London | It's a Writing Life

A Love Affair with Radio [Part 3] – ABSIE

My mother’s nearly ten-year career – from the late 1930s through most of the 1940s – had a strong information / radio theme (see Part 1 – A Lifetime Passion and Part 2 – The Roots of the VOA of this series). One of those pieces was the American Broadcasting Station in Europe (ABSIE), which was set up as a station by the U.S. Office of War Information (OWI) in collaboration with the BBC, to counter Nazi propaganda, and to have a unique American voice in Europe. The seven ABSIE Country Desks broadcast eight hours of programming each day from London, targeting their respective country-specific audiences. Launched in the months leading up to D-Day, it ended fifteen months later – just ninety days after victory in Europe.

As a member of the OWI French Desk, mom began working to help launch ABSIE soon after she arrived in London in early 1944 – as they helped prepare for the imminent invasion of Europe. ABSIE was to be America’s big propaganda ‘gun,’ run as a complement to the Voice of America (VOA), but having its own mission to support the military goals of the Allied invasion of France. The ABSIE copy was specifically designed to raise doubt in the German psyche as to the sense of continuing an un-winnable war. ABSIE was also to be the authoritative voice that would inform people in occupied areas on how to be prepared for the coming invasion. Continue reading “A Love Affair with Radio [Part 3] – ABSIE”

Shepherd Market, London

In 2011, Bill had a business trip to London and Paris and asked if I would like to come along. “Bien sur,” I replied, and quickly figured out how I would extricate myself from daily life at our house in Connecticut.

By sheer chance, I mentioned the trip to my sister, Tina. It turned out that she had a free ticket to fly anywhere in the world that was in danger of expiring, the result of a cancelled flight her husband Brian experienced the prior year. I asked if she’d like to join us on our upcoming trip and she replied, “Bien sur!” Kismet!

Sheperds House, Mayfair, London, where Mom lived in 1944-45 – Source: Family photos

A lot of great stuff happened on this trip. This was the real beginning of my book journey, and the research behind writing the story of my mother’s WW2 work for the Office of War Information (OWI). I’ll report on the other parts of the trip in additional posts.

On this day in London, March 16^th, 2011, we planned to visit Shepherd Market where our mother lived during her time in London from March 1944 – March 1945. Continue reading “Shepherd Market, London”

Lifelong Friendships

My mother created many lifelong friendships during her time working for the OWI in New York, London and Paris. Three of them, among others, were her colleague Margaret McElderry, the Cornet family in Paris and Katherine Harding in London.

Margaret McElderry

A central character in the book, Elsa Sparks, is based on Margaret McElderry, a well-known children’s book editor and publisher. Marg, (with a hard “g”), as my mother called her, was a regular presence at our house. For many, many years, she would arrive with gifts of her newly published books for the five of us children. My sisters, who are a bit older than I am, received early copies of The Borrowers when Harcourt, Brace published the volume in the United States in 1953. All those books are still in our various library shelves.

Mom and Marg would meet for lunch or dinner a few times each year and when possible, enjoy a weekend Continue reading “Lifelong Friendships”

Good Things Are Worth Waiting For

About ten years ago, I embarked on a journey to write the story of my mother’s wartime experience when she worked as a civilian in the Office of War Information (OWI). I had many letters – maybe 65 or so – she had written home in 1944 and 1945, saved by my grandparents for some reason.

My mother – Alberta Conway Jones (early 1950s) – Source: Family Photos

When my grandparents sold their brownstone in Brooklyn way back in the late 1960’s, my mother took all those saved WW2 letters to our house and promptly stored them in our attic for thirty-five years. When we sold our parent’s house thirty years later, I took those loosely tethered letters to my home and finally had a chance to look through them carefully.

As I went through them, I knew there was a story to tell. The challenge was where to start and how to approach these large moments in history: Continue reading “Good Things Are Worth Waiting For”

From My Mother’s OWI Garret

In the house I grew up in, our attic was stacked with boxes. A decade could be retraced in an hour’s time. Births, deaths, baptisms, confirmations and graduations and various ephemera littered the rafters. Frayed boxes bulged with old photographs and letters.

ACJ Letters home during WWI – Source: Family Photos

I was the youngest of my family and almost the youngest of my entire extended family. So much had transpired before I had attained an awareness of what was going on. In the attic, I was able to look back and recapture some sense of my family’s life before I came along. I found it captivating to think about where they had lived and to read about the details of their lives. And rich material there was. Continue reading “From My Mother’s OWI Garret”