Cuthbertson Ken - Nobody said not to go: the life, loves, and adventures of Emily Hahn

Nobody Said Not to Go

The Life, Loves, and Adventures of Emily Hahn

Ken Cuthbertson

Dedicated to

the memory of Emily Hahn

and also to

my daughters, Laura, Hayley, and Skye

may they be free to soar as high as

their dreams will take them

Contents

Preface

This book grew out of some research that I did in the late 1980s and early 1990s into the life of the late American writer John Gunther (19011970), the creator of the popular series known as the Inside books. At that time, Emily Hahn and her sister Helen, who had known Gunther for many years, were especially helpful and encouraging to me. Like most people, I was dazzled by these two Hahn sisters; they were not sedentary octogenarians, content to while away their days playing cards or knitting. They radiated life.

The first time I visited the Hahn sisters at the cozy, book-lined flat they shared on West 12th Street in lower Manhattan was one morning a week before Christmas 1986. All of these boxes belong to a nephew who has run away to join the circus, Emily Hahn informed me. It seemed plausible. In fact, anything would have sounded possible where this family was concerned.

Helen was busy building a harpsichord that she told me she intended to learn to play. In one corner of the living room stood a large wooden Victorian dollhouse Helen had built; it was complete with miniature furnishings and working lights. Even as Helen and I spoke, her sister Emily was beetling out the door. That day, as she did most workdays, she left the apartment at about 9:30 A . M . to hike to her office at The New Yorker, a bustling half-hour distant. She was eighty-three.

The more I learned about these two free-spirited Hahn sisters and their amazing family, the more awed I became. Their energy and zest for life were absolutely contagious.

When my Gunther book was published in the spring of 1992, I sent Emily Hahn a copy along with a note asking if shed consider talking with me about an idea that I had for a book: The Emily Hahn Story. To my surpriseand delightshe responded quickly and with an enthusiasm that I was to learn was characteristic. Yes, she announced. Lets do it! With those words ringing in my mind, we were off and running.

Emily Hahn once told an interviewer that given the choice, she always chose the uncertain path in life. I had no way of knowing when I began my research for this book just how true were those words or that it would take me almost five years to retrace the uncertain paths that Emily Hahn had followed in her peripatetic life. (If I have any regret about having spent so long working on her story, it is that Emily did not live to see this books publication, although she did read and offer her comments on much of the manuscript.)

I found the scattered bits and pieces of the Emily Hahn story in far-flung places in Japan; Portugal; Hong Kong; Canada, England, and the United States. In the course of my research, I met scores of people who were invariably welcoming and accommodating. Id like to thank the following individuals and groups for their kind help: Linda Belford, Senior Manuscript Specialist, Archives, University of MissouriSt. Louis, St. Louis, MO; H. T. (Alf) Bennett, London, England; Virginia Black, Berkeley, CA; Anne Boxer, Melton, Suffolk, England; Grace Clowe, Albuquerque, NM; Ron Claircoates, Kingston, Ontario, Canada; Alvin D. Coox, Department of History, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA; Virginia Dajani, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, New York City; Danys Delaques, Reference Archivist, National Archives of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; the late Agnes G. de Mille, New York City; Stephen Endicott, Department of History, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Valerie Feldner, New York City; Martha Gellhorn, London, England; Alice Gibb, London, Ontario, Canada; the late Brendan Gill, New York City; Philip Hamburger, New York City; Muriel Hanson, Chatham, MA; Gulbahar Huxur, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Bertha Harvell, Berkhamsted, Herts., England; the late Barbara Ker-Seymer, London, England; Janet Lorenz, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, CA; Tamas McDonald, London, England; Joan Mark, Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; William Maxwell, New York City; Cynthia Miller, History and Genealogy Section, St. Louis Public Library, St. Louis, MO; Dorothy Miller, Salt Lake City, UT; Carl Mydans, Larchmont, NY; the reference staff of the New York Public Library, New York City; J. Kevin OBrien, Chief, Freedom of Information-Privacy Acts Section, Information Management Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, DC; Takio Oda, Tokyo, Japan; Coralee Paul, St. Louis, MO; Carolyn Reese, Albuquerque, NM; Jennie Rathburn, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; Dr. Xiohong Shao, Nanjing, Peoples Republic of China; Clio Smeeton, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; Britton C. Smith, Kingston, Ontario, Canada; Robert Spindler, Archives, Hayden Library, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ; E. C. Taylor, Dorset, England; Craig Tenney, Harold Ober Associates, New York City; Lisa Tetrault, Assistant Archivist, University of WisconsinMadison, Madison, WI; Edgar Whitcomb, Hayden, IN; Geoffrey Wilson, Viana, Portugal; E. P. (Bill) Wiseman, St. Albans, Herts., England; Hyacinth Wilkie, Brooklyn, NY; Peter Yeung and the staff of the Canada-Hong Kong Resource Centre, Joint Centre for Asia Pacific Studies of the University of Toronto and York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; and Frances Zainoeddin, New York City.

Thanks, too, to Fiona Batty of Peters, Fraser and Dunlop, London, England, literary executors of the late Rebecca West (for permission to quote from Rebecca Wests letters to Emily Hahn) and to James Bent, Sebastopol, CA, literary executor of the late William Bent (for permission to quote from his fathers letters to Emily Hahn).

At the Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, a sincere thankyou to Saundra Taylor, Breon Mitchell, and former Lilly Librarian William Cagle, for their courtesy, diligence, and professionalism during the long days that I spent sifting through Emily Hahns papers. Hahn was herself a meticulous gatherer who kept vast quantities of old letters, manuscripts, photos, and press clippings; the staff at the Lilly Library have done a superb job of cataloguing and preserving all of this material for posterity. The Hahn papers are a treasure trove of information for scholars and literary historians whom I hope will delve further into Hahns life and work.

Also at Indiana University, special thanks to the Ball Brothers Foundation for their kind financial support in the form of a Ball Brothers Fellowship. The money helped me to pay expenses when I visited Bloomington to do my research at the Lilly Library.

Closer to home, thanks to my wife, Marianne, and daughters, Laura, Hayley, and Skye, for their understanding and patience in putting up with Daddys early mornings, late nights, and absences from family gatherings as I worked on the book.

At Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, thanks to my colleagues and friends Mary Lou Marlin, Dianna Bristol of alumni affairs, former Alumni Review editor Cathy Perkins, and Geoff Smith of the history department for their encouragement and for feedback on those portions of the manuscript that they read.

In New York, thanks to Emily Hahns longtime friend and confidante Sheila McGrath, who with patience and endless good humor shared with me her memories of Emily Hahn and her encyclopedic knowledge of