Inside my mother’s purse

I’ve been carrying with me a little black silk purse with a tortoise shell closing since my mother died 11 years ago. I suppose it’s one of the last things left from my beloved, stylish mother.

The little black purse has been sitting in the bottom of my bigger purses; let’s call them handbags, although ‘handbag’ seems so old fashioned a word. I only use ‘handbag’ now to remember my French licence plate – EY 107 HB, ‘every year I buy 107 handbags’ – having moved here following my husband’s sudden death a year ago.

My mother used this little black purse for a lipstick and tiny mirror when she and my father went to a soirée and she had to powder her nose. The purse was one of the gifts she received every year from my father’s godfather, Arthur ‘Red’ Motley, publisher of Parade magazine.

‘Uncle Red’ gave a luncheon party every year in a fancy Manhattan restaurant for the many women he knew and admired in the publishing business. He was far ahead of his time in that recognition and loved women – especially my mother, who wrote FYI, the in-house magazine for Time, Inc. when my father went to war as a correspondent for the American Office of War Information.

My mother looked forward to that lunch every year and neither ‘hell nor high-water’ nor a Connecticut snow-storm – as once happened – would keep her from attending. She would return on the last commuter train to Westport, where she would be picked up by my father, always carrying a gift from Red and a slew of captivating stories and gossip about the other lunch attendees. 

One year Diana Vreeland, editor of Harper’s Bazaar and American Vogue was the guest of honour and my mother regaled my father about the unusual Vreeland and her reaction to the leopard-print, heavy jersey apron that was Red’s gift that year to his guests. Vreeland was apparently so bowled over by the stunning apron that she put it on her and there over her smart outfit, announcing that she was going to cook in it ‘forever’.

My mother didn’t cook with the fancy apron unless she was entertaining, which was often. I wish I’d kept it, even though I rarely entertain now, along with the little black purse. The apron said a lot about my mother, who couldn’t boil an egg when she married my father in 1937. Under my his keen eye (in particular for eggs, which he thought best done ‘sunny-side up’), she became a superb cook and passed many of her recipes on to me, as well as her fine, extensive and eclectic collection of books about cooking. Gourmet was a favourite as was M.F.K. Fisher’s To Cook A Wolf.

Recently, in a shop in Beaune, France, I bought a purse to replace my mother’s little black one. The original is in tatters and I no longer carry euro coins or bills; all I need is plastic cards for my new life in Burgundy.

To help me pick out a replacement, I enlisted my seven-year-old granddaughter, Maélle, a fashionista like me and her great grandmother. As we both like pink, we chose a small pink and grey purse with a zipper. I told Maèlle that I would leave her the little purse and hoped that she would remember the day we bought it together. I also told her that good memories are to be cherished and never wear out, even though, at times, one’s life seems to be in tatters.