well.
[20:58] Hagstrom: And did you- When you went abroad for your junior year. What did you do?
[21:03] Turgeon: Well, I went over with my mother for the first part of the summer. We left in June and she came home, I think it was in about the middle of August. Then I went down to Lake Como and joined Miss Mitchell and Miss Young who were the two Smith leaders there. Actually in-
[21:23] Hagstrom: Faculty of Smith abroad?
[21:26] Turgeon: Well, they were there for the summer.
[21:28] Hagstrom: I see, okay, okay.
[21:30] Turgeon: They were there for the summer and Miss Young came back to work here. And then Miss, Miss Mitchell stayed over. And the-the when the ca-I had about three weeks with them alone, and then when the group came over from Smith, we went down to meet them there in Rome, and then went- Why did we go to Rome? No, we didn't. We went to Naples and met them, and then we went up to Perugia and studied for six weeks.
[22:01] Hagstrom: As a group?
[22:03] Turgeon: No. Yes, as a group. Oh, yes. Oh yes, a group of eight people, which is not much.
[22:06] Hagstrom: Was the idea that the eight of you would be together the whole entire year abroad?
[22:11] Turgeon: Yes, but not in the same house.
[22:14] Hagstrom: No, no, no, no. Were you in the same area?
[22:16] Turgeon: No, we were in a hotel. And, and we were not allowed to speak a word of English, supposedly. And, and we were pretty good about that, I think, because this was our one chance to really learn the language solid before going into the university. It was at the University of Perugia, but it was a summer course. And you know, we played tennis, we did, had- went swimming, did all kinds of things, but we lived in the Perugia which is, you know, on a hill.
[22:45] Hagstrom: Right, right, right. And why Perugia?
[22:46] Turgeon: Because the university who, they ran it for other languages, I mean, you know, Japanese and German and others, and that was their specialty and they made money that way, I’m sure.
[22:58] Hagstrom: Sure, let me ask you a question. Junior years abroad now are a very common thing. My friend Luke did it, your grandson Ethan did it. And it's almost like falling off a log.
[23:13] Turgeon: Part of it, in fact, the college counts on it from the point of view of space.
[23:14] Hagstrom: Yes. That's right. Was- was it common when you were in college?
[23:19] Turgeon: No, it wasn't. Smith was the biggest university that did it.
[23:23] Hagstrom: Really?
[23:23] Turgeon: Yep. And then there was a consortium of- under the Sweetbriar people who began to, to expand, but we were the first ones over there. And, and it was also in Geneva,
[23:37] Hagstrom: Only for languages?
[23:38] Turgeon: and in Germany. Only for languages,
[23:40] Hagstrom: Not for sciences, but just-
[23:41] Turgeon: Well, and literature; and all that kind of thing. The fine arts, the liberal arts, but no, not sciences.
[23:48] Hagstrom: So really for people who were specializing in literature.
[23:52] Turgeon: In literature, yeah.
[23:53] Hagstrom: Alright, you arrived in Perugia-the group of you-you're studying and Miss Mitchell was with you.
[23:57] Turgeon: Miss Mitchell was with me, was with us. Everything was going just fine. And that was a period that the one thing everybody did at five o'clock in the afternoon was to go and take a walk up and down the main street of the village. And we all did that. And that's how you got to know people. And it was perfectly alright for strange young men to come up and say, you know, I like your looks. Can we walk?
[24:22] Hagstrom: Really?
[24:24] Turgeon: And that's all you did do. Then you literally went home, went home to do more study.
[24:29] Hagstrom: Did you stay then in Perugia for how-
[24:30] Turgeon: For six weeks
[24:31] Hagstrom: For six weeks and then what?
[24:32] Turgeon: Then into Florence.
[24:34] Hagstrom: In Florence, why Florence?
[24:38] Turgeon: Because that's where we're getting our degree was the University of Florence-
[24:39] Hagstrom: The whole group?
[24:40] Turgeon: Yep, the whole, the whole group, and when- But it was at the time of Mussolini. And Mussolini had said that year that nobody could go to school. No schools were open until all the harvest was in because there were so many in the military still. And of course, Smith College wasn’t playing that game. And so what happened was that we studied in a, in an attic of a pensione, for well, ‘til two weeks before Christmas I think it was.
[25:11] Hagstrom: Did Miss Mitchell stay on in Europe all this time?
[25:15] Turgeon: She not only stayed on, she was our leader. Oh, thank you very much. She was our leader. But the day that we were supposed to start, didn’t start because of Mussolini, I was- had been elected the head of the group of eight, not what you'd call an honors job, at least I didn't think it was going to be. But she called me in to tell me she had cancer. And that was the day I grew up. Because she said, I am going to stay on. I'm going to direct it from here, from my bedroom. I will still teach, which meant helping, you know, augment whatever the professors at the university were doing. But you'll have to take care of the social end of it and be in charge of the expeditions. And I was what, well I was just 19 at the time. And-
[26:10] Hagstrom: Was that frightening?
[26:12] Turgeon: I don't remember being frightened. No, I don't remember being frightened. I remember, you know, struggling with my conscience because I was not absolutely- we weren't we weren't allowed to go into a car. Well, if you had a boyfriend you got a car and got into the car, you know, and- and here I was sort of against and I was not that perfect. And I saw a lot of Florence sitting on the back of an automobile, car that we got out of, out of Florence. I don't know, this probably ought to be edited out but-
[26:47] Hagstrom: Well, whatever.
[26:48] Turgeon: Anyway, that's. So that's what we did. And every day I reported to her and she almost never came to the University. We would go to her room.
[26:59] Hagstrom: And she continued to be effective, though?
[27:01] Turgeon: Oh yeah, she would be effective, and she gave all the orders. And particularly when, you know, a crisis would come up as far as scheduling and that kind of thing were concerned, the professors would come to her. As far as I remember, I don't ever remember seeing her, or at least not often, there.
[27:17] Hagstrom: Where did you spend Christmas that year?
[27:22] Turgeon: Very sadly. They have no idea, in those days, of celebrating Christmas, it was the day that all the maids were allowed to go home. And so what you had and what I hated was aspic. Everything was an aspic, you know, meat was in aspics the potatoes were done in some way.
[27:39] Hagstrom: So that they were done before?
[27:40] Turgeon: Everything was done before the maids were allowed out. And, and then we were left and I had given myself to Christmas, a ticket to hear Heifetz play in the amphitheater, beautiful place in Florence, newly built actually at that time, and but I couldn't stand that. So of course, I had to do something about Christmas. So I decorated- they were bored to death. They all got the flu and they all went to bed. And it was a family with several children in it, around my age.
[28:18] Hagstrom: This is where you were staying?
[28:18] Turgeon: That’s the family I stayed with. Patrizi by name, he was a paple noble,
[28:25] Hagstrom: Really?
[28:26] Turgeon: From not-not a government.
[28:30] Hagstrom: Not aristocratic, but papel? Yeah. Family still there, in Florence?
[28:35] Turgeon: They’re all dead.
[28:38] Hagstrom: Really. Did, when you were in, when you were abroad, all these eight students, did they live with different families?
[28:43] Turgeon: Two by two.
[28:45] Hagstrom: I see, I see. And then-then you went to the University of Florence and converged on Miss Mitchell's room for directions and so forth.
[28:50] Turgeon: I alone.
[28:54] Hagstrom: Oh, you alone. I see. I see.
[28:54] Turgeon: If she wanted to tutor someone, they would go there.
[28:58] Hagstrom: Sure.
[28:58] Turgeon: But I don't remember who went there.
[29:00] Hagstrom: Was it a good year?
[29:02] Turgeon: I thought it was a wonderful year.
[29:04] Hagstrom: Really.
[29:06] Turgeon: I decided that- that was when I decided I was going to change my religion. I was going to change everything. No one was going to tell me what I could do. It was a year of growing up.
[29:12] Hagstrom: And you came back in June or you came back-
[29:15] Turgeon: I came back in. Well, we didn't get through until July.
[29:20] Hagstrom: Really.
[29:22] Turgeon: And I took my finals, which were oral, with a temperature of 103.
[29:26] Hagstrom: Really.
[29:27] Turgeon: But managed to-
[29:27] Hagstrom: In Florence?
[29:28] Turgeon: In Florence, right there.
[29:28] Hagstrom: And then-
[29:30] Turgeon: All that with all the Fren- all the Italian professors.
[29:31] Hagstrom: And then came back how?
[29:34] Turgeon: Came back by-
[29:36] Hagstrom: Florence to where?
[29:37] Turgeon: Florence to. I can't- see if I can remember- I haven't thought of that for a long time. I came back, did I go back up to Paris? No, I don't think so. I think I- I know exactly where I went out of, I went out of Geona.
[29:51] Hagstrom: Really, really.
[29:53] Turgeon: Wonderful time with it, we had a seven day crossing, and first class, and an orchestra, and full moonlight that just- you know, perfect, wonderful time.
[30:04] Hagstrom: Arrivederci.
[30:07] Turgeon: Yeah, arrivederci for good.
[30:07] Hagstrom: And then-then back to-back to Smith for your senior year-
[30:11] Turgeon: Back to Smith for my senior year.
[30:12] Hagstrom: So back at Smith for your senior year, you were really a different person after this Italian experience.
[30:17] Turgeon: Yes and it’s not- I wouldn't advise it as a- for a lot of people. You never really feel a part of the college- I had held a lot of offices and things my sophomore year, not a lot, but several, at college, and people forget you. That was not true of Ellen Emerson House. We were all back, we were too close of a group. But then as a class, as a member of class- I spent most of my time with, with professors and their wives.
[30:48] Hagstrom: But how much of that is also being quite different having spent a year away growing up and, and being really not-
[30:57] Turgeon: Being an adult.
[30:58] Hagstrom: Exactly, not being an adolescent anymore.
[30:59] Turgeon: Exactly, exactly.
[31:00] Hagstrom: And, because I think that Amherst College students have that experience when they come back after being seriously abroad.
[31:07] Turgeon: I think it’s true. And that's why Charlie Cole was against it. You know?
[31:10] Hagstrom: I didn't know that. Is that right? I, was he against?
[31:12] Turgeon: Oh he was very much against junior year abroad.
[21:15] Hagstrom: Is that right?
[31:17] Turgeon: He and I had long conversations about that.
[31:18] Hagstrom: Interesting.
[31:19] Hagstrom: Coming back to Smith, you were- you majored in Italian?
[31:23] Turgeon: I majored in Italian.
[31:25] Hagstrom: And, now I know King comes into the picture. Tell- tell the story.
[31:30] Turgeon: Oh what happened then was that there was a there was a custom over there that the President of the Italian club, which I was, called Il Tricolore- the club- club was called that, had to put on a play at the theater and it had to be a real thing. And I decided early on that I would be much better at doing two single plays, then one major one much easier to- to mount and so forth, and so did it that way. And I said to Professor Cantarella, do you know anybody who speaks Italian around here?
[32:13] Hagstrom: Anybody- a man.
[32:14] Turgeon: A man, yeah too, who would take the lead in one of these- a play that was called “schiccheri se grande” which means schiccher- a big guy. Anyway, that was the name of the play. And it was a, it was a classic. And so he said yes he did know somebody and he asked him to come over. So that's how I met King.
[32:37] Hagstrom: King was then on the faculty at Amherst. [[Talking over each other]]
[32:40] Turgeon: [[Talking over each other]] He was on the faculty at Amherst but only as a-
[32:41] Hagstrom: [[Talking over Charlotte]] What year was this Charlotte? Is this 1933?
[32:47] Turgeon: ‘34.
[32:45] Hagstrom: ‘34. Okay.
[32:48] Turgeon: And, ‘33/‘34, because I graduated in ‘34 and his- so he came over and of course he was a born actor.
[32:58] Hagstrom: A ham actor?
[32:59] Turgeon: Ham actor. Well he was- he majored in drama a good deal at Bowdoin
[33:03] Hagstrom: [[Talking over]] Did he really? I didn’t know that.
[33:04] Turgeon: [[Talking over]] Oh yeah, oh yeah.
[33:05] Turgeon: No, no. He played a lot of things. In fact, my son Tom, who, a few years ago had to go up to help with the theater at Bowdoin. To his surprise, he had to go to the toilet in there, in the back of the toilet was a great big caricature of his father.
[33:22] Hagstrom: Is that right?
[33:25] Turgeon: Playing years, years, years before that. Anyway, that's how-that's how [[Talking over each other]] he came over.
[33:38] Hagstrom: [[Talking over each other] So King came over, alright.
[33:31] Turgeon: He came over. And the story is, and I spent most of my senior year babysitting the Cantarella children.
[33:36] Hagstrom: Professor Cantarella, okay.
[33:38] Turgeon: Children, alright. And Mrs. Cantarella has told us in public several times that one day she came home. And saw King coming down Ramada Avenue, not with one ice cream cone, but with two ice cream cones. And she said, “Uh oh, something's happening” Laughs]]. Anyway, he used to come over while I babysat.
[33:59] Hagstrom: So that’s when you met, and he courted you.
[34:02] Turgeon: That's right.
[34:02] Hagstrom: In the Cantarella’s living room.
[34:03] Turgeon: In the Cantarella’s living room. Certainly did and then continue to ‘cause I went to start my MA up at Middlebury. And he, much to my surprise, was there when I got there. And he was, and he lived with the Cantarella that summer, because they were- he was teaching up there at-
[34:20] Hagstrom: At Middlebury?
[34:22] Turgeon: At Middlebury, Mr. Cantarella was.
[34:22] Hagstrom: So you went from Smith, you graduated in the class of ‘34 and went to Middlebury for the summer to-
[34:31] Turgeon: To start my MA.
[34:32] Hagstrom: Really, I didn't know that. And King was there?
[34:36] Turgeon: And much to my surprise he was-
[34:36] Hagstrom: And then and then what happened, did you-
[34:37] Turgeon: Well, then- then things, the ball got rolling.
[34:41] Hagstrom: Now let's tell the story, I mean, I really don’t know this story.
[34:44] Turgeon: Well, it's only that he had to go to class. And he couldn't be there just socially. He had to sign up for class, here he had a PhD in languages but he had to go back and do summer school and- at Middlebury and he did and we got engaged on the 27th of July. And on the 28th, he resigned from- he stayed on but he didn’t go to classes anymore.
[35:08] Hagstrom: Really? So you played that summer?
[35:09] Turgeon: Yeah, yeah, yep.
[35:11] Hagstrom: How wonderful.
[35:13] Turgeon: We did. And then we again did that same play up there.
[35:14] Hagstrom: And then what? Then what happened? I mean, he had to come back to Amherst, obviously, in the autumn.
[35:20] Turgeon: He came, he came that, but that time, he was in a great hurry to get married. I really think anybody could walk down the hill and he would have married them at that point. [[Hagstrom laughs]]
[35:31] Turgeon: But anyway, he went to- he- we thought we’d get married next June.
[35:39] Turgeon: And mother thought that was a terrible month to get married. So we do it in April. All right, we'll do it in April. Then, they decided they want to go abroad. So that wasn't a good idea. So we couldn’t do it in April, but that time King was saying, Well, if we're gonna do it that soon, we certainly don't want to do it at Christmas. Let's do it at Thanksgiving. So, mother nearly died. She only had three months to get ready for the wedding. But-
[36:03] Hagstrom: And in fact, that was the case.
[36:06] Turgeon: That was the case.
[36:07] Hagstrom: Where was King living this time? I mean, this is-this is a fairly short period of time.
[36:09] Turgeon: Yes, it was. And-
[36:14] Hagstrom: [[Talking over]] Shockingly short wasn't that.
[36:14] Turgeon: George Funnell was-had been living with him for 12 years. And he had to find a new place to live. And he was not pleased. And when George wasn't pleased, he wasn't pleased, but he was a good sport about it.
[36:27] Hagstrom: I had George as a teacher.
[36:30] Turgeon: Did you?
[36:31] Hagstrom: Sure, sure.
[36:32] Turgeon: A good teacher.
[36:33] Hagstrom: Oh, absolutely.
[36:33] Turgeon: Yeah.
[36:33] Hagstrom: Very, very humorous man.
[36:33] Turgeon: Oh, very funny, very funny
[36:34] Hagstrom: Yeah. Where did the bachelors-
[36:37] Turgeon: They all moved down to what we call the Schloss, which is now opposite-
[36:40] Hagstrom: Let's let's go back a bit. When we refer to the bachelors in that period. It was Tuffy McGoun.
[36:46] Turgeon: At that point, there were nine. There were nine of them I know because they all came to the wedding. And there were and several of them were in the wedding of course, but there, were there was Tuffy McGoun and Tony Scenna and George Funnell and Charlie Rogers.
[37:04] Hagstrom: The guy who worked in the library
[37:06] Turgeon: Al Havighurst, but he didn't live with them.
[37:12] Hagstrom: Okay.
[37:12] Turgeon: I thought there were nine in all.
[37:14] Hagstrom: Oh, really?
[37:16] Turgeon: I think so.
[37:16] Turgeon: That's seven there.
[37:17] Hagstrom: The guy who worked in the library?
[37:19] Turgeon: Kim Morsman?
[37:20] Hagstrom: Kim Morsman.
[37:21] Turgeon: Yes, it was one of them. But he lived- He lived in the old faculty club which no longer exists.
[37:26] Hagstrom: I see, I see. Anyway, George, George Funnell and King were living together- where?
[37:30] Turgeon: On South Pleasant Street. That two story, two floored place, the baseball coach had a floor below. And we had the second and third floor or he had the second and third floor at that point. That was wonderful, nine rooms for $25 a month.
[37:47] Hagstrom: Really? Really. And then when you got married at Thanksgiving, we are, you came you came back to Winchester and-
[37:54] Turgeon: I came back to Winchester did nothing but premarital parties, you know, in those days it was a big deal. And it was a big wedding was about 500 people there.
[38:03] Hagstrom: And King was in Amherst?
[38:05] Turgeon: King was in Amherst, coming down weekends. And then I came up here once or twice with the decorating and that kind of thing. And everybody came down and changed their clothes in gas stations I remember, from Amherst.
[38:17] Hagstrom: Really? You were married at Thanksgiving time.
[38:19] Turgeon: Night before.
[38:20] Hagstrom: Night before. Let's, let's go back to Amherst a little bit, King was with living with George and then and then George had to get out.
[38:27] Turgeon: George had to get out. [[Talking over each other]] And then-
[38:28] Hagstrom: [[Talking over each other]] Where did George go?
[38:31] Turgeon: He went to this place that we call the Schloss on South Pleasant Street [[shaking head]] on, uh, on College lane.
[38:35] Hagstrom: And that's where they lived forever and ever?
[38:37] Turgeon: Forever.
[38:37] Hagstrom: Right.
[38:38] Turgeon: You knew them there.
[38:39] Hagstrom: He was living there when I was in college.
[38:40] Turgeon: He lived and died there, as far as I know.
[38:44] Hagstrom: Is that right? And you got married the night before Thanksgiving. And where did you go on your honeymoon?
[38:47] Turgeon: We went to New York City and spent everything; we came back with $5 in our pockets, I remember. Because we wanted to go to all the theaters and all the dancing we could do in five days, which we did.
[38:59] Hagstrom: Really?
[39:01] Hagstrom: Came back to Amherst
[39:03] Turgeon: Came back to Amherst Monday. And he went right back to class.
[39:05] Hagstrom: Really? And had you had- had the place been furnished and so forth and so on?
[39:10] Turgeon: Well, he had it pretty well furnished and you know, we changed it of course with all our wedding presents and things.
[39:16] Hagstrom: How long did you live there?
[39:19] Turgeon: Three years in all, one of which was in Europe, but we kept it there.
[39:23] Hagstrom: This is 1934.
[39:27] Turgeon: Yeah. And Charlie was born in 1935.
[39:32] Hagstrom: Okay, and so he really- you brought Charlie back to South Pleasant Street then.
[39:38] Turgeon: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
[39:39] Hagstrom: And took Charlie abroad with you sabbatical of ‘36.
[39:43] Turgeon: Mhmm. Took him on sabbatical for a year. And that was-
[39:47] Hagstrom: And why didn't you continue to live on South Pleasant Street?
[39:50] Turgeon: Because a-King’s godfather, godparents, a brother and a sister actually, left him enough money for us to build a house.
[40:02] Hagstrom: Really? Did you want to build a house?
[40:04] Turgeon: King didn't want to have anything to do with anybody who could tell him when he- where he was going when he retired.
[40:12] Hagstrom: Really?
[40:11] Turgeon: Mhmm. Even then.
[40:12] Hagstrom: That's a long time ago.
[40:17] Turgeon: Yeah.
[40:15] Hagstrom: Because wasn't it in vogue much for faculty to live in Amherst College owned houses?
[40:21] Turgeon: Oh, yeah, sure.
[40:22] Hagstrom: [[Talking over each other]] I mean, the Morgans did it, the McKeons did it-
[40:24] Turgeon: That’s just getting over now.
[40:27] Hagstrom: Really?
[40:29] Turgeon: It's always been that way. But we didn't- he didn't want the College Treasurer to tell him: A) What he had to pay and what he wanted to- You know, he's a Maine man.
[40:38] Hagstrom: Right, right.
[40:38] Turgeon: Maine men can't be drove.
[40:39] Hagstrom: That's very interesting. And so did you go looking for property?
[40:43] Turgeon: Yes, we went looking for property. And what we wanted was, to begin with, was the property where the Charles Morgans eventually built.
[40:53] Hagstrom: Really, on Snell Street?
[40:54] Turgeon: Charles Morgan said, “I consider” said to King, “I consider you one of my closest friends, but you won't be if you build there. Because I want it.”
[41:01] Hagstrom: Really? Who owned the property then?
[41:03] Turgeon: The Bennetts- the college, the college, really, but the Bennetts lived there for-
[41:08] Hagstrom: And then subsequently, Charlie Morgan bought that from the college and built their own private house. And so, but that was your first choice.
[41:17] Turgeon: That was-well, that was the first place we looked at. King detected a- his father- his family members were in the building business.
[41:28] Hagstrom: The lumber business right?
[41:30] Turgeon: Lumber business but also building, it was two different firms. Anyway, his- he felt very strongly that that was- that the river, the going out and coming through was a danger spot. And it was fun to hear Janet rationalized that in recent years.
[41:47] Hagstrom: So many years later.
[41:48] Turgeon: [[Talking over]] But it was, King would say-
[41:53] Hagstrom: [[Talking over]] Charlotte, let’s digress for a minute. Tell me a little bit about King’s background.
[41:55] Turgeon: King’s father, who we are now just discovering about, son Charles has gone into genealogy in a great way. And we have now discovered a lot about the Turgeon family. But by the time I moved into the family, King’s family had moved down- had moved once down from Canada, then gone back, they came over in the 1700s. And not to do anything but to beat the English at commerce. None of this war business-
[42:26] Hagstrom: No religious persecution at all [[talking over]]
[42:27] Turgeon: None of this religion, nothing. It was just plain money. [[Hagstrom laughs]] Just plain money. So we've been going, doing that all this summer. But his, anyway, he- I've lost my train of thought. But his father was Charles and his father was one of four boys, all of whom settled into businesses. Three-
[42:54] Hagstrom: This is King’s grandfather?
[42:55] Turgeon: No, this is King’s father. And it was called ‘Turgeon Brothers’. And were three boys, and then the three sons were supposed to inherit it, but King didn't want that, he never did.
[43:04] Hagstrom: This was where? In Lewiston?
[43:04] Turgeon: This was in Lewiston, but the whole family house was in Auburn. Right next door to it.
[43:07] Hagstrom: King grew up in Auburn?
[43:11] Turgeon: Grew up there, and went Bowdoin and even taught math while he was in Bowdoin.
[43:20] Hagstrom: Bowdoin was a very happy experience for him wasn't it?
[43:23] Turgeon: It was a very happy. He was very into drama. He was in all the plays and, and just bright. The only time he, his father scolded him was when he came home with an A minus. I mean, the Turgeons don’t get A minuses. Times have changed.
[43:39] Hagstrom: Now was King's father, was he an educated man?
[43:43] Turgeon: Well, no, ordinary high school educated. His mother is where I think the brilliance lay.
[43:49] Hagstrom: Oh really?
[43:50] Turgeon: She was born and brought up in Washington DC. Her father was the cartographer for the White House, for the government. In Washington. And then they moved to Albion, Michigan, which is where Charlie Rogers lives. And where all the family portraits that you know about are repainted but he was sent out there by the government so that they were there so her, his mother was born there. But then they moved back to Washington.
[44:22] Hagstrom: You obviously knew them, King's parents.
[44:25] Turgeon: Never.
[44:29] Hagstrom: You didn't know them. Really?
[44:30] Turgeon: Not till after I was engaged.
[44:30] Hagstrom: No, no, I mean, you knew them after you're engaged.
[44:33] Turgeon: Oh, very much so. Oh, yes. Very fond of them.
[44:36] Hagstrom: Were they nice people?
[44:35] Turgeon: Oh! Wonderful people and his father was the kind that would, you would sit at his feet for hours on end, and he would tell tales of early Canada and early- of his early experience in Canada. I could listen to that man forever. And his mother had a real twinkle in her eye, a real twinkle in her eye. And she was very solid, very well read. Left Washington to become a proofreader at the Riverside Press in Cambridge. Lived with relatives in Newton for a while. But the whole family had a summer home up in Maine. And that's where the two- where he met- where she met her husband.
[45:16] Hagstrom: Mr. Turgeon, King’s father.
[45:17] Hagstrom: And were they a part of your life? Like when you got married?
[45:23] Turgeon: Very occasionally, very occasionally. We summered up in Maine. And would be- and see them Sunday noon for dinner and that kind of thing. But they weren't the visiting type. I mean, they, every time we had a baby, they came down to see it and went right back, that kind of thing. But no, but very friendly. And King talked every, every Sunday with his mother at great length.
[45:49] Hagstrom: They were close.
[45:49] Turgeon: She wrote him every day, every Sunday. So no, it was a very close family. And he had two brothers and both very, very tall. Unlike King.
[46:00] Hagstrom: Just to digress for a minute, you're saying that King’s father was worried about that river on Snell Street? Wasn’t it King's brother who was enthusiastic about the house in Maine?
[46:12] Turgeon: Who made us buy the house in Maine? Yeah.
[46:14] Hagstrom: Father dissuading buying the property at Amherst and brother encouraging to buy-
[46:20] Turgeon: But the- well, no, he didn't dissuade the property in Amherst because that was, that was given to us by King’s godparents.
[46:29] Hagstrom: No, I mean buying that piece on Snell Street.
[46:31] Turgeon: Oh, yes. The piece on Snell Street. Yeah, that's really King who found the water there. He inherited some of these tendencies. But every piece of wood that's in Blake field, as it now stands, had been tapped by Mr. Turgeon- Father Turgeon’s pipe.
[46:48] Hagstrom: Is that right?
[46:50] Turgeon: He could tell you whether a piece of wood was whole or not and throw it out.
[46:56] Hagstrom: After the Snell Street property, you didn’t- you looked at that. Where else did you look in Amherst?
[46:59] Turgeon: We only looked on Blake Field
[47:01] Hagstrom: Oh, really?
[47:01] Turgeon: Yeah. And we wanted the whole end of it.
[47:04] Hagstrom: Well, Blake field was, what was Blake Field?
[47:07] Turgeon: It was the original football field of Amherst College. And after Amherst built Pratt Field, then they gave this or lent it, lent it to the high school for their football field. And there were marks when we bought the place over the-
[47:25] Hagstrom: And there were plots for sale?
[47:29] Turgeon: And well, it was owned by Amherst College, and Stanley King advised us to buy it. And we said, yes, we'd like to have the whole end he said, Oh, no, this is gonna be divided into four parts. It was a four acre lot. So we only, we chose the lot. And then we had it, because of the war, we had it for 18 years. Without anybody else there-
[47:53] Hagstrom: Isn’t it a bit unusual for the president of the college to actually get involved in advising a faculty member?
[47:56] Turgeon: Oh well, remember that Stanley King and my father were great friends before I ever was even a twinkle in his eye. Yeah. So he was like a father to me.
[48:08] Hagstrom: Stanley King was?
[48:09] Turgeon: Oh absolutely. And a grandfather to Charlie, my son.
[48:12] Hagstrom: Really?
[48:13] Turgeon: No, no big person ever came to the president's office that the telephone wouldn't ring for Charlie to come up and meet him. He met all the greats of the war, Eisenhower the whole-
[48:25] Hagstrom: Because of Stanley?
[48:27] Turgeon: Because of Stanley. Stanley was just a-
[48:28] Hagstrom: So when you came to Amherst, you were really, you really had that leg up with Stanley.
[48:34] Turgeon: Yeah, I didn’t know anything about it. I didn't know anything about it. Dad and Mr. King were both working for the government during the First World War. And every Friday night they came up in the train together. They weren’t- dad was in charge of all the food that went to- all the meat. All the meat that went to-
[48:50] Hagstrom: Stanley was then in business in Boston?
[48:52] Turgeon: No. He was. But he moved down to Washington and worked with the famous judge. What's his name? I have his, his dictionary now, comes from Amherst too, quite a famous man. Anyway, he was in his court, he was in law, he was in law there. But they came up, down on the same train and moved in the same social circle.
[49:16] Hagstrom: And then you, you designed the house on Blake Field. The two of you?
[49:20] Turgeon: The two of us did but then we hired, we hired a real architect. We couldn’t get the back stairs in- we got the front stairs, but we couldn’t get the back stairs in.
[49:30] Hagstrom: It was a very commodious, comfortable house.
[49:30] Turgeon: It was a real family house. No doubt about it.
[49:32] Hagstrom: When did you build it? ‘35? ‘36? ‘37?
[49:34] Turgeon: We moved in in ‘38.
[49:39] Hagstrom: Really? Just before the war.
[49:40] Turgeon: Yeah, just before the war. And we're there. We moved in two days before the hurricane. Lost our whole backyard.
[49:51] Hagstrom: But the house?
[49:50] Turgeon: The house stood solid. So it says something for the construction.
[49:55] Hagstrom: Absolutely. Absolutely. Tell a little bit about the wedding. It was, it was the night before Thanksgiving.
[50:00] Turgeon: It was the night before Thanksgiving, 500 guests. It took place in the Episcopal Church, which was very hard on my Unitarian mother. One of the things I had done was turn Episcopal Church when I was in Florence. They were very good sports about it. But when it came to the dreadful day of judgment, mother couldn't stand that and you could hear the gasp all around the wedding, all around the church when Tui Kinsolving talked about the dreadful day of judgment. But it was a, it was a very lovely-
[50:67] Hagstrom: Big wedding Charlotte?
[50:39] Turgeon: Well, 500 is a big wedding.
[50:38] Hagstrom: Yeah, but in terms of attendants.
[50:40] Turgeon: Everybody was there, 500.
[50:46] Hagstrom: No, in terms of bride’s, groom’s, bride-
[50:44] Turgeon: Oh, attendants. What did I have? I had six, six bridesmaids and a maid of honor.
[50:54] Hagstrom: Really, and King-
[50:54] Turgeon: King had, let me see, Kim Morsman was the best man, because King’s best friend, who was a handsome giant of about six foot three by the name of Cobb, and who was his roommate in college. Heard how many people were going to be there, refused to be.
[51:14] Hagstrom: Scared?
[51:16] Turgeon: Scared. Just scared. So Kim Morsman arrived. And that wonderful Gilbert and Sullivan, I had it on my list. He had a series of lists of everything we were supposed to think, say, do, the rest, until we got married. He was just, he just loved organizing that thing. And he did it with a sense of humor.
[51:36] Hagstrom: He was that way till he died. King- Kim-
[51:40] Turgeon: You mean, he liked to organize? This time, but yes, but he lost his sense of humor. And this and at this point, we went to the Ritz, and he had the whole place redecorated with suggestive little cartoons and- Oh, it was a riot.
[51:52] Hagstrom: Who else was, what other groomsmen did King have that were on the faculty here? Was George Funnell in the wedding?
[52:04] Turgeon: Oh yes, he was there with a monocle. Tuffy was not there and got very cross and managed to bawl me out that night because some of- it was a candlelight wedding and the wax got on his tuxedo and that's- Tuffy, he was not amused about that. Let me see. Of course my cousin was in it. My brother was in it. And two of his Harvard roommates because King was five years at Harvard, you see and, before he came here. The two of them were in there, I don't even remember their names now.
[52:40] Hagstrom: Back to Blake Field, and Charlie was born in what ‘35?
[52:46] Turgeon: [[Talking over each other]] 1935.
[52:43] Hagstrom: [[Talking over each other]] We’re talking about Charlie Turgeon? Son Charlie?
[52:46] Turgeon: [[Talking over each other]] Yeah. Son Charlie.
[52:50] Hagstrom: [[Talking over each other]] Born in ‘35. And you took him abroad.
[52:55] Hagstrom: What did you do with the baby and when you took them on sabbatical in ‘35? Where’d you ditch him?
[52:59] Turgeon: Well, we had a, we had an apartment. Where did I catch him, you say?
[53:07] Hagstrom: Ditch him.
[53:08] Turgeon: I had for $5 a week a maid. A full time maid.
[53:11] Hagstrom: This is in Paris?
[53:13] Turgeon: In Paris.
[53:13] Turgeon: And I thought I didn't know what I was going to do with myself and King said,” Oh, well, you'll go to the Sorbonne.” Because, of course, I'd only been to Italy. For my junior year. Well I went to the Sorbonne, I was bored to death, because it was just exactly what I'd been doing in Italian, and of course, I was quickly going into French because of him. And I came home and I said, I just am not. I'm just bored to death. I would get up at six o'clock in the morning, bathe the baby, because of course at that point you don’t think anybody else is capable of it, and then turn him over to this maid. And then I go off to study and get home four or five at night. And there wasn’t anything that was new to me in this. Because well, I've been studying French all of the time I've been studying Italian too. So anyway, I came home and said,” You know, I'm not gonna waste my time doing this.” King said, “What are you gonna do?” I said, “I don’t know.” He said, “Why don’t you learn how to cook?”
[54:17] Hagstrom: King suggested that you learn to cook?
[54:19] Turgeon: Yeah. He knew what he was doing.
[54:22] Hagstrom: Looking for his dinner.
[54:25] Turgeon: Yeah, exactly. But no-
[54:27] Hagstrom: What was he doing abroad? Was he writing?
[54:28] Turgeon: He was writing and we had a, well, not that time. That time we had the full time maid and I worked at the- I went as a student to the Cordon Bleu until Christmas time and then went back after vacation. And the head of the school called me in and said to me, “You seem to be taking this very seriously, madam, and our chef has been called to Nice because of the death of the great Chez [?] whatever his name was down in Nice. And we lack an assistant, would you like to do it?” Well, that's like being given three years in one year. And we did. And we cooked. Well, we cooked for the president of France three different times. I'm going to do that again for the last time, that the famous dish that I did for them.
[55:21] Hagstrom: What is the dish?
[55:23] Turgeon: Well, it's called, it's called chicken in fan shape. And it's a very difficult thing, it takes me three days to do it. I didn't that day, but it's the thing, it's a chicken salad, par excellence, it has truffles, it has, it's really very fancy, but it's made to look like a peacock fan. Yeah, and I've done it for each one of my relatives that have graduated from Amherst, and I've got the final one this year. I’m gonna do it for him, for Ethan. It's a large job. But anyway, that's what we made for the King of France, and we had to do it in one day. We were supposed to do it for a Wednesday, we thought.
[56:02] Hagstrom: For the President of France?
[56:03] Turgeon: For the President of France. What was his name? I can't even think now. Anyway, his- word came in that no, it wasn't for the Wednesday, it was for today. And the chef got up and said, “I'm going to ask that none of you ask any questions from either Madame. Madame [gestures to herself] or myself. Write them down. And we will deal with it afterwards. We are going to get this ready by one o'clock.” And in those days, you took off the feathers off the chicken.
[56:33] Hagstrom: Really? Okay. Only one chicken goes into this?
[56:36] Turgeon: No, no, no, no, there were several. And he had- he had known this since five in the morning. So he'd gotten a lot of this done. But then we had to cook it with all kinds of aromatics, you know, onions, celery, everything like that. Bring that, then you're supposed to let it cool. We dumped it in ice water. We got the same, and we carved it and we built the whole salad. And it got done at one o'clock.
[57:04] Hagstrom: Really? In time for luncheon?
[57:03] Turgeon: Well, in time to go up to the palace, goes to the palace for the thing.
[57:08] Hagstrom: Just a little bit back, back tracking here. If one goes to France and one is bored at the Sorbonne, what on earth made you go to the Cordon? How did you even know about the Cordon Bleu?
[57:21] Turgeon: Everybody knew about the Cordon Bleu. At that point, it was the only big school there. Now there, there are several more, well, there are three more, but it was something that I wanted to, that the minute King said, “Why don't you go to school?” I think it cost me something like $75 a semester in those days. And it was, and there were two schools running at the same time, one on the Rue de l’Ingénieur and one on the left bank, which was not too far from where our apartment was. So I would walk down to this [[?]]. And so it wasn't that hard to get to.
[57:58] Hagstrom: How many students in the class?
[58:00] Turgeon: Huge amphitheater, most of them, it was like 200 to 300. And you never you never took part in it except for your examination. You never did it.
[58:13] Hagstrom: No hands on?
[58:14] Turgeon: Well, some hands on. I can remember, we had a class with the cake decorating and how the Japanese did it so much better than the rest of us. It was all you know, they had all the little brooks flowing across the cake, top of the cake and the little bridges and all that kind of thing. Nothing that I was ever very good at. I liked the meat potatoes side of it.
[58:34] Hagstrom: But so if you enrolled in the Cordon Bleau, you're really enrolled in an amphitheater course.
[58:41] Turgeon: An amphitheater course and when you get your degree, and a lot of them didn't bother to come, to stay for a degree. A lot of them were chefs for very, very wealthy people, the King of Japan had sent his chef over, there was a Russian noble family sent their, so the language was really quite funny.
[59:03] Hagstrom: French being the common language, of course,
[59:05] Turgeon: No, there was no common language, they would just take what they saw. I had a, one student there and like a fool, I said da one day, nothing could convince him that I couldn't speak Russian. Just because I'd said, “Da.” I do have a feeling for languages, to the point that I can guess what people are saying, you know, and get, or at least I could, and I guess that's what I did in that case. But it was an extraordinary experience, and I stayed with him until I graduated in June. But it was much more relaxed than it is now. Now, they take themselves much more seriously. I mean, all I had to do, they said, he opened up his thing and said, “Well, why don't you make puff pastry?” So that's what I made. And that was my exam, and no written work.
[59:58] Hagstrom: The sabbatical ‘36 was the learning sabbatical for you in terms of cooking, but now back to Amherst in terms of coming here as a new wife.
[1:00:09] Turgeon: Scared stiff. Scared stiff. I must say everybody was so kind to me. I was by far the youngest. I was 21, just over 21.
[1:00:25] Hagstrom: Pretty formidable society at that time in Amherst.
[1:00:27] Turgeon: Everybody had to come and call on the new people and full professors had to stay for 20 minutes. Associate professors stayed 15 minutes so on down [[?]] and we were out for a walk one day and I saw a couple, I will not name them, because plenty of people know, remember them, but anyway, they were coming to make their full professorial call. And I was frozen from this long walk, it was snowy and everything. So I said to King, “Look, I’ve done this 20 times now, I'm going to get into a hot bath because I really feel cold. And you get rid of them.” He couldn't, they were full professors. So eventually they stayed for 45 minutes, I staying in this cold bath. Scared to move for fear they’d think I was there, because King had said I'd gone out.
[1:01:21] Hagstrom: Really?
[1:01:23] Turgeon: And so I sat there in that thing, frozen to death. But that's what you did. Now Charles Morgan came on a Sunday afternoon complete with tall hat, long morning coat, the works. And in those days, everybody had to have silver plates.
[1:01:46] Hagstrom: Sure, for cards.
[1:01:46] Turgeon: And then it was turned over if you were received. The corner. I was the last, of course, that was just before the war and all that changed with the war.
[1:01:55] Hagstrom: Sure. But now, you talk about the stratified society in the sense of professors, associate professors. What about in terms of sociability?
[1:02:06] Turgeon: Sociability is so different from now. It was not only- everybody, gave us a dinner party. Absolutely everybody gave us a dinner party.
[1:02:20] Hagstrom: Easygoing?
[1:02:23] Turgeon: It varied. The head of the, what was he, physics department was Sam Williams. That was as formal as Queen Victoria. And we had little place cards and we had, it was just, good housekeeping plus, you know, that kind of thing. On the other hand, all the bachelors and everything we just had fun, we took, we took long trips, we took long walks, we’d go up to Mount Toby, and that would be a party. But there were parties all the time. We all had maid service. Well practically everybody.
[1:02:53] Hagstrom: Sure, sure, but was it stra- What I'm really trying to get at, was it a stratified society in that the lower people were sort of treated inferior wise and so forth?
[1:03:04] Turgeon: I don't think so, I can't be absolutely sure, because of the fact that my father was such close friends with Stanley King, and that we were invited at the top level from the very beginning if there was that kind of thing, but I think-
[1:03:20] Hagstrom: You weren't aware of it, though?
[1:03:23] Turgeon: No, I was totally unaware of it. And when I think of the people that didn't sort of make the grade, it was because they wouldn't have made it anyway. And they were moving on, so to speak. But the old, the old warhorses were still here.
[1:03:37] Hagstrom: When you refer to old war horses, who're you talking about?
[1:03:39] Turgeon: Well, like Packard and Salmon and all those people.
[1:03:44] Hagstrom: Were they war horses in the ‘30s?
[1:03:47] Turgeon: In their ways. Now, I should immediately say that there were loads of parties at the Salmon’s but those were not fancy parties.
[1:03:54] Hagstrom: No, I should think not because they were not fancy people.
[1:03:56] Turgeon: No, they weren’t fancy people, but everybody was taken. What I like then was that there was no such thing as dividing things by departments. Whereas now in Amherst College, everybody socializes within, almost completely within their own department. And I find that very sad.
[1:04:14] Hagstrom: Well, I remember very well when I was an undergraduate, my faculty friends, like you were, also the Morgans or the McKeons. It was whatever it was a group of friends, interdepartmental
[1:04:30] Turgeon: Absolutely. Right across the board.
[1:04:31] Hagstrom: What did you do during the day? When, as a faculty wife in Amherst?
[1:04:34] Turgeon: Well you see, I started work pretty soon after- writing.
[1:04:37] Hagstrom: Writing, okay.
[1:04:39] Turgeon: Writing after, when I came back from the second trip abroad. I was starting-
[1:04:47] Hagstrom: Now let’s, we're talking ‘37,‘38, ‘39.
[1:04:50] Turgeon: Oh no, at that point, I was just bringing up babies. And with help. We had reading clubs, we read “War and Peace” in groups, women did. We did ye good works, the Ladies of Amherst was a very active and philanthropic affair.
[1:05:09] Hagstrom: There was a group called the Ladies of Amherst?
[1:05:12] Turgeon: Oh, you bet there was.
[1:05:12] Hagstrom: No I'm serious is it really?
[1:05:13] Turgeon: Oh, yes, sure. I think our silver urn is still over there in, not in Valentine, but in the Alumni House.
[1:05:21] Hagstrom: Really?
[1:05:22] Turgeon: Yeah. And we had formal tea parties once a month and we all had to become eventually president of the Ladies of Amherst. And you know, that was a great shame when that had to break up.
[1:05:37] Hagstrom: There were also clubs where they're not? Like the Travelers Club or?
[1:05:41] Turgeon: Still is.
[1:05:43] Hagstrom: Yeah, tell me about those clubs.
[1:05:44] Turgeon: Well there are two clubs, one of which Janet belonged to and one of which I belonged to. One was called the Travelers Club. Ours is the Travelers Club, and there's the Tuesday Club. The Tuesday Club like to think they were much more academic than we were. And they gave papers, well, we gave papers, but our papers were all on trips. Now, it's your own choice. Both clubs still are going strong.
[1:06:11] Hagstrom: Are they?
[1:06:12] Turgeon: Certainly the Travelers Club is. But the Travelers Club was mostly three- town and gown. And the the, I think I'm right in saying that the Tuesday Club was mostly intellectuals from the distaff side of both the university and, and at that time, of course it was State College.
[1:06:36] Hagstrom: And Amherst, yeah, but it- was the faculty, either Smith or Holyoke involved in this at all?
[1:06:45] Turgeon: No.
[1:06:48] Hagstrom: Was there much intercourse between Smith and Holyoke and Amherst, socially?
[1:06:49] Turgeon: Well, there was an in in our particular house because of our friendship with the Cantarellas and that kind of thing.
[1:06:53] Hagstrom: [[Talking over]] Yes, but other than that, were you?
[1:06:57] Turgeon: No, not really, that was quite separate.
[1:06:59] Hagstrom: Well, was there much college cooperation that you were aware of between?
[1:07:03] Turgeon: Nothing compared to what it is now, nothing compared to what it is now. But, but there was, it was friendly cooperation. But there wasn’t an interchange of courses.
[1:07:14] Hagstrom: Or faculty or anything like that.
[1:07:15] Turgeon: No. Well, every once in a while now King taught at Holyoke for a year, because somebody had to leave for sickness and King went over and took their place and that kind of thing. But if that would be a year arrangement, kind of thing.
[1:07:27] Hagstrom: When you entertain in the evening, like on a weekend, was it a lounge suit? Or was it a tuxedo? How did men dress?
[1:07:35] Turgeon: It was not tuxedo, but it was dress, people were dressed up.
[1:07:37] Hagstrom: And women would be in long gowns?
[1:07:40] Turgeon: Sometimes, but not always, you know, not always at that, pretty much the mode after a while everybody was wearing long gowns. But no, I wouldn't say, but we were nicely dressed.
[1:07:53] Hagstrom: Sure.
[1:07:54] Turgeon: Yeah.
[1:07:54] Hagstrom: What about faculty involvement in the college? I mean, like the wives I mean. I remember when I was in college, Mrs. Vincent Morgan- Kay Morgan- was very much involved with the Masquers.
[1:08:05] Turgeon: So was I. Yeah, we all worked for the College.
[1:08:11] Hagstrom: In different ways
[1:08:09] Turgeon: In different ways. A lot of us did the sewing for the, for the Masquers. Kay was the head of it. Until Ruth Kidder took it over. No, I think it was vice versa. It doesn't matter. But somebody who was really good at it would tell us what to do. And we would all do our duty and, and loved it, just loved it.
[1:08:33] Hagstrom: It really became a social activity?
[1:08:24]Turgeon: It became a social activity. Yeah.
[1:08:35] Hagstrom: Were there, are other things like, such as that?
[1:08:38] Turgeon: Well, we did folk dancing.
[1:08:40] Hagstrom: Really?
[1:08:40] Turgeon: Yeah, we had the gymnasium was turned over to us one night a week, and we all pranced around there for that. But it was a- and there were dances galore.
[1:08:51] Hagstrom: Yeah, college organized?
[1:08:53] Turgeon: Well, faculty organized and, or I remember Christmas Eve at the V Morgan's and very, very--
[1:09:00] Hagstrom: How important were Stanley and, and Peg in terms of organizing social life at the college?
[1:09:09] Turgeon: They were very important in that.
[1:09:14] Turgeon: Both of them, they made some enemies but they made friends. I do remember one very funny story but I was- they had a luncheon party for me the first Sunday after I got back from my honeymoon, and we were all dressed and mother had given me a trousseau for all this stuff, didn't do much good I got pregnant too fast but still, we had, I can remember wearing a peach suit and white hat and white gloves and in walked at the same time that I did Mrs. Bain. Thank you, thank you.
[1:09:51] Hagstrom: This was George Bain?
[1:09:52] Turgeon: George, yes. And she was very proud of herself because she had more money on the faculty, than any of the faculty wives. So she came in without a hat. And, and Mrs. Bain said to her- I was brand new at this trembling in my shoes. Thank heavens mother told me to keep my hat on. She said, “I know I was supposed to wear a hat. But I didn't want to.” And Mrs. King said, “Well, at least you knew what you're supposed to do, didn't you?” [[Hagstrom laughs]]
[1:10:25] Turgeon: Can you imagine getting away with a thing like that now? No one would say that.
[1:10:29] Hagstrom: No, exactly.
[1:10:30] Turgeon: Not even a hostess.
[1:10:30] Hagstrom: But there's not a Peg King around anymore.
[1:10:33] Turgeon: No, but they ran wonderful parties for everybody. They had a party at the Lord Jeff every year, costume parties.
[1:10:42] Hagstrom: How involved were the trustees in the social life of Amherst?
[1:10:47] Turgeon: Very, much more than I, than I am aware of now. So many of the wives now of course are trustees. Many of the trustees are women, but and I'm not aware of what goes on up at the President's house but my feeling is it’s nothing compared to what they, what they used to do, but the wives used to, trustee wives used to come and visit classes.
[1:11:11] Hagstrom: Did they really?
[11:11:12] Turgeon: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Scare the poor professors to death. Mrs. Plimpton, was always, remember her?
[1:11:16] Hagstrom: Pauline? Absolutely, sure.
[1:11:21] Turgeon: But no, they were. It was a much closer family. This whole thing. You know, there was what, one treasurer? Now there's a barn full of them.
[1:11:34] Hagstrom: It's just a different world.
[1:11:35] Turgeon: Oh, it's a completely different world.
[1:11:36] Hagstrom: And it, was it your impression that most of the faculty, no matter what department, participated out of choice because it was fun?
[1:11:43] Turgeon: Oh, absolutely. Nothing was required. Nothing was required of us. I got a little bit of the required things from Mrs. King. She used to think that I could run the right kind of a tea and so when the trustees came, they not frequently, but many times came to my house for tea. And I've got a cute story about that because Charlie came in once, he was probably four.
[1:12:08] Hagstrom: Charlie Turgeon?
[1:12:08] Turgeon: Charlie Turgeon was about four, and Mrs. King had called and said, “Would I entertain the ladies for tea?” So I got my little maid with the uniform, which I had up in the attic, on and they came and in came Charlie from school and saying, “Oh look, Mommy is just like the movies.” [Laughing]
[1:12:34] Hagstrom: But you did a lot of entertaining of trustees' wives and why, I mean, that was, again was that a faculty duty?
[1:12:41] Turgeon: No, she would ask me to do that, but I've helped a lot of the presidents’ wives just because I guess I was trained by my own family. Even though my mother didn't do it. She certainly trained people and she certainly trained us.
[1:12:55] Hagstrom: Knew how to do it.
[1:12:56] Turgeon: Yeah, we- each of my sisters and I each had to take over one day every week. To know how to, you know, instruct people and that kind of thing, not that I knew how to boil an egg, I didn’t when I got married, but I certainly knew how and I'd seen it done up in spades at my family's house.
[[break in film]]
[1:13:17] Hagstrom: And they marked different periods. First one in ‘36, then when was the next one, right after the war?
[1:13:21] Turgeon: Right after the war, we were the year after the war. That was very exciting. That was when we had to eat out of the commissary of the United States because we weren’t allowed to buy-
[1:13:31] Hagstrom: This was in Paris again?
[1:13:33] Turgeon: We were in Paris again. I'd go down to the embassy and the whole basement of the embassy was made up like a supermarket.
[1:13:41] Hagstrom: Really? What year? This is ‘46? ‘47?
[1:13:46] Turgeon: ‘46.
[1:13:49] Hagstrom: ‘46. And King was writing. What did you do when you were, that year?
[1:13:52] Turgeon: I was writing.
[1:35:55] Hagstrom: You were again writing?
[1:13:54] Turgeon: I was writing too. He took the children. I tutored the children in the morning. We always met exactly at the same restaurant in Paris, down there on, what was it called, the Boulevard des Artistes, no, the Rue des Artistes. And then we would have lunch together. And then he would take the children, and I was allowed to go back and have- we had two rooms in a hotel at that point rather than running an apartment. And I was allowed three hours without anybody in either room, unless one of the children were sick, so that I could write for three hours. Then we met and played with the children at five, fed them at six, went to the theater, and then had dinner after the theater.
[1:14:43] Hagstrom: Every night? Went to the theater?
[1:14:45] Turgeon: Well, almost every night.
[1:14:46] Hagstrom: Really. King had an extraordinary interest in the theater didn’t he?
[1:14:48] Turgeon: Yes, that was his main interest and most of his books were.
[1:14:52] Hagstrom: And Comédie-Française is what you usually went to?
[1:14:56] Turgeon: No, no we went to all kinds of them. We did do the Comédie-Française. But we also, we did opera, we went to the smaller theaters. We went to the nightclubs. We did all that kind of stuff.
[1:15:08] Hagstrom: Really? A whole lot.
[1:15:12] Turgeon: On a nickel. On a nickel.
[1:15:15] Hagstrom: Sure. Yeah. One could do that anywhere in New York or in Paris or in London at that time.
[1:15:19] Turgeon: Yes, yes.
[1:15:21] Hagstrom: And then in ‘50, that was ‘47,’ 48. When was the next one? ‘57 ‘58?
[1:15:29] Turgeon: No, no, I think we went before that. I think we went over ‘52, ‘53.
[1:15:31] Hagstrom: Okay.
[1:15:33] Turgeon: We went, we used to go. One year, we put the children in camp there in the summer and we traveled. He did not want to go anywhere except England, he didn't want to go to Germany, He was still very, suffered from the war. And we went to Italy, we went to Spain, Portugal, England. But that's about all. He was not- I went alone to Scandinavia.
[1:16:05] Hagstrom: I remember you saying that, yes.
[1:16:07] Turgeon: But and he stayed home and took care of the kids. He was wonderful about that sort of thing.
[1:16:10] Hagstrom: He didn’t mind?
[1:16:14] Turgeon: If I, not as long as I had work to do. No, he was a great respecter of work. And we, it was very easy for us to arrange our lives. But we always had household help.
[1:16:22] Hagstrom: And then you did another sabbatical later before he retired, didn't you?
[1:16:29] Turgeon: Oh yes, I took, that was a wonderful trip. That wasn’t a sabbatical. That was just a trip that I had done pretty well on one of the books and so I said, “I'm going to take everybody to a week of theater in London, a week of theater in Paris.”
[1:16:43] Hagstrom: Oh, really?
[1:16:44] Turgeon: And that was when I took Peggy and Tom to my cooking school for one week. And look what happened to them. They became professional cooks.
[1:16:55] Hagstrom: Yes of course. Cooks. Exactly, exactly. I know Grace Church has been an important thing in your life all the time that you've been in Amherst.
[1:17:04] Turgeon: Well until recently.
[1:17:05] Hagstrom: Yeah. What- who were the, who were the personalities that were so strong that made it?
[1:17:11] Turgeon: Well, the strongest for me was Jesse Trotter, who was class of ‘30 here. He and I sort of brought that church back from the ashes. And I ran the Sunday school and summer school and he ran, of course, ran the church. And he was a great inspiration to me. And he and his wife were here for about eight years before him-
[1:17:34] Hagstrom: Tui Kinsolving
[1:17:36] Turgeon: Tui Kinsolving married us, but he had already left here. He had already left here and become the minister in Boston at Trinity, but remained a friend. And he and King belonged to the same eating club here and that's where the men used to live. You see in boarding houses.
[1:17:54] Hagstrom: Around Amherst?
[1:17:55] Turgeon: Around Amherst. Before Valentine, there was no place for men to eat. So boarding houses were all over the place.
[1:18:01] Hagstrom: Really, really?
[1:18:04] Turgeon: King was on Sou- North Pleasant Street. He and Tuffy and George and all those people were there.
[1:18:11] Hagstrom: But Tui was was a, was a rector at Grace Church at one point.
[1:18:17] Turgeon: He was a Rector. No, he uh- seems to me [[pause]]. Yes, he was a rector, of course he was a rector, that's when the play- the-our actor that’s still acting in Hollywood lived with him.
[1:18:32] Hagstrom: Not Burgess Meredith?
[1:18:33] Turgeon: Yes.
[1:18:33] Hagstrom: Who died this past year?
[1:18:37] Turgeon: That’s right, he did die this past year. He was here with Tui.
[1:18:38] Hagstrom: And then George Cadigan?
[1:18:40] Turgeon: George Cadigan came as a, you know, just for the time being. No, Charles Cadigan. And then he left. And then George Cadigan came, I think, to fill in there, and then it was John Coburn.
[1:18:57] Hagstrom: John Coburn. Right.
[1:19:00] Turgeon: And then Jess Trotter.
[1:19:01] Hagstrom: No, I think it was Jesse Trotter and then John Coburn.
[1:19:04] Turgeon: It may have been.
[1:19:07] Hagstrom: Yeah. And then Phil Zabriskie.
[1:19:06] Turgeon: Yes, he was here for a little time.
[1:19:08] Hagstrom: Right. And then Jim. Jim Clark?
[1:19:14] Turgeon: Jim Clark. Yeah.
[1:19:14] Hagstrom: But it's been a big thing in your life.
[1:19:17] Turgeon: It always has. Oh, yeah, it was. And then I took over the cooking end of it for ages too.
[1:19:24] Hagstrom: What about the war years in Amherst?
[1:19:27] Turgeon: They were exciting and very military.
[1:19:30] Hagstrom: When you say “very military,” what do you mean?
[1:19:32] Turgeon: Well, everybody had to conform to the, to the military rules that existed that were set up by the army here.
[1:19:43] Hagstrom: The army set up rules for Amherst College?
[1:19:47] Turgeon: And we had three schools. Yeah.
[1:19:47] Hagstrom: Really?
[1:19:48] Turgeon: And I can remember having, King was the head of the area language. And I can remember having them down for Sunday night's supper. Those poor little girls from Brooklyn, most of them in heels like, you know, five inches high, walking all the way from the campus where they were stationed, down to our house way down there on Blake Field and standing around for three hours having a buffet dinner.
[1:20:14] Hagstrom: What were girls doing at Amherst?
[1:20:20] Turgeon: Wives!
[1:20:22] Hagstrom: Oh wives! Of people stationed at Amherst? I see. And they were here studying individual courses?
[1:20:32] Turgeon: They were studying individual courses and language. And then there was- and for some reason King had to teach math too and, under Bailey Brown. And he ran that, he and who was- the German one?
[1:20:47] Hagstrom: Breusch. Bob Breusch.
[1:20:49] Turgeon: Bob Breusch ran that. So there were those two schools, and it seemed to me there were a couple of other minor things that went on. But every professor, a full professor, had the rank of colonel, I think. And the pay. And I'm not absolutely positive about the pay, but it seems to me that that was brought up in an argument once. But anyway, that's that's the way-
[1:21:21] Hagstrom: These were not formal students of Amherst College.
[1:21:24] Turgeon: Far from it. These were army recruits!
[1:21:26] Hagstrom: That were brought to Amherst for these special trainings. There were still students at Amherst College though, concurrently?
[1:21:32] Turgeon: Yes, just the four Fs.
[1:21:35] Hagstrom: Oh, really?
[1:21:37] Turgeon: Yeah. Almost nothing but the Four Fs. That's why I knew Roley Heintzelman so well, and he lived at our house because it was hard for him-
[1:21:47] Hagstrom: So it was very small, Amherst-
[1:21:48] Turgeon: and very tight. I remember Stanley King saying at the end of it: I've never been so proud of a group of men in my life as I have of the faculty who stayed here and stood by Amherst. And he said, I'm going to think of something to give them and I said, “Why don't you give them all a necktie?” That you know the [[?]], he said, wonderful idea, but he never did it.
[1:22:11] Hagstrom: Something else I think I remember your saying about Stanley King was that during the Depression, salaries never got- were var- never were decreased. Is that not correct?
[1:22:20] Turgeon: That's right. Very much of a businessman and, and his father was a judge in Springfield. So he was born and brought up in this area. And I found him extremely friendly. I know some people thought he was snobbish and all kinds of things but I never felt that way at all.
[1:22:44] Hagstrom: How? Apart from the obviously social ways the war changed Amherst. Students coming back after the war, were obviously a different kettle of fish entirely as well.
[1:22:55] Turgeon: Yes, they were and a lot of them set up housekeeping down here in the barracks that were built for them. And they're some of our most loyal alumni.
[1:23:01] Hagstrom: Where the new dorms are now?
[1:23:05] Hagstrom: Is that right?
[1:23:06] Turgeon: Yeah, most loyal alumni, I've heard that said over and over again.
[1:23:09] Hagstrom: Interesting, interesting. What about faculty living after the war as opposed to before the war? Less fun?
[1:23:20] Turgeon: Yes.
[1:23:21] Hagstrom: Less collegial?
[1:23:22] Turgeon: Yes. Less collegial. Less, uh-
[1:23:25] Hagstrom: Carefree?
[1:23:25] Turgeon: Women, were going, were beginning to work. I think part of the fact that, the fact that none of us women had jobs, nobody had jobs except for the occasional teacher. And that would be somewhere else. I mean, Smith, or something like that. But for the most of us, we were here, pretty much to raise our families, keep our husbands happy, live on very little money. Very little money. But there, I don't remember, with the exception of a few Bains and the people like that, anybody worrying about what people had.
[1:24:06] Hagstrom: Not an issue?
[1:24:06] Turgeon: Not an issue. Not an issue at all. Not an issue.
[1:24:09] Turgeon: And most of us had a little help. And we all had a lot of fun. I think the women spent more time thinking up fun things to do. Because you don't see that at all now.
[1:24:21] Hagstrom: That’s interesting, that’s interesting.
[1:24:22] Turgeon: Not at all.
Charlotte Turgeon came to Amherst with her husband, Frederick Turgeon, in 1934 when he joined the French Department. During his 1937 sabbatical in Paris, she graduated from the Cordon Bleu Academy. She has been described as a "pioneer forerunner for women in the culinary arts in the United States." Having published fifty-three cookbooks and held cooking classes at her home, she was as prolific off the screen as her classmate and close friend Julia Child was on the screen. She has been quoted as saying, "I just wanted to make the cooking part of life intelligible and fun."
Jack W. C. Hagstrom, class of 1955, is a collector of books, a bibliographer and a founding member of the Friends of the Library. He is also a close friend of Charlotte Turgeon.
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