A Spiritual Autobiography

IT was during the summer of 1938 that we were given the dreadful news. I forget from whose hands it came. Probably from “Mademoiselle,” our governess. She was the authority in residence at Great Elm, given that my mother, my father, and three of my older siblings were traveling in Europe. That left six children to romp happily through one more summer in Father’s large house in Sharon, the village designated by the Garden Club of America two years before as the most beautiful town in Connecticut after Litchfield. The six of us left behind ranged in age from Jim (15) to Maureen (5). We were superintended by Mademoiselle Jeanne Bouchex and by three Mexican nurses; fed and looked after by a cook, a butler, and two maids; trained and entertained in equestrian sport by a groom and an assistant, making use of Father’s eight horses; instructed in piano by a 23-year-old New Yorker who came and stayed with us three days of every week, giving us each a lesson every day on one of the five pianos in the house; and instructed in the guitar or banjo or mandolin (we were allowed our pick) by a Spanish-born violinist who traveled once a week from Poughkeepsie.

It might have been Mademoiselle who told us what Father had decided, or it might have been Miss Hembdt, Father’s secretary. She lived in Yorktown Heights and regularly relayed to us bulletins from Father, transcriptions of letters he would mail her, mostly to do with his business affairs but now and then including something directed to one or more of his absent children, supplementing what we would learn from letters received from Mother or from one of our siblings traveling with them. With these notes came our monthly allowances, a directive or so touching on this or that subject, references to a book Father had just read which we should know about, or read ourselves. . . . That dreadful day in August the directive, however transmitted, was as horrifying an edict-my two afflicted sisters and I agreed-as had ever been sent to three healthy and happy children from their father. The directive was to the effect that the next school year Jane, Trish, and I would pass in boarding schools near London, the girls at St. Mary’s in Ascot, I at St. John’s Beaumont, in Old Windsor.

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

IT was during the summer of 1938 that we were given the dreadful news. I forget from whose hands it came. Probably from “Mademoiselle,” our governess. She was the authority in residence at Great Elm, given that my mother, my father, and three of my older siblings were traveling in Europe. That left six children to romp happily through one more summer in Father’s large house in Sharon, the village designated by the Garden Club of America two years before as the most beautiful town in Connecticut after Litchfield. The six of us left behind ranged in age from Jim (15) to Maureen (5). We were superintended by Mademoiselle Jeanne Bouchex and by three Mexican nurses; fed and looked after by a cook, a butler, and two maids; trained and entertained in equestrian sport by a groom and an assistant, making use of Father’s eight horses; instructed in piano by a 23-year-old New Yorker who came and stayed with us three days of every week, giving us each a lesson every day on one of the five pianos in the house; and instructed in the guitar or banjo or mandolin (we were allowed our pick) by a Spanish-born violinist who traveled once a week from Poughkeepsie.

It might have been Mademoiselle who told us what Father had decided, or it might have been Miss Hembdt, Father’s secretary. She lived in Yorktown Heights and regularly relayed to us bulletins from Father, transcriptions of letters he would mail her, mostly to do with his business affairs but now and then including something directed to one or more of his absent children, supplementing what we would learn from letters received from Mother or from one of our siblings traveling with them. With these notes came our monthly allowances, a directive or so touching on this or that subject, references to a book Father had just read which we should know about, or read ourselves. . . . That dreadful day in August the directive, however transmitted, was as horrifying an edict-my two afflicted sisters and I agreed-as had ever been sent to three healthy and happy children from their father. The directive was to the effect that the next school year Jane, Trish, and I would pass in boarding schools near London, the girls at St. Mary’s in Ascot, I at St. John’s Beaumont, in Old Windsor.