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Princess Diana: F & G

August 2, 2026 by Lisa Waller Rogers

Lady Diana Spencer was understandably nervous about marrying Charles, Prince of Wales (b. 1948).  Following their February 24, 1981, engagement announcement, Diana’s whole world was turned upside down. In a flash, nineteen-year-old Diana went from part-time nanny and nursery school teacher to the future Queen of England. Two days later, she kissed freedom goodbye forever. “Shy Di” moved out of her flat at No. 60 Coleburne Court, said a hasty goodbye to her 3 giddy roommates, and moved into Buckingham Palace, where she was sequestered for the five months leading up to her July 29 wedding, protected from the press. (1)

In their first public appearance together following their February 1981 engagement announcement, Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles attended a Royal Opera benefit at London’s Goldsmith Hall. Lady Diana shocked the crowd by appearing in a low-cut, strapless black taffeta evening gown. “The Dress” made headlines: “Lady Di Takes the Plunge,” screamed the front page of The Daily Mirror, with splendid photos of “Shy Di” spilling out of her revealing gown.

Throughout the spring, the Palace courtiers gave Diana lessons on how to be a princess. They advised her of her royal engagements, which would average 170 a year and would include Ascot, Trooping the Color, Badminton Horse Trials, Opening of Parliament, Chelsea Flower Show, Wimbledon, hospital benefits, charities, and anything for the military. They guided her through the maze of royal rules: wear hats in public and bright colors to stand out; wave from the elbow, not the wrist; never use a public lavatory.

‘The worst thing about being a princess,’ said Diana years later, ‘is having to pee.'”(1)

They handed her stacks of history books to read about her future role as Princess of Wales.

27th March 1981: Charles, Prince of Wales, his fiancee Lady Diana Spencer, and Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, London, after she gave her consent for their wedding.

It was all too much for Diana. She longed to be with Charles, who was often unavailable, having embarked on a 5-week tour of the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, among his other royal duties.  The Royal Family – when they were at the Palace, each with their own separate apartments – did nothing to help her feel at home. In fairness, each of the royals did have their own very busy schedules. Nevertheless, Diana was cut off from ordinary companionship. She felt insecure, lonely, and afraid.

 I missed my girls [roommates] so much I wanted to go back there and sit and giggle and borrow clothes and chat about silly things, just being in  my safe shell again….I couldn’t believe how cold everyone was [at Buckingham Palace].” (2)

Lady Diana Spencer (l.) walks with Camilla Parker-Bowles at Ludlow Racecourse in 1980, where Prince Charles was competing.

Along with palace isolation and wedding jitters, Diana agonized over whether Charles was still in love with his married mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles, although Charles swore their affair was a thing of the past. How could that be true, wondered Diana. Camilla telephoned Charles constantly and he always took her calls in private. Camilla and her husband were often included as weekend house guests at Sandringham, the royal family country house. Camilla haunted Diana and Charles’s courtship days.

Diana befriended Charles’s righthand man, Michael Colborne, peppering him with questions about Charles’s relationship with Camilla. Diana became bulimic from the worry and lost twenty pounds in just three months. She became weak and emotionally labile.

 

 

Camilla Shand as a debutante in 1965. She and Prince Charles met in 1970 and considered marriage. Lord Louis Mountbatten advised Charles against marrying the love of his life, citing Camilla’s wild past and lack of aristocratic lineage.

Her fears over Camilla increased when, tucked among the wedding presents in the office Diana shared with Colborne, Diana discovered a curious little parcel. Over fierce objections from Colborne, she opened it, only to discover a gold bracelet with a lapis pendant engraved with the initials “F” and “G” entwined.

Diana became enraged. She knew the significance of the two letters: earlier friends had informed her that “F” and “G” stood for “Fred and Gladys,” the pet nicknames Charles and Camilla had for each other. Diana pressed Colborne about the gift:

‘I know it’s for Camilla,’ she said. ‘So why won’t you admit it? What does it mean? Why is Charles doing this?'” (2)

Colborne refused to answer any more questions, other than to admit that he had ordered the gift at Charles’s request. Diana was livid with jealousy.

She confronted Charles. He said he had indeed ordered the bracelet from Asprey’s for Camilla and was going to give it to her in person to signal the end of their relationship. He maintained it was a farewell gift but Diana didn’t believe him. They quarreled and she withdrew in tears.

Diana, Princess of Wales (1961-1997) in an undated photo.

The wedding day was bearing down on Diana like a freight train. Her fairytale was morphing into a nightmare. There wasn’t time enough to process all the change that was taking place in her young life.

Her weight plummeted. She became wisp-thin. Her bridal gown with its 25-foot train, puffy sleeves, and ivory taffeta was almost ready, although the dressmakers had to keep taking in the seams due to Diana’s dramatic weight loss.  Between the first and last fittings, Diana’s waist shrank from 29 inches to 23-and-a-half inches.

In June, two weeks before her wedding, Diana attended Ascot Week where she was treated by the public and the media like an international film star.

Lady Diana attends Royal Ascot for the first time, June 1981.

Everyone was fascinated with this new breed of royalty. Diana was fresh, lovely, and natural. She had a real English rose complexion. Her larkiness was such a refreshing change of pace from the stodgy Royal Family with all their rules and stiffness.

But the crush of the crowd and the press, who trailed her at every outing, distressed Diana:

‘During tea at the back of the royal box at the races she was practically in tears and had to be escorted home early.'” (3)

Lady Diana Spencer watches Prince Charles play polo at Tidworth during their engagement. The wedding is four days later. Photo: July 25, 1981

On Monday, July 28, 1981, the day before her wedding, Diana lunched with her sisters while Charles met with Camilla with the gift. Diana confided to her sisters that she didn’t want to marry someone who was still in love with his mistress.

‘It’s bad luck, Duch,’ said her sister Sarah, using the family nickname for Diana. “Your face is on the tea towels, so you’re too late to chicken out now.”” (2)

It was too late to chicken out by the time Lady Diana Spencer considered breaking her engagement to Prince Charles. Her face was on the tea-towels already.

As Sarah pointed out, it was too late. England was awash in kitchy wedding memorabilia featuring the royal couple’s photos. London was crawling with tourists and international journalists and television crews. Sadly, there was no turning back for Diana.

The wedding went ahead as scheduled at St. Paul’s Cathedral. The Queen had sent 2,500 invitations to friends, families, and heads of state, plus the crowned heads of Europe. The ceremony was telecast to 750 million people. On that July day, Lady Diana Spencer (1961-1997) became newly titled as Diana, Princess of Wales. She outranked all other women in the realm, except Queen Elizabeth II and the Queen Mother. (1)

Wedding Bells chimed on July 29, 1981, when Lady Diana Spencer married Charles, Prince of Wales, at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

Diana was right to have been worried about Camilla breaking up her marriage. Shortly after marrying Diana – some say five years later, others, that they never stopped seeing each other –  the Prince resumed his relationship with Camilla. The marriage was long over before the royal Wales divorced in 1996.

(1) Kelley, Kitty. The Royals. New York: Warner Books, Inc., 1997.

(2) Morton, Andrew. Diana – Her True Story – In Her Own Words. Michael O’Mara Books, Ltd., 2003.

(3) Bradford, Sarah. Elizabeth: A Biography of Her Majesty The Queen. New York: Riverhead Books, 1996.

Readers: For more on Princess Diana, click here.

This is a repost.

Posted in PEOPLE, Prince Charles of Wales and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, Princess Diana, ROYALTY/NOBILITY | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 31 Comments »

Princess Margaret’s Trip to America, 1979, Part One

July 30, 2026 by Lisa Waller Rogers

Princess Margaret, 1980

Hopes ran high for Princess Margaret of Great Britain‘s October 1979 fundraising tour in America. The cause was the London‘s Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, a centerpiece of world opera and ballet. By 1979, backstage conditions at the 120-year-old building had become “rather grotty” said the Princess’ 30-year-old nephew, Prince Charles, and terribly cramped. Money was needed to construct an extension to contain rehearsal studios for both the Royal Opera chorus and the Royal Ballet dancers, modern dressing rooms, and improved wardrobe maintenance and storage areas. In her role as President of the Royal Ballet, Margaret was tapped to harness her star power among American “art cats” to rustle up another £4,000 to add to the £12,000 already raised by the Royal Opera House Development Appeal in the previous four years. In response, the American Friends of Covent Garden had sold advance tickets for one formal dinner at each of five stops in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Cleveland where Princess Margaret would be the guest of honor. The film, “Prince Charles Backstage at Covent Garden,” would be shown to highlight the downtrodden state of affairs at the Opera House.

Princess Margaret is to be in the Venetian Room at the Fairmont [Hotel] on Monday, October 22 for a dinner dance. $500 tickets. For tickets, write Mrs. Gordon Getty [Ann]. (1)

Princess Margaret speaks to David Wall of the Royal Ballet, 1978

As Princess Margaret (1926-2002) was not traveling as a representative of her government, the trip was semi-private and somewhat relaxed. There would be both times of pleasure and of duty. Margaret would attend the Lyric Opera of Chicago where Leontyne Price and Luciano Pavarotti would perform. In Houston, she would visit the NASA space center, have a luncheon with former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson, and witness open heart surgery at St. Luke’s Hospital. In Los Angeles, she would unveil a plaque at a new Rolls Royce Facility. She would travel outside Cleveland to a horse farm. Social doyennes jockeyed for the opportunity to throw the Princess a cocktail party, dinner, or luncheon. She would mingle with Hollywood stars. The charity, Les Dames de Champagne, in Los Angeles scored a coup when the Princess’ social secretary squeezed their charity event into Margaret’s busy schedule:

On the evening of Saturday, October 20, Les Dames will play hostesses to H.R.H. Princess Margaret who’ll attend their reception upstairs at Bullocks Wilshire Los Angeles and promenade her royal presence past some interesting “international tasting tables”…It had originally been scheduled for Sunday, October 21 but when Les Dames founder Wanda Henderson read about the Princess’ visit to L.A., she got on the phone to the British consul general’s office and the wheels began to spin…[H]alf of the money raised will go to the Princess’ cause. (2)

Yet not everyone in America was as excited about Her Royal Highness’s impending visit. One reader of the L.A. Times wrote to the paper’s editor:

I resent Princess Margaret invading our country to beg money for refurbishing and expanding…[the] Royal Opera House….Princess Margaret inherited a fortune in jewels from her grandmother, the late Queen Mary. I wonder why she and her sister, Queen Elizabeth, don’t sell some of their jewels to restore some of their famous landmarks. (3)

American gossip columnists got a lot of mileage covering Princess Margaret’s love life:

Reader: I have been fascinated with that romance between Princess Margaret and her young boyfriend Roddy Llewellyn. Is that still going on?”(M.A., Greenwood, Louisiana.)

Columnist: I wouldn’t call it a romance. The royalty grapevine insists that Roddy is amusing and keeps the Princess diverted. They still are companionable and had been vacationing at a secluded villa on Spain’s Costa del Sol. (4)

Yet American gossip columnists enjoyed trashing Margaret in print, gleefully reporting the breakdown of her unhappy marriage with her former husband, the internationally-acclaimed photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones (Lord Snowdon) and their bitter July 1978 divorce.

At

At left, Tony Armstrong-Jones (Lord Snowdon) watches as his fiancee at the time, Princess Margaret, takes a photograph at the Badminton Horse Trials. ca. 1960

Gossip columnists were keen to report Margaret’s fashion sense in their articles, often inserting subtly-catty remarks.

On a gray day, she wore…white platform sandals that showed the heel reinforcements in her hose….Before she plunged in to shake hands with everyone there, she extracted a cigarette holder and a cigarette case from her white ostrich-patterned bag. The Princess is adept at clenching the cigarette holder between her teeth as she lights up…. (5)

Her Royal Highness Princess Margaret, The Countess of Snowdon, the maverick in Britain’s royal family, will be back in L.A. Wednesday evening….[S]he is petite and inclined to plumpness….[with] startling blue eyes and a lovely British complexion. (6)

The timing of Margaret’s October arrival in America should have been favorable to her fund drive. The Royal Ballet that had just wound up its exceedingly successful North American summer tour on August 5 in Mexico City. For six days in late July, the company had performed in the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium, their repertoire including the ever-popular Shakespeare tragedy, “Romeo & Juliet.” The premiere had been at 8:30 p.m. on July 24, 1979. L.A. Times gossip columnist Jody Jacobs reviewed the premiere two days later with this headline: “Warm Hello for Royal Ballet.”

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English dancer Marguerite Porter became Senior Principal Ballerina at The Royal Ballet in 1978.

Jody Jacobs was not kidding about warmth! This was the first big event in which President Carter‘s strict temperature controls had been put in effect. Temperatures had soared into the 80s that day in L.A. with hazy sunshine predominating. The air conditioning thermostat in the Shrine had been set at the federally-mandatory 78 degrees. The Shrine, which had been “magically staged as an English Maytime tent,” became, in that summery, smoggy heat, a “giant communal steam bath.” The ballet fans were packed into their seats, wearing their best clothes, sweating profusely, mopping brows, dabbing at armpits. Middle-aged women suffered menopausal hot flashes and fanned themselves with the evening’s program. Nevertheless, aside from a few good-natured grumbles, the soggy but devoted ballet patrons and the dancers, in the spirit of the English, remembered to

Keep Calm and Carry On

Ironically, an article on menopausal health appeared in the L.A. Times alongside Jacobs’ review, with the headline,

Estrogen Useful

Later that week, Governor Jerry Brown of California would fill out the necessary paperwork to challenge President Carter in the 1980 Democratic primary. (President Carter would keep the Democratic nomination but he would not go on to win a second term.)

On August 21, 1979, just seven weeks before she disembarked for America, Princess Margaret celebrated her 49th birthday with her children, David, 17, and Sarah, 15, at Balmoral Castle, the Scottish holiday home of the British royal family. Margaret’s sister, Queen Elizabeth II, was there, as was her husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. In her role as head of the British Commonwealth, the Queen had just returned from tense negotiations in Lusaka, Zambia, to discuss the Rhodesian conflict, where there was tremendous anti-British feeling.

gettyimages-139758977-1567612103

Queen Elizabeth II on a state visit to Botswana, summer 1979. See Prince Philip on our left and Prince Andrew on our right. SERGE LEMOINEGETTY IMAGES

Guerrilla forces were operating out of bases in Zambia and the Queen had put herself at great risk. The Queen arrived two days ahead of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the first female prime minister of England. As was her custom, the Queen hosted a banquet and reception for all forty-two African leaders. Behind the scenes, she held private talks, bringing down the temperature so significantly in the negotiations that Thatcher called for a constitutional convention in London in September to pave the way for Rhodesian independence.

In a little over a month, Princess Margaret and six others would hop on a British Airways Concorde jet and fly from London to the U.S. to begin her fundraising swing through the States. The Princess’ lady-in-waiting, Lady Annabel Whitehead, had been steadily packing the Princess’ jewels, purses, shoes, and outfits in the 27 trunks that she would need for such a variety of appearances. Everything was falling in place and the Princess was looking forward to some good press.

Roddy Llewellyn and Princess Margaret not long after they met in 1973. Picture: SuppliedSource: News Corp Australia

Margaret had significant image problems at home. A recent poll had put her dead-last in royal family popularity, even below her niece, Princess Anne. The public disapproved of her romance with Roddy Llewellyn, an aspiring pop singer and gardener seventeen years her junior, who, just a month before Margaret turned 49, in July, had had his drivers’ license revoked for 18 months. The previous February, he had been arrested for drunk driving after he crashed his Ford van into an unmarked police car in Kensington High Street, London. Roddy had sped away and the police had given chase. Roddy’s car had skidded to a halt when it ran into a cement median in Highbridge. Roddy was fined a measly £12.25 but not being able to drive was proving to be hard on his gardening business as he needed it to haul soil, pots, and plants to landscaping sites. For months, Roddy’s drink-driving incident had been splashed across newspapers internationally. Even worse, the passenger in Roddy’s car that fateful night was a married woman whose husband later filed for divorce naming Roddy as his wife’s seducer.

Also that same July, Lord Snowdon (“Tony”) and his new wife, Lucy Lindsay Hogg, gave birth to a baby girl, garnering sweet headlines. Even worse, the baby would be christened just days before Margaret was landing in America. There would be photographs of Tony, Lucy, and the baby, Lady Frances at the ceremony, where Tony and Margaret’s daughter, Lady Sarah Armstrong, was to be named as the baby’s godmother.

lord-snowdon-former-husband-of-princess-margaret-leaves-news-photo-1574273653 shortly after dec 1978 wedding

Lord Snowdon and his second wife Lucy Lindsay Hogg shown shortly after their December 1978 marriage. She is expecting a baby.

Then, in November, when Margaret had left America, Tony would arrive in America on a book tour.

Both Margaret and Tony craved constant attention and competed for center stage. Now Tony-Cheating Tony-was getting nothing but glowing press.

A London writer was calling for Margaret’s exile to America where, the writer said, the people had the bad taste needed to appreciate her.

Princess Margaret needed to get out of England. She needed an image makeover. Photos of her relaxing at her private home on the island of Mustique in the Caribbean were making their way into the tabloids.

Princess Margaret, center. Colin Tennant in white hat, to the left. Anne Tennant, short blond hair, to the right. Roddy Llewellyn stands behind Anne. On the island of Mustique where the Princess had a home, the land of which was a gift from the Tennants.

As President of the Royal Ballet, Margaret would be mingling with the rich and well-connected Americans; their cachet would build up her profile. Perhaps association with cultured ballet and opera folk could erase some of the damage done to her reputation by those photos that had appeared in The Daily Mail the previous fall. She had been at the Glen, the Scottish home of Anne and Colin Tennant, at a private costume party with Bianca Jagger and Roddy. Wearing a slinky black dress and blonde wig, she had channeled American sex goddess Mae West, crooning seductively, “Come Up and See Me Some Time.” Anne, the hostess at the Glen, was one of the Princess’ ladies-in-waiting. She snapped some pictures of the fun time. Unfortunately, Anne’s oldest son, Charlie, had a serious heroin addiction and wanted money to buy drugs. He found the photos that his mother had tucked away in her drawer and stole them. Through an intermediary, they were sold to the press.

Margaret longed to return to America, and, in particular, to Hollywood (“Tinsel Town”) where she was popular and the movie star men were so good-looking. Writer Gore Vidal, a lifelong close ally of the Princess, said of her love for Hollywood,

Like many British royals, she was fascinated by the place.

Read the next installment: Princess Margaret’s Trip to America, 1979, Part Two: Lord Louis Mountbatten

Readers: For more on this blog about Princess Margaret, click here. 

Readers: “The Queen Mother and the Rogue Kiss” tells of the 1977 visit by President Jimmy Carter to meet the Queen and family. 

Readers: For more on the British Royal Family, click here. This is a repost.

Sources:

  1. San Francisco Examiner, October 4, 1979
  2. Jody Jacobs’ column, L.A. Times, Sept. 21, 1979
  3. Virginia Cohen, Santa Monica. LA Times, Letters to the Editor, September 22, 1979
  4. Robin Adams Sloan’s column, The Indianapolis News, September 14, 1979
  5. L. A. Times, October 22, 1979, “Party Notes,” IV, page 6
  6. L.A. Times, Oct. 16, 1979

Posted in Anthony Armstrong-Jones, British Royal Family/Nobles, Margaret Thatcher, PEOPLE, Prince Charles of Wales and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth II, ROYALTY/NOBILITY | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

Picasso: A Passion for Spirals

July 27, 2026 by Lisa Waller Rogers

 
 

 

Pablo Picasso and sister Lola, 1888. (What’s up with the haircut, Pablo?)

Spanish painter Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) could draw before he could walk. According to his mother,
 
his first word was piz, short for the Spanish word lapiz, meaning pencil. 
“Pablito” asked for a pencil constantly and, once he got one in hand, would draw for hours, covering entire sheets of paper with countless spirals. (1)   

 

A Spanish “caracola” filled with candied fruit and iced with a confectioner’s sugar glaze

In later interviews, Picasso revealed that his passion for spirals came from the caracola, or Spanish sticky bun, his favorite pastry. “Caracola” means “snail” in Spanish. Caracolas started with a single strip of dough wound tightly around the center, creating a spiraling snail-like design in the cake. Caracolas were served hot in the market stalls in Málaga, Spain, Picasso’s home for his first ten years. 

Pablo found artistic inspiration in nature as well as at the breakfast table. With Málaga situated on the Costa Del Sol, Pablo would walk on the beach with his father, finding dazzling variety in the shells washing up on the Mediterranean shore.    

Málaga, Spain

There were so many patterns, he discovered, spiralling and more! 

 
 

 

Shells found on a beach in Málaga, Spain, Pablo Picasso’s birthplace. 2010

Pablo was entranced. From a young age, Pablo became a voracious collector of seashells as well as peach pits, pebbles, cherry stems, and leaves.

Picasso grew up and became very famous, but he never lost his early love for spirals and curvy, coiling lines.

 
 
 

 

Picasso Draws a Centaur, 1949

As an adult artist, he used spirals over and over again in his drawing and painting.

An undated Picasso line drawing of a Harlequin. image from book, Pablo Picasso, by Ernest Raboff)

“Two Dressed Models and a Sculpture of a Head” by Pablo Picasso, 1933. Notice the cascade of spiraling vines on all 3 heads.

Often Picasso’s predilection for curves and spirals would show up in his paintings of women’s breasts. (3) 

(1) McNeese, Tim. Pablo Picasso. New York: Chelsea House, 2006.

(2) Lepscky, Ibi. Pablo Picasso. New York: Barron’s Educational Series, Inc., 1984.

(3) Penrose, Roland. Picasso, His Life and Work. Berkeley: The University of California, Icon Editions, 1973.

 

This is a repost.

 

Posted in ART, PHOTOGRAPHY, FASHION, & DESIGN, Pablo Picasso, PEOPLE | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments »

The Beatles Meet Bob Dylan

July 15, 2026 by Lisa Waller Rogers

And how many ears must one man haveBefore he can hear people cry?Yes, and how many deaths will it take ’til he knowsThat too many people have died?

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the windThe answer is blowin’ in the wind (1)

In 1964, the Beatles were in awe of songwriter Bob Dylan’s gift for lyrics, as evidenced here in the excerpt from Dylan’s 1962 classic song, “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

Bob Dylan, 1965

John Lennon wanted to meet Dylan but not as badly as he wanted to meet Elvis. Dylan, at 22, was a contemporary and a competitor, while Elvis had achieved mythic status for John. Elvis’ music had been the spark that moved him. John said,

‘Heartbreak Hotel’ was the most exciting thing we had ever heard.

John Lennon, 1964

John had to admit while Elvis’s rock and roll had captured his imagination and influenced his music, Dylan’s lyrics moved him to take more interest in his own lyric-writing.

Bob Dylan met the Beatles on August 28, 1964 at the Delmonico Hotel while the Beatles were in New York. Dylan introduced the Beatles to marijuana during that visit. And so began a long friendship between the Fabulous Four and Bob Dylan. Dylan’s lyrics turned John Lennon inward as a songwriter, expressing his feelings through his lyrics. Less and less, he wrote songs about holding hands and sharing secrets. Here is Lennon’s moody 1965 song, “Norwegian Wood” from the Beatles’ 1965 album, “Rubber Soul”:

I once had a girlOr should I say she once had meShe showed me her roomIsn’t it good Norwegian wood?

She asked me to stayAnd she told me to sit anywhereSo I looked aroundAnd I noticed there wasn’t a chair

I sat on a rug biding my timeDrinking her wineWe talked until two and then she said“It’s time for bed”

She told me she workedIn the morning and started to laughI told her I didn’tAnd crawled off to sleep in the bath

And when I awoke I was aloneThis bird had flownSo I lit a fireIsn’t it good Norwegian wood?

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Princess Diana: The Daydream of Love

July 4, 2026 by Lisa Waller Rogers

Lady Diana Spencer reads a romance novel by her favourite author, Barbara Cartland. Diana is probably 16. Photo ca. 1977

Lady Diana Spencer reads a romance novel by her favorite author, Barbara Cartland. Diana is probably 16 years old. Photo ca. 1977

Princess Diana (1961-1997) loved to read romantic fiction. She devoured novels by British author Barbara Cartland, of which there was an endless and steady supply. In her lifetime, Cartland (1901-2000) is credited with having written 723 books. In 1983 alone, she wrote 23 of them. She holds The Guinness Book of World Records for writing the most books in a single year.

Reclining on a chaise lounge at her home, Cartland dictated her hundreds of stories to her secretary. They both wore pink. Pink was Cartland’s signature color.

British romance novelist Barbara Cartland dictates stories to her secretary while relaxing with one of her Pekinese pets.

British romance novelist Barbara Cartland dictates stories to her secretary Jean Smith while relaxing at home in Camfield Place in Essendon, U.K.

Cartland, self-styled as the “Queen of Romance,” was a celebrity favorite with journalists as she was always holding forth on topics of the day, and sometimes saying outrageous and unprintable things such as speculating on the private parts of the exiled Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

She was well-known for her flamboyant appearance, resembling a fairy queen with cotton candy hair. Her dresses were ultra-girly, adorned with feathers, frills, flounces, fluff, and froth. She was heavily perfumed and glittered with jewels. Her thick make-up was more suited to the stage, and the end result was often clown-like. To achieve a more youthful look, she pulled back her cheeks with the application of sticking plaster (which, sadly, often showed). Her “forests of false eyelashes” were legendary, jet black, and preposterous. Her secret? In 1959, she wrote to a fan that, instead of mascara:

I use Meltonian black shoe cream for my eyelashes.” (1)

Barbara Cartland up close and personal

Barbara Cartland up close

In her writing as well as her appearance, Cartland was an accomplished illusionist. Her books were fairy tales of the most fantastic nature. In them, the young virgin heroine – usually with an exotic name like Vada, Lalitha, Syringa, Fenella, Kamala, or Anthea – always marries Prince Charming. They live happily ever after. They never quarrel, they don’t have affairs, and they certainly don’t divorce.

More than one of Diana's Spencer's acquaintances remarked on her dreamy nature. Photo ca. 1977

More than one of Diana’s Spencer’s acquaintances remarked on her dreamy nature. Photo ca. 1977

Not so in the Spencer household. From her earliest years, Princess Diana’s parents had had a troubled marriage, and her home was a scene of violent quarrels. Diana’s mother, Frances, felt as if her husband Johnnie Spencer, Viscount Spencer, treated her like a brood mare, sending her to fertility experts to explain why she had given birth to three girls in a row. He wanted a male heir to carry on the royal family line. Diana listened behind the door when her parents had a shouting match and her sister turned up the record player volume.

Frances did give birth to a boy, Charles, but the breach in the marriage had become, by then, an unbridgeable chasm.

When Diana was six, her mother left her four children and husband to pursue an affair in London with Peter Shand Kydd, also married. In 1968, she divorced Diana’s father, Johnnie Spencer, who, surprisingly for the times, was granted custody of the children. It is not surprising once you know that a surprise witness at the divorce hearing provided the damning testimony that decided in his favor. Testifying to Johnnie’s superior parenting skills was Frances’s own mother, Lady Fermoy, testifying against her daughter.

Three months after the divorce, Frances married Kydd and they moved to Scotland. With her two older sisters away at boarding school, only Diana and her younger brother Charles remained behind at Park House on the Queen’s royal Sandringham estate. Her father holed up, silently, in his study, abandoned.

The spirit of gaiety was gone from Park House along with Frances’s furniture.” (2)

A Hazard of Hearts (1948) by Barbara Cartland

A Hazard of Hearts (1948) by Barbara Cartland

Cartland’s novels provided young Diana Spencer with an escape into a fantasy dream world. Diana came to believe in the magical rescue power of princes, waiting for her prince to ride up and take her away to her own happy ending. Her life view was shaped by this unreality and it would pitch her into a cold marriage to a man whose heart already belonged to another.

No fairy tale is complete without a wicked stepmother, and, in July, 1976, Diana got one. Her name was Raine, Countess Dartmouth. By this time, the Spencers had moved into the family’s stately home of Althorp, as Diana’s grandfather had died, passing the earldom on to Johnnie. He became the 8th Earl Spencer and Diana became Lady Diana. Raine began an extensive remodeling of Althorp, proving unpopular with Diana and her siblings, who hated their new (wicked) stepmother, calling her “Acid Raine.” Johnnie, however, became very happy after his marriage to Raine.

Princess Diana, at right, stands with stepmother, Raine, Countess Spencer, middle, and a friend. Undated photo, ca. 1977

Princess Diana, at right, stands with stepmother, Raine, Countess Spencer, middle, and a friend. Undated photo, ca. 1977

Now that you have seen this photo of Raine (above), you will not find it hard to believe that her mother was Barbara Cartland, Diana’s favorite novelist! That made Cartland Diana’s stepgrandmother. She learned of Diana’s love for her books and sent them to Diana by the cartload.

In 1977, Diana moved into Coleherne Court in South Kensington, London. Her roommates remember that she always got up before the meal was finished to clear the table. She hated dirty dishes. Diana loved to do the washing and ironing of shirts for friends. Her big sister Sarah paid her to clean her apartment. Diana was Cinderella, sweeping the hearth free of ashes.

Diana first revealed her crush on Prince Charles when on a ski holiday with friends in Val Claret in the French Alps. She surprised her friends one evening, saying that she was going to marry Charles AKA Prince Charming. According to those who knew her well, Diana kept herself chaste for her husband on their wedding night. (3)

Oxford student Adam Russell sits with Lady Diana Spencer. They are vacationing with a group in the French Alps. Russell is said to have had a ‘galumphing’ crush on Diana. Nothing, however, happened between them. According to royal author Andrew Morton, Mr Russell went travelling for a year, and when he returned to the UK in 1980 and told a friend that he liked Diana, he was told: ‘You’ve only got one rival, the Prince of Wales’. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2257321/Revealed-Mystery-rival-Prince-Charles-pictured-relaxing-Lady-Diana-1979-Old-Etonian-aristocrat-Adam-

Oxford student Adam Russell sits with Lady Diana Spencer. They are vacationing with a group in the French Alps. Russell is said to have had a ‘galumphing’ crush on Diana. Nothing, however, happened between them. According to royal author Andrew Morton, Mr Russell went travelling for a year, and when he returned to the UK in 1980 and told a friend that he liked Diana, he was told: ‘You’ve only got one rival, the Prince of Wales’. Source: The Daily Mail

And Lady Diana did indeed marry Prince Charles on July 29, 1981. Her fairy tale unfolded as she had imagined. Her father gave her away. She wore a confection of a dress with a 25 foot-long train. She rode to St. Paul’s Cathedral in a carriage. She became Her Royal Highness, Diana, Princess of Wales. When Charles became King one day, she would become his queen, and their son, a king, too.

Prince Charles and Princess Diana smile for their wedding photo. July 1981

Prince Charles and Princess Diana smile for their wedding photo. July 1981

As we all know, Diana’s life with Charles did not have a happy ending. Her marriage was miserable, ending in a nasty divorce (1996) which led to her disastrous loneliness and tragic death (1997). Diana’s story was a fractured fairy tale of the worst imaginable kind.

By the way, stepmother Raine attended the royal wedding. However, stepgrandmother Barbara Cartland – the fairy queen who nurtured this fairy tale of Diana’s – did not attend.  Someone – maybe the Queen’s sister, Princess Margaret – considered her an embarrassment and did not want her there. We don’t know if she wasn’t invited OR was offered an invitation but declined because her seat was behind a column! Anyway, not being present at Diana’s wedding proved to be the biggest humiliation of Barbara Cartland’s life.

In 1993, Barbara Cartland remarked:

The only books Diana ever read were mine, and they weren’t terribly good for her.” (2)

In 1996, Cartland had figured out why the marriage had failed:

Of course, you know where it all went wrong. She wouldn’t do oral sex.”

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned….

For more about Princess Diana, click here.

(1)

(2) Brown, Tina. The Diana Chronicles. New York: Doubleday, 2007.

(3)

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Flickers of Light in a Nazi Darkness: Dutch Resistance in WWII

June 11, 2026 by Lisa Waller Rogers

 

I am publishing a new book on Oct.17, Flickers of Light in a Nazi Darkness: Dutch Resistance in WWII. if you would like to read a free advanced reader copy on net galley, Follow the link at bottom.

summary:

Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933, marking the end of the Weimar Republic and the beginning of the Nazi dictatorship. As the tide of Nazism grew, so did anti-Jewish decrees which stripped away the rights of German Jews.

In May 1940, the Germans invaded and occupied the neutral country of the Netherlands. Little by little the Nazis took away the rights of the Dutch Jews and the only place they were safe was in their homes, until they weren’t. In 1942, Nazis conducted raids to deport them to labor and concentration camps. But not every Jew was caught. Thanks to the heroic action of Dutch resistance workers, at great risk to themselves, Dutch resistance workers hid Jews from the Nazis, and sought to keep them safe and fed through the long years of WWII. Not all of these efforts bore success, many Dutch workers were imprisoned and executed by the Nazis. Flickers of Light in a Nazi Darkness brings the story of some of these “Flickers of Light” resistance workers to life.

 

https://www.netgalley.com/widget/1108305/redeem/4c3e990385f0d7951dfacaf0a297f1200f2aea07c7873804b263436da21daf0d

 

review:

Flickers of Light in a Nazi Darkness

This children’s nonfiction book highlights ordinary individuals who chose humanity during World War II’s darkest times.
In May 1940, Nazis invaded the Netherlands, leading to severe restrictions and deportations of Jews by 1942. Dutch resistance workers emerged, risking their lives to hide families, forge documents, and provide protection. Despite many failures and sacrifices, these “flickers of light” saved lives and dignity.
Ms Rogers shares specific stories of these heroes, making their sacrifices personal while contextualizing the Nazi takeover.
The book balances historical accuracy with emotional depth, avoiding graphic details for young readers but maintaining the truth. It honors victims, celebrates resisters, and inspires hope and moral urgency.
This book fosters appreciation for freedom’s cost. Heart wrenching yet uplifting, it shows that individual bravery can shine through darkness.

**I would like to express my gratitude to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
#ARC
#NetGalley
#FlickersOfLightInANaziDarkness

Links:
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5179017-sniksnak

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Lady Diana and Princess Grace’s Powder Room Chat

June 11, 2026 by Lisa Waller Rogers

The Prince of Wales and his new fiancée, Lady Diana Spencer, arrive at Goldsmith Hall in London for a charity recital, March 9, 1981.

Lady Diana Spencer, 19, arrived at her first official event since the announcement of her engagement to Charles, the Prince of Wales, wearing a black Emanuel evening gown and her mother’s diamond necklace. Charles, 33, had scolded Diana for wearing black, a color the Royal Family reserved for somber occasions.

Diana's dress at the Goldsmith Hall.

Lady Diana Spencer wowed the world with this black taffeta strapless dress worn to accompany Prince Charles to Goldsmiths’ Hall in London on March 9, 1981.  She stepped out of their car and into a sea of flashbulbs as photographers jockeyed for position to photograph the alluring princess-to-be.

 

Diana was noticeably uncomfortable in her little black dress and told Princess Grace of Monaco, also in attendance, that the dress she was wearing was two sizes too small.

Lady Diana, Princess Grace of Monaco, and Prince Charles mingle at a music event, London, 1981. photo credit: Tim Graham, HBO.

Princess Grace, who had been the Oscar-winning American actress Grace Kelly before her 1956 marriage to Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, knew just how Diana was feeling.

Grace Kelly from the 1954 Hitchcock thriller, “Dial M for Murder.”

Grace had also been an outsider when she married into the House of Grimaldi, the reigning house of Monaco since 1297. Princess Grace pulled Lady Diana aside and they excused themselves into the ladies’ room for private chat. Diana expressed her fears for the future and her feeling of awkwardness in her new role. Grace, who had been royal now for 25 years, patted Diana’s cheeks tenderly and replied:

Don’t worry, it’ll only get worse.

∞

The images of the future royal bride stepping out of a limousine in a black gown with a plunging neckline made newspaper headlines round the world and established Diana as the most glamorous member of the royal family.  Dress designer Elizabeth Emanuel said of Diana’s appearance that night: “The transformation was incredible. She arrived looking like the nursery school teacher she was, but now she looked like a movie star. We gave her the dress, made a little shawl to go with it so she could cover up on the night and away she went….We hadn’t considered the fact that when Diana bent over – as she would have to do when getting out of the car – she would show quite a lot of cleavage. We just thought she looked fabulous.” (1)

Her low-cut outfit apparently raised eyebrows among the royal inner circle too, as she recollected: “I was quite big-chested then and they all got frightfully excited.” Diana continued: “It was a horrendous occasion… I didn’t know whether to go out of the door first. I didn’t know whether your handbag should be in your left or right hand. I was terrified, really ‒ at the time everything was all over the place. I remember that evening so well. I was terrified ‒ nearly sick.” (2)

∞

Eighteen months later, Princess Grace suffered a stroke behind the wheel of her car, and died in a horrific car crash in Monaco. Prince Charles did not understand why Princess Diana was so hellbent on attending Grace’s funeral; he did not understand that she felt a connection to the late Princess, that their lives were parallel. He was against it so Diana appealed to Queen Elizabeth, her mother-in-law, who granted her request. Diana attended the funeral, which was held at the Cathedral of Our Lady Immaculate in Monaco-Ville on September 18, 1982.

Princess Diana represented Queen Elizabeth II at the funeral of Princess Grace of Monaco, 1982.

(1) MSPMint, “Lady Diana Spencer Accompanies Prince Charles to Goldsmiths’ Hall in that ‘LBD’…Little Black Dress,” The Princess Diana News Blog.

(2) Morton, Andrew. Diana: Her True Story ‒ In Her Own Words, excerpted in Harpers’ Bazaar.

Readers, for more on this blog on Grace Kelly, click here.

Readers, for more on this blog on Princess Diana, click here

ee.

Posted in Beauty, British Royal Family/Nobles, Grace Kelly, PEOPLE, Prince Charles of Wales and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, Princess Diana, Princess Grace (Grace Kelly), Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mum, ROYALTY/NOBILITY, The Grimaldis of Monaco | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Picasso’s Peace Dove

June 10, 2026 by Lisa Waller Rogers

Pigeons gather in a square in Barcelona.

Note: Pigeons and doves form the bird family Columbidae, of which there are 300 species. Ornithologically, there is no simple way to distinguish a pigeon from a dove. Some specialists refer to the smaller species as “doves” and the larger ones as “pigeons,” but this is not consistently applied.

Collared Doves can be tamed in urban areas, such as these two being handfed in Poland.

Collared doves can be tamed in urban areas, such as these two sweeties being handfed in Poland.

In reference to the works of Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, the issue is further muddled. The titles of many of his works include the Spanish word la paloma, which means both “pigeon” and “dove,” so we aren’t sure which bird he intended to depict, if, indeed, he did intend to create such a distinction.

Finally, Picasso biographers, art curators, and translators have added their own layers of confusion. For example, the painting, “Child Holding a Dove,” (National Gallery, London) has been given two different French title translations: “L’Enfant A La Colombe” (Child With the Dove)  and “L’Enfant Au Pigeon” (Child With A Pigeon).

Therefore, for the purpose of this article, the terms, “pigeon” and “dove,” are used interchangeably, as is common practice, except when otherwise explicitly stated.

Now for our story:

“Picasso in Underwear,” photo by David Douglas Duncan, 1957. From the earliest age, the most famous artist of the 20th Century did whatever he wanted, which might include posing in his jockeys on his front doorstep at age 76.

Famed Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) grew up around pigeons. His father, José Ruiz Blasco, an artist in his own right, bred pigeons (rock doves), which became his favorite subject to paint. Ruiz became known as El Palomero (The Pigeon Fancier). Pablo’s father taught him how to paint pigeons. (1)

In Pablo’s hometown of Málaga, Spain, pigeons roosted in the sycamore trees in the Plaza de la Merced, where he and his sisters played. While the girls frolicked in the square, Pablo used a stick to make bird drawings in the dirt. (2)

Much to the dismay of his elementary school teachers, Little Pablo, or “Pablito,” drew constantly. Every once in a while, he brought a pigeon to class and spent his time sketching it rather than doing his assigned schoolwork.

Pablo used every inch of his drawing paper, covering the page with scenes of his favorite subjects: bullfights and pigeons. (3)

Guided by his father, Picasso received professional art instruction. His talent grew and was recognized. By the age of 15, he was successfully exhibiting his artwork. By 1901, he was splitting his time between Barcelona and Paris, falling increasingly in the company of artists heavily influenced by post-impressionists such as Vincent Van Gogh.

That same year, at the age of 20, Picasso had become so respected an artist that he had a Paris show in the Galerie Vollard almost to himself, sharing it with another Basque. At this exhibition, Picasso

sold 15 of his 65 paintings and drawings before the exhibition had even opened.” (4)

Through all these changes, however, pigeons still charmed him, as is evident in his sentimental 1901 painting, “Child Holding a Dove” (1901), a piece that ushered in his somber Blue Period.

Pigeons even appeared during his cubist period, as in “Woman With Pigeons” ( 1930).

“Woman With Pigeons,” by Pablo Picasso, 1930.

Before 1937, Picasso had not used his art for political expression. It was in that year, though, that he was to create his most famous work. Commissioned by the Spanish Republican government, Picasso created an enormous mural called “Guernica.” It was named after a Spanish town in the Basque country that had been firebombed by Nazis, backers of the Nationalist forces of General Franco during the Spanish Civil War (1937-1939).

Guernica, Spain, after the April 26, 1937, aerial bombing by Nazis. It was market day and the quiet village was filled with women and children. There were few men left in Guernica, as most were off fighting in the Spanish Civil War against Franco. The Nazis bombed the town for two hours, slaughtering hundreds of innocents. When the town caught fire, those not burned to death tried to escape the inferno by taking refuge in the outskirts of town. Yet there was no escape, as they found themselves trapped all around by bombed-out bridges and roads. Some of these women and children were gunned down by aerialists. The Nazis supported the rebel forces of General Franco to test out war tactics and weapons. Although there was a military target outside Guernica, a munitions factory, it was left unscathed by the April 1937 bombing. It is believed that the bombing was used to intimidate those in opposition to Franco’s impending rule.

After the painting “Guernica” (see below) was exhibited in the Paris International Exhibition (1937), it toured Europe and the U.S., drawing international attention to the Spanish Civil War and the horrors of war.

“Guernica,” by Pablo Picasso. (1937)

 “Guernica” gained monumental status, becoming a potent anti-war symbol and thrusting Pablo Picasso to the forefront of the Peace Movement. In May of 1940, Hitler invaded France. Throughout WWII, Picasso lived in Nazi-occupied Paris, where he was continually harassed by the Gestapo who were familiar with his anti-Nazi mural.

Picasso continued to paint and draw pigeons and doves. In 1949, author Louis Aragon chose the artist’s lithograph, “La Colombe,” (The Dove) for the poster commemorating the Peace Conference in Paris. (5)

“La Colombe” (The Dove) by Picasso, 1949

Posters of “La Colombe” were all over Paris when Picasso’s daughter was born that April so he named his daughter Paloma (Spanish for dove).

In this 1951 image, Pablo Picasso is shown with 2 of his 4 children, whose mother was Francoise Gilot: Paloma (b. 1949) in his arms and Claude (b. 1947) Photo Edward Quinn, © edwardquinn.com

The model for the famous “peace dove” was one of artist Henri Matisse ‘s doves.

Henri Matisse in his studio with his doves. Vence, France. 1944. photo by Henri-Cartier Bresson

Matisse and Picasso had known each other since 1904 when they were introduced at the Paris salon of Gertrude Stein, an important collector of art, particularly Matisse’s. Matisse and Picasso had a profound influence on one another and their art.

After Matisse died in 1954, Picasso was deeply saddened. He moved his family to a large villa near Cannes in the south of France and painted a series called “Studio” in homage to Matisse. He painted almost a dozen canvases of the same view from his third floor studio window – with the lush background of sky and garden and sea – while, in the foreground, “white doves” (6) nested and played in a dovecote Picasso had built on his terrace. Picasso did not ordinarily paint what he saw; he drew upon his imagination for artistic inspiration. It was his old friend Matisse who drew from nature. Therein lay Picasso’s tribute to Matisse.

“The Studio (Pigeons),” by Picasso, 1957, is painted in a style reminiscent of Matisse.

Meanwhile, the “Dove of Peace” Picasso had created for the 1949 Paris Peace Conference had caught on. It had become a symbol for the peace movement, the Communist Party, and other liberal groups. In the years that followed, Picasso agreed to create other peace doves for conferences across Europe.

The modern peace dove is a more whimsical bird than the 1949 original. This proud bird is portrayed in happy flight, bearing numerous bouquets of olive branches and flowers in its wings, beak, and feet.

one of the many versions of Picasso’s iconic “Dove of Peace”

(1)”Lines That Kept Moving and Knew No Boundaries,” by Smith, Roberta. New York Times, October 7, 2011.

(2) Hart, Tony. Famous Children: Picasso. New York: Barron’s Educational Series, 1994.

(3) Krull, Kathleen. Lives of the Artists: Masterpieces, Messes (and What the Neighbors Thought). New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1995.

(4) link

(5) Clark, Hiro. Picasso: In His Words. New York: Welcome Books, 2002.

(6) Douglas, David. Viva Picasso: A Centennial Celebration 1881-1981. Studio, 1980.

 

 

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The Haunted Hotel

June 7, 2026 by Lisa Waller Rogers

Jacob Marley's Ghost from A Christmas Carol by Dickens

Jacob Marley\’s Ghost from A Christmas Carol by Dickens

Now I get to tell my ghost story. It happened in July of 1999. I remember the date exactly because my daughter Katie’s birthday is July 27. She, my husband, Tom, and I were taking a summer road trip up through El Paso to Santa Fe. Katie had her eleventh birthday while we were away and she wasn’t happy to be so far from home. She had wanted a birthday party back in Austin with her friends.

On our way up to Santa Fe, I had booked us a night at a famous and historic mountain inn in a little town in south central New Mexico, Cloudcroft. My uncle Max was once a forest ranger there. Nine thousand feet above sea level in the Sacramento Mountains and surrounded by 200,00 acres of the Lincoln National Forest, the Lodge also boasts a nine-hole golf course, a four-star restaurant, and a ghost named Rebecca – but I didn’t know the last part until the day of our arrival.

Established over a hundred years ago, The  Lodge is very impressive – elegant, yet cozy. Inside and out, it looked just as you would expect a mountain inn to look. The lobby featured a stuffed and angry brown bear reared up on his back legs, a fireplace with a bright and shiny copper roof, and the head of a buck mounted on the wall. The decor was both Victorian and Southwestern with heavy dark wood furniture, thick pile carpet, and leather couches.

Guests are warmly welcomed. The reception area had a huge basket of red apples. I wanted one. I was carrying some green Granny Smith apples already in what Tom and Katie called my Mary Poppins bag. If you’ve seen the movie, “Mary Poppins,” you know what I’m describing. It’s a bottomless carpet bag. Anyway, the Granny Smith apples in my bag were for Tom but I don’t really like them. They’re too tart. I like red ones better and so does Katie. So I reached into the hospitality basket and helped myself to three or four red apples. I tucked them into my Mary Poppins bag. I tucked them down deep into the bottom below the magazines and books so they wouldn’t spill out and zipped the bag shut.

The Lodge at Cloudcroft, NM

The Lodge at Cloudcroft, NM

We were shown to our guest room which faced the front. It was tucked into a dormer which meant the inner walls – covered with a Victorian printed wallpaper – were sloping. Tom and I were to share a four-poster queen bed while Katie had a window seat sleeping arrangement. We parked our bags – I heaved the Mary Poppins bag up onto a tall antique chest of drawers – and then we all went outside to explore.

The grounds were magnificent. We wandered onto the golf course. There were apple trees with little red and green crabapples weighing down their branches. I was from South Texas and had never seen apples growing on trees before although I was forty-four years old that summer! We walked around in the cool, crisp mountain air. It soon grew dark and our legs were tired from so much climbing, so we went inside for dinner.

In the dining room aptly named “Rebecca'” after the “ghost,” I had my first Spring Mix salad with raspberry vinaigrette. Back in Texas, we were still eating iceberg lettuce with Thousand Islands Dressing. The food and service were first class.

"Rebecca"

“Rebecca”

The hotel was really capitalizing on the ghost of Rebecca theme. A painting of Rebecca hung in the restaurant. I asked the waiter if the rumors of a ghost were true. He said he had never seen the ghost himself but the chef had had some really weird supernatural encounters. He went and got the chef for me. The chef said that, on more than one occasion, knives had flown through the air of his kitchen right toward him. He was convinced the ghost was responsible. I chuckled and went back to my food.

After dinner, the others went upstairs to the room but I wandered into the gift shop. I browsed among the books where I found The Ghostly Register, by Arthur Myers. Chapter 43: “The Ghost Who Makes Phone Calls,” was devoted to the legend of Rebecca. The ghost they call Rebecca – no one has researched this – is believed to be the spirit of a chambermaid who was killed by her lumberjack lover when he found her in the arms of another in the early 1900s. Those who claim to have seen her wandering the halls of the Lodge describe her as a beautiful redhead who wears a long, flowing gown. Guests and employees have reported many unexplained happenings at the Lodge that they attribute to Rebecca – ashtrays that slide across tabletops unassisted, phones that ring yet no one is on the line, footsteps, and knockings on doors. She was often seen near Suite 101, the Governor’s Room. I bought the book and left.

I decided to conduct my own investigation of the ghost. This “ghost of maid killed by jealous lover” legend is attached to many hotels and I was sceptical that Rebecca was more than that.  I wandered into the hallway of Suite 101. I hung around a while but everything seemed perfectly normal – no ectoplasm there – so I went upstairs to join the others. I found both Katie and Tom piled up their individual beds with books. I decided to get ready for bed and then join them.

After I’d changed into my nightgown, taken off my make-up, and washed my face, I was ready to climb up in bed alongside Tom with a good book. It was then that I remembered the juicy red apples in my Mary Poppins bag. I wanted one. I walked over to the chest of drawers.

Tom and Katie weren’t paying me any attention. They were still deeply absorbed in their reading. I grabbed my Mary Poppins bag and pulled it toward me. It was heavy. I got up on my tiptoes to peek inside the bag and tilted it toward me some so I’d see well enough to select a sweet red apple rather than one of Tom’s sour green ones. I found a nice red one, then rooted around inside some more until I’d found my book. I then pushed everything back down again in the bag and shoved it back in place on the dresser. I didn’t zip the bag shut this time, though; I left the mouth of it open.

I then turned and set my book on the bed, before padding off to the bathroom to wash my apple before eating it. I was surprised when I heard a couple of thuds behind me. Something had fallen on the floor. I  turned to see two red apples rolling along the carpet behind me like bowling balls aimed right for my feet. I looked over at Tom first and then Katie but neither of them had moved a muscle. Nevertheless, it could have been a trick. I put my hands on my hips and asked, “Hey, who did that?”

“Who did what?” they both wanted to know.

“Threw those apples at me?” I pointed to the carpet where the two red apples now lay at rest.

“What are you talking about?” Katie asked. I told them what had happened, that I thought someone had thrown the apples at me.

They laughed. “Maybe you just left your bag open and they fell out,” volunteered Tom, wanting to get back to his reading.

I knew that wasn’t true. Those apples had definitely been hurled at me by someone or something, but I didn’t speak of the incident again that night. I didn’t want to scare Katie. Tom and Katie just resumed their reading and I joined them. When we turned out the lights, my heart beat hard in my chest, but I still didn’t reveal how frightening it was to be in the dark in that room in that hotel.  But the next day, when we were checking out to head to Santa Fe, I took the lead and cancelled our reservations for the return trip. I wasn’t about to sleep another night under that roof.  That place was definitely haunted. I didn’t know how that chef could show up to work each day knowing that each day might be his last, that he’d spend it dodging knives – or apples.

 

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Elke Sommer’s Ghost Story

June 3, 2026 by Lisa Waller Rogers

I was thinking it was time for a good ghost story. I was tossing around some ideas in my head when I recalled something I’d seen on TV as a child. Of course we didn’t have any Discovery Channel back then, but the program was definitely a documentary type. It featured haunted houses and the people who lived in them. I remember the narrator talked with a family who lived in a house in which a rocking chair rocked with no one sitting in it. That felt a little hokey so I wasn’t spooked. It was when the narrator interviewed a person I recognized that I scooted to the edge of my seat.

Sommer and Sellers in "A Shot in the Dark" (1964)

Sommer and Sellers in “A Shot in the Dark” (1964)

It was the beautiful, blonde, and sexy Hollywood actress Elke Sommer (b.1940). She was familiar to me because she had played the voluptuous maid Maria opposite Peter Sellers in the second Pink Panther movie, “A Shot in the Dark” (1964), which ReadersDigest.com names as one of the top funniest 50 films of all times. If you haven’t seen it, you should. Bumbling Inspector Clouseau (Sellers) trails after Maria whom he suspects of committing multiple murders, one of which is in a nudist camp.There’s a hilarious scene of Maria and Clouseau fleeing through Paris naked.a-shot-in-the-dark-movie-poster

Anyway, Elke and her husband Hollywood columnist and Bogart’s best friend Joe Hyams (1923-2009) lived in Benedict Canyon in North Beverly Hills. They claimed that a ghost was living in their house. My husband Tom also remembers seeing the same show when he was young.  “They (Elke and Joe) had a ghost in their dining room,” he recalled. “The chairs would move around at night. They would put marks on the floor below the chairs before they went to bed, then, the next morning, they’d look, and the chairs wouldn’t be standing on the marks anymore. The chairs would be all over the place.”

In the middle of the night, Elke and Joe would wake up to what sounded like a dinner party going on downstairs in the dining room, hearing voices, chairs scooting, glasses tinkling, and silverware clanging. Yet they would go downstairs and no one would be there. Elke said, “Things would move all the time and it would be very noisy and (it was) the usual poltergeist nonsense, you know.” (1) The ghost was described as being a middle-aged man wearing a white shirt. (2)

After battling the spirits with no relief, they called in some help, contacting the Parapsychological Institute at UCLA. When Life photographer Allan Grant arrived at the house to take some pictures, he was a sceptic – but not so when he left. He said:

Something happened that spooked me. On one roll of film that I shot in a particular room where they first spotted the ghost there were about four or five frames of film that were progressively fogged down to the end of the frame, giving it a ghostlike appearance, especially (of) Joe Hyams, who was in the shot. When that was processed and I took a look at it, I thought, there’s no way that would happen…in the center of a roll…something else had happened that I couldn’t explain and I’ve spent years as a photographer and that had never happened to me before….Something did happen in that house. (1)

The haunting continued. A mysterious fire erupted one night. Fortunately, Joe and Elke were able to get out through a window. Shortly thereafter, they moved out of the house permanently. (1) Joe Hyams wrote a book about it called The Day I Gave Up the Ghost. Evidently, though, the ghost didn’t give up. The “severely haunted house” at 2633 Benedict Canyon “was bought and sold more than seventeen times since Sommers vacated it, and many have reported ghostly phenomena.” (3)

(1) youtube interview: “Actress Elke Sommer with a Poltergeist.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRLasAUl-eI
(2) California Paranormal Travel Guide.
http://www.haunted-places.com/californ.htm
(3) Ghosts of Hollywood: Celebrities Who Have Seen Ghosts. http://paranormal.about.com/cs/trueghoststories/a/aa022304_3.htm

 

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What Measles Does to Future Immunity

May 30, 2026 by Lisa Waller Rogers

This is what not vaccinating your child with M.M.R. will likely cause infection and a measles outbreak.

Immunologists and medical doctor Michael Mina have conducted research that reveals that measles destroys immune cells. People recovering from measles lose much of their immune memory. The protection they had acquired from previous infections of vaccines to other childhood illnesses is lost.

Dr. Mina compared the damage done to the immune system to the damage done by HIV:

“If you took all of the immunological memory that HIV tears down when it’s untreated for 5 to 10 years, that’s what you see after one measles infection,” Mina said.

Journalist Zeynep Tufekci states that

Some Americans live deep in echo chambers where most of what they hear about vaccines are lies and disdain. It won’t be possible to reverse all this quickly. Perhaps the best we can do is inform parents skeptical of vaccines what they’re risking, before it’s too late.

In Seminole, TX, every day, Dr. Wendell Parkey is confronted with vaccine skeptics who have chosen to not vaccinate their children. Seminole is at the center of the largest measles outbreak since 2019. Since the beginning of the year, more than 140 Texas residents, most who live in the surrounding Gaines County, have been diagnosed and 20 hospitalized. A child has died.

Dr. Parkey can detect measles in a patient before the telltale spots appear. Infected children have no affect and sit with a distant stare. As the illness progresses, the child’s eyes grow red and crusted and he will develop fever and a cough. The fever spikes and the rash would spread over his torso and thighs. The virus might migrate into his lungs and cause pneumonia and he might require an oxygen mask to breathe. Measles could invade his brain, cause swelling and convulsions, possibly blindness or deafness.

Once the virus infects someone, there is not treatment to stop it.

The measles virus is highly contagious. Measles spreads through microscopic droplets which can hang in the air for two hours. In order for a community to develop herd immunity, 95 % of the population must be vaccinated to stave off an outbreak. In Gaines County, the largest school district reported that just 82% of kindergartners received the M.M.R. vaccine in 2023. In one of the smaller school districts, less than half of the students got the shots.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., anti-vaxxer spokesman with no medical background, is recommending that the measles virus be treated with Vitamin A, which he believes will reduce mortality.

Posted in Measles and Vaccines | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments »

Annie Oakley: Hitting the Bull’s-Eye

May 27, 2026 by Lisa Waller Rogers

Expert Markswoman Annie Oakley performing her famous mirror trick

Expert Markswoman Annie Oakley performing her famous mirror trick (see Jan. 16 blog entry)

Aim at a high mark and you will hit it. No, not the first time, not the second time and maybe not the third. But keep on aiming and keep on shooting – for only practice will make you perfect. Finally, you’ll hit the bull’s-eye of success.
-Annie Oakley (1860-1926)

Chief Sitting Bull, whose army had defeated Custer’s troops at the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876, was so impressed with Annie Oakley’s amazing precision with a shotgun that he gave her an Indian name, Watanya Cecila, or Little Sure Shot.

Annie Oakley was one of the first people to be filmed by Thomas Edison, inventor of the motion picture camera. (1) This 80-second film from late 1894 shows Annie firing a rifle 25 times in 27 seconds and shooting glass balls tossed in the air by manager husband Frank Butler. View a clip of it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN85Nj_bfQo

(1)Macy, Sue. Bull’s-Eye. National Geographic Society: Washington, D.C., 2001.

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Clara Barton Deals with Sexism in the Work Place

May 7, 2026 by Lisa Waller Rogers

 

Clara Barton, ca. 1850

After a decade of teaching in Massachusetts, Clara Barton moved to New York for a year to study at the Clinton Liberal Institute. In 1851, she took a teaching job in Hightstown, New Jersey, at Cedarville School, where her pay was $2 per student for each eleven-week session. New Jersey offered no public education.

Clara began campaigning for public education in New Jersey. She successfully lobbied the Trenton officials and obtained a building and the funds to run a public school in Bordentown as a pilot project. In one year, the program proved to be such a success that local leaders looked to hiring a principal. Instead of hiring Clara, though, they appointed a man who had came from another place.

Clara Barton’s public school in Bordentown, New Jersey.

In 1854, Clara resigned. She became so distressed at having been passed over for the principalship that she became very ill and was unable to speak or to work. Finally, Clara and another teacher left New Jersey and boarded a train to Washington to find work as governesses.

Clara networked. She met with her Massachusetts congressman, Alexander De Witt, who was also a distant cousin. De Witt then introduced her to Charles Mason, the Commissioner of Patents. Mason wanted to hire Clara to go to Iowa to be the governess to his daughter. But De Witt saw enormous potential in Clara and urged Mason to hire Clara to work in the Patent office as a recording clerk. She was hired. Clara then became one of the first women to work for the federal government.

The U.S. Patent Office

Clara’s job at the Patent Office meant copying volumes of technical legal text with pen and ink. She had beautiful penmanship and a strong work ethic so she was up to the task. As if this work was not tedious enough, she had to contend with some male colleagues who resented what they perceived as her intrusion into their masculine domain.  As she walked to and from her desk, they would spit tobacco juice at her and her skirts, make lewd remarks, and puffed cigar smoke in her face. Nevertheless, Clara soldiered on.

Examiners working at the Patent Office.

Despite her fortitude, these men succeeded in forcing her from the workplace. She was reassigned to work from her boardinghouse room, by candlelight, at lesser pay. In 1857, President Buchanan was inaugurated and she lost her clerkship, but, for a time, she had made the same yearly salary as the men.

She returned to Massachusetts for three years. But she was not done with Washington, D.C.

Clara Barton is featured in my book, When People Were Things: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abraham Lincoln, and the Emancipation Proclamation. Click here to purchase.

Posted in Clara Barton, Clara Barton, MEDICINE, PEOPLE, POLITICS & GOV'T, The American Civil War | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

When People Were Things: audiobook available

May 3, 2026 by Lisa Waller Rogers

https://www.amazon.com/When-People-Were-Things-Emancipation/dp/B0GYT5Y6WH/ref=monarch_sidesheet_title

I have free copies to give, leave a comment if interested.

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Michael Jackson Rocks the Maytag & Veils the Kids

April 28, 2026 by Lisa Waller Rogers

Little Michael Jackson, age 3, ca. 1961 (Lisa’s History Room)

In her TV interview, Michael Jackson’s mother Katherine Jackson reminisced on “Dateline” about her internationally famous son who had died the previous year.

She remembered the day she realized Michael had talent:

We had a Maytag washing machine, and it was rickety when the agitators would go, you know how they go [imitates sound]. This one was so rickety that it had a [imitates sound] kinda like that, and Michael was there on the floor wearing his diaper and his little bottle, and he just was dancing to the rhythm of what the washing machine made.” 

Katherine Jackson went on to say that she had never met Debbie Rowe, the biological mother of Michael’s two oldest children, Prince (b. 1997) and Paris (b. 1998), until Michael’s death. Katherine, who raised nine children, is now mother to Paris, Prince, and Blanket, Michael’s third child, born in 2002.

Katherine didn’t always agree with the way Michael (1958-1009) was raising his children:

I never did like the fact that he put, um, scarfs or veils over their faces….” 

Michael Jackson with daughter Paris (l) and son Prince (r), circa 2001-02 (Lisa’s History Room)

Michael Jackson covered son Blanket’s face with a mask, ca. 2004-05 (Lisa’s History Room)

Katherine says the children are doing fine except that they have no friends. Prince, 13, Paris, 12, and Blanket, 8, have previously been tutored at home. Katherine is trying to give her grandchildren a more normal upbringing, free of the bizarre restrictions imposed by their father. In September, the three children will be enrolling in school for the first time in their lives, reports the Daily Mail.   Below are pictures of the children enjoying their first carefree Hawaiian vacation a few days before returning to the continental U.S. for a Gary, Indiana, hometown memorial for their father.

Michael Jackson’s eldest son, “Prince,” 13, whose full name is Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr. Hawaii, June 1010. (Lisa’s History Room)

Michael Jackson’s daughter, Paris, age 12, whose full name is Paris-Michael Katherine Jackson. Hawaii, June 2010. (Lisa’s History Room)

Michael Jackson’s youngest son, “Blanket,” 8, whose full name is Prince Michael Jackson II, enjoys a water chute at a Hawaii resort, June 2010 (Lisa’s History Room)

Readers: Click here for more posts on Michael Jackson.

sources: Dateline, The Daily Mail

 

This is a reblog.

Posted in Michael Jackson, PEOPLE | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

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