Physical Description:
102 folders
Scope and Contents note
This series consists of correspondence relating to Mary Alice Jaqua and her
life from December 1940 to September 1946. The letters through July 1942
document Jaqua’s life as secretary to John Gordon, MD, Director of the
American Red Cross-Harvard Medical Hospital Unit, in Salisbury, England, and
give details of her voyage to Liverpool and of work and life in rural
wartime England, before the United States entered the War. The letters give
much information on living conditions, the costs and difficulty of obtaining
food and clothing, and relations between the Americans and the local
population, including several families (in particular Lord Pendland, his
wife, and his sister, Peggy Sinclair) with whom Jaqua became close
friends).
The letters from August 1942-January 1944 document Jaqua’s life in London,
where she served in the office of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Commanding General,
European Theater of Operations, first as secretary to Lt. Cdr. Harry C.
Butcher, Eisenhower’s Naval Aide (August-November 1942), then as secretary
to Maj. Gen. Russell P. Hartle, Eisenhower’s deputy commander (November
1942-February 1943). When Eisenhower became Supreme Allied Commander, Jaqua
remained in London, handling Eisenhower’s “London business”, while serving
as secretary to his successors as Commanding General, European Theater of
Operations, Lt. Gen. Frank M. Andrews (February 1943) and, after his death,
Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers (May 1943). While the confidential nature of her
work prevents Jaqua from describing it in more than the most general terms,
the letters do contain extensive descriptions of the social life in wartime
London of a single American woman whose work for high-ranking American
military officers enables her to develop a wide circle of friends, some of
whom—such as Stephen Stackpole, Sydney “Spivie” Spivack, and Leslie (later
Sir Leslie) Rowan—went on to distinguished careers after the War.
Jaqua followed Devers to Algiers when he was transferred to the Mediterranean
Theater in January 1944, and in July 1944 moved to Caserta, Italy, where she
remained based until she returned to the United States in August 1945. Her
letters from this period give a vivid account of military life in North
Africa and southern Italy, the condition of Italy in the weeks and months
following the American invasion, and her wide circle of friends, including
Hermione Countess of Ranfurly (who later published a best-selling diary of
her wartime experiences), her roommate in Algiers; Lt. Col. Bernice “Bunny”
Wilbur, chief army nurse for the Mediterranean Theater, who had been a nurse
at the American Red Cross-Harvard Field Hospital Unit and was her roommate
in Caserta; air force commander Lt. General Ira C. Eaker; Sydney Spivack;
and John Hay “Jock” Whitney, of the OSS, and his circle.
Jaqua’s letters from 1945 to 1947 relate to her move to Minneapolis,
apparently to pursue an abortive romance with Andreas “Andy” Luksch, an
immigrant from Europe whom she had known in Boston before the War (it was he
who took the photographs of her on the day prior to her departure for
England that can be found in box 2, folder 42), and her subsequent move to
New York City to become the secretary to Jock Dunning, a former RAF officer
and friend of Jock Whitney whom she had met in Caserta and whom Whitney had
appointed Executive Vice President of Whitney Industries.
The majority of the letters is from Jaqua to her parents and family, and in
addition to news and gossip these letters contain many requests for her
family to send her clothing, toiletry, and other items not readily available
in wartime Europe, as well as comments on her parents’ peripatetic life
since her father’s precipitate retirement from Scripps College in June 1942.
All but a handful of the letters are typed; many of those from the War years
are carbon copies that Jaqua sent to her sister Eleanor and her brothers.
The series includes a small number of letters written by others, including
several by the generals to whom she reported. The two letters from Dwight
Eisenhower are photocopies: the originals were retained by the family. The
two most recent letters, addressed to Jaqua (by this time Mrs. Murray Kahne)
in 1969 and 1970, discuss the possibility of her donating her Eisenhower
photographs and letters to the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene,
Kansas.
Arrangement note
Arranged chronologically.