Miss Duncan Goes to Washington, Part 3 of 7

February 10, 1941 

Dear Mother --, 

Perfectly blissful weekend - absolutely nothing to do. All of Q Street [group of single men, many of whom are Jewish and work for the federal government] has gone home to celebrate the Passover, so I am left in pleasantly Christian solitude. Yesterday after meeting Rosalind at the Allies Inn for lunch in my new suit, I went back to the office and worked until after six all alone.

We have been quite swamped these last few days. The State Department doesn't know whether it's coming or going and we have to keep straightening them out. We finally got the complete list of all Americans waiting in Lisbon for passage to this country - about 300 of them - and we are trying to get together all possible information about them to send on to Sadie. This entails no end of red tape with the Passport Division, Division of Account, Special Sections, and various other parts of the Department of State. Quell mess. 

My suit is a Constant Joy. I have worn it twice without a top coat; it has been that warm down here. Rosalind is still faintly green. The other two are all hemmed, pressed, and put in a dark corner to await the real heat. I haven't got around to the cherries yet, though.

Nancy's Friend, Harold Leaventhal, 1941

Saw Blossom Time with Harold on Thursday night. It seemed a bit tacky, or maybe I am developing Harold's sophisticated attitude, or maybe our seats were too good. Fun, though. Friday night dancing at the Madrillon with a boy named Mauer who works in radio somewhere. All I really know is that he isn't a lawyer. A couple of very pleasant luncheons with Frank Newman of the R.C. Practically all in my suit. 

Rosalind and Dick have left for New York and the Salant residence today, the ultimatum having had some effect. I am on the old pins and needles to hear the results. No word on his being drafted yet. 

I have been so industrious this morning. I washed all the Venetian blinds for the first time in the history of Robduncanbuck Digs. Also all shelves, the kitchen, and the icebox. Then I made orange jelly and poured it into the egg shells that I had blown empty for my scrambled egg. Or did you see that stunt in the Ladies Home Companion too? I kept some of the extra juice so I could taste it when it jelled, and just had it for lunch with - I blush - whip cream. 

A really marvelous letter from Donald: "and then when they hear that they must go to Washington for the duration to work on defense housing and defense and bombs and bomb shelters - they say oh hell and they are a little torn because of other things - then they loose the chance on account of they were too slow to chuck their ideals into an anti-aircraft shell." (I guess that he’s been reading a lot of Dos Passos again.) Lord, I hate to think what his setting up residence in Washington would mean. . .
 

Harold and Nancy, 1941

Rosalind has finally decided that if she's going to get married she ought to know something about it, so she went and borrowed a Marriage Manual from one of her friends who's already practicing amalgamation of the races. Silliest book I ever read. It says it's for beginners, so we thought it was the right one for us, but ye ghads, where do they think we have been all our lives? "Since the female is more slowly aroused than the male, she must be stimulated by the loveplay, which should precede intercourse. (No!) The erotic senses are centered in the lips, the lobes of the ears--" Blah, blah in ten easy lessons. But we didn’t know all about contraceptives, except that nothing is as good as it's advertised, and the diagrams are lovely. 

I am enclosing $6. The other $5.50 which I still owe you will come after pay day next Tuesday. I haven't a penny to bank this month, but at least I'm holding my own. Also the communication, I mean commutation, ticket. Your India scarf will arrive shortly, too. 

Well, have a Happy Easter and think of my Venetian blinds. 

And Harold liked my suit. (He just better!) 

Love and kisses, 
Nancy 

Copyright 2005 by Curt Taylor

Miss Duncan Goes to Washington, Part 2 of 7

January 7, 1941

Which brings us to the job. Of course I was terrified when I pattered into that great big marble building all by myself on Monday morning at 8:30. I remained terrified all day. Old Gwin started me off with ten letters, and I spent the rest of the day typing them up, with numerous carbons. But today things solidified down a bit. I am part his stenographer and part Mr. Leverenz' secretary. The idea is that eventually I work only for Mr. L. He is the Assistant Director of Civilian Relief. (The first letter I typed for him I signed as the Civil Relief, and it didn't go over so large.) That means that he corresponds with all the local Chapters about what they are doing for the relief of people whom the other authorities can't take care of, like people who move to new places and can't go on relief because they haven't got a residence.  

Red Cross HQ, Washington, D.C., 1941

The biggest thing that they are worrying about now is what to do with a lot of Americans who are coming back from France. They are mostly people who have lived over there all their lives and resent having to return, and they haven't any money at all and probably very few friends in this country. The idea is to apply pressure on the civil authorities to make them be a bit more lenient in the residence requirement for relief, and to get them jobs when possible, and to lend them enough money to get to friends who can take them in. I imagine them all as disgruntled Henry Jameses. 

The work itself is pretty darn hard and I'm not too good at it. I'm dreadfully slow and about the best that can be said for it is that I haven't made the same mistake on two different days. I came up with a whole new batch this morning. Mr. L. is very gentle with me, but he uses such dreadful words; he came out with 'expatriation' and 'rehabilitation' in one sentence, and even in my wildest dreams I never saw those two in shorthand. But I seem to get along somehow. Mr. Gwin's secretary is very nice to me and helps me out and explains things twice for me. Taking letters from J. Blaine (Gwin) is a snap because they all say the same thing. 'We're very sorry that we have nothing to suggest just now, but we will file your application blank for future reference and if anything should come up etc.' Lord, I'm glad I never got one of those! But I typed two telegrams for him today, asking people to come to Washington at his expense to be interviewed. 

Rosalind Robb and (fiance) Richard Salant

So you see I am making out. We are still as enthusiastic about our house as in the first letter. It really is perfect, except for a few small technical matters. I would like to somewhat revise the list of requests, though. Frannie's father brought us andirons, but if you had that old Cape Cod fire lighter lying around, I bet we could remember to keep it full. Our table is 2½ by 5½ (kindly admire fractions; I have a ¼ -sign too, not to mention * and ^) when it is all open out, meaning when Rosalind's Dick and Frannie's Otto come to dinner, and we haven't one single table cloth. Also how about a half dozen of those colored napkins that don't need to be ironed, for best? Any old bureau scarves? Dish towels? The china is adequate and we're making Rosalind buy the silver to use in her kitchen after she's married, so that's all right. We do need candlesticks, though. And how about a blanket? The one that is provided on my bed has a label guaranteeing that it is at least 5% wool, but that isn't much wool. 

We are hoping that Papa is still planning to come down here sometime this coming weekend and that he will have dinner here. How funny, me inviting Papa to eat dinner in my house! Which brings me to the Bad News. We had to pay our January rent before we moved in, and the bill at the 18th Street place came to a bit, so I am at present fairly flat broke. No one has mentioned when pay day rolls around. So, unless you want me to starve after about this Friday--. Of course I have a roof over my head, which is something. 

Really, Mother, you should have seen us getting breakfast this morning. We set the alarm for 6:30, because Rosalind insists that she have fifteen minutes to get up strength enough to greet the new day. Then we all leapt out of bed, and I put the coffee on and we all squeezed oranges while dressing. But now we are going to squeeze the night before instead. We were all dressed, beds made, and breakfast on the table by 7:15---porched [sic] eggs, toast, juice of the orange, toast, (sorry) Shredded Ralston, and coffee. We decided that it would be more economical to eat a good breakfast and dinner, and then have only a 20¢ lunch, than to leave off the eggs for breakfast, and we have such a nifty little porcher [sic] to porch [sic] them in. 

Oh, I forgot to ask for a cook book. That's one thing we really need because we refuse to always eat out of the frying pan. Do write and give us some suggestions for what is cheap and easy to get and fairly substantial. 

Come visit us and sleep on our day bed and eat our porched [sic] eggs. Also admire our gate.

Love and kisses, 
Nancy 

Copyright 2005 by Curt Taylor

Miss Duncan Goes to Washington, Part 1 of 7

Nancy Duncan, 
age 22, 1941

Several months ago Curt Taylor asked if I could put him in touch with Margaret Singer. He explained that his late mother, Nancy Duncan Taylor, served with Ms. Singer in the Red Cross in Iceland during World War II. Curt recently shared letters his mother wrote after graduating from Smith College, then Copley Secretarial Institute in Boston, when she accepted a job in D.C. with the Red Cross through an introduction her father arranged with personnel director, "Mr. Gwin." Before starting, Nancy planned to return home to Scarsdale, N.Y. for a brief vacation. Mr. Gwin had other plans. My thanks to Curt and his siblings for allowing me to reprint excerpts of these letters in a series marking National Administrative Professionals Week (previously National Secretaries Week), April 20-26.


January 4, 1941

Dear Moth-er,

What a mess I have done and made of things this time. I was sure the Old Gwin wouldn't notice I went or not and just called to ask his secretary as a formality. But he was overwhelmed with grief and insisted that I stay in Washington and begin on Monday as planned. I really am awfully sorry about all this fuss and do hope that you hadn't changed too many plans irrevocably. That's just what happens whenever you try to do something not quite right -- not morally, Goop. I don't really need a vacation and I ought to start to work right away.

Robbuncanduck Residence, Georgetown, January 1941
(Roommates Rosalind Robb, Nancy Duncan, Franny Buck)

But the big news is what we did this afternoon. When Friend Gwin said I had to stay, we decided that this was as good a time as any other to start looking for apartments. So Rosalind (Robb) and Franny Buck and I bought a newspaper and went the rounds. They were quite pessimistic about the whole thing because they'd tried so many times before with no success. Well, to make a long story short, we found the neatest little spot in the whole of Washington. It's in Georgetown, 29** Dunbarton Avenue (sic), for future use. We are moving all our stuff up tomorrow and sleeping there Monday night. Now I will describe.

It's on the ground floor of a little house and you enter by a little blue gate, go about two steps through a plot of garden, and land at a blue door. You enter right into the living room, which has a real fireplace in the one corner, a double bed that turns into a couch, and a couple of easy-chairs, really easy. Off of the living room is a tiny cubicle which has some resemblance to a kitchen, with a sink and rinse-board-business and numerous shelves and space underneath. Also an electric stove. Folding doors cover it up when not in use, so from the living room it looks like a closet. 

Dunbarton St., N.W. 2014 
Credit: Google (Click)

The whole setup is so neat and attractive, particularly the blue gate, though, that we were sold on the place almost immediately. You couldn't feel much like a K. Foyle [reference to Kitty Foyle book meaning 'typical white collar girl'] in it because it is so individual. 

I do hope you and Papa will approve of what I have gone and done. So much seems to have happened to me in this one week that I'm still a bit limp from the whole procedure. Of course the job was pretty appalling. Personally, I wouldn’t go far for Mr. Gwin. I think he's a pretty sleepy sort of goop and talks out of only about half his mouth and has really no idea of humor. He told me quite seriously that although the Red Cross didn't pay as well as the government, after 65 I could expect a simply dandy pension! He apologized profusely for making me a mere stenographer, but assured me that with my 'educational background,' meaning caliber, I would get to be a secretary soon enough and that the demand for them was so great that they were having to take girls out of the pool before they were ready. He made me take a stenographic test, which was only about 90 words a minute. Fortunately I'd spent most of the week at the secretarial school boning up, so I wasn't the least bit scared.

So I begin on Monday, living in my own snug little apartment and whipping off to my little job each morning. It sounds all right to me and I am feeling pretty pleased with myself and my precious caliber tonight. Granted I can hold the job, everything in the garden will be loverly. Of course I'm scared to death to go in there day after tomorrow.

Isn't it silly? There's Roge and Mary moving into that tiny little room up in Concord and me in such a palatial residence. Ho, the assets of the Single Life.

We have been trying to think of things that we can ask our dear families for. The list so far is as follows:

Table clothes, or singular, smallish Candle sticks, the symbol of gracious living Ash trays, because we don't own the furniture. Have we an old set of andirons or poker etc.? My freshman towels in my chest in the attic.

You could just dump anything into my laundry case under Ellen's bed and send them on down. I do really grieve over this vacation business, but Gwin surprised me.

Love and Kisses,
Nancy

Copyright 2005 by Curt Taylor