And then again, sometimes it DOESN’T pay to be off-handedly impertinent…

I had no sooner gotten sat down from my return from the funeral when Chet the E-Mail Boy came rushing (charitably speaking) through the doorway with the following missive:

Subject: Christine Terhune Herrick

Hey! I must take exception on your treatment of Christine Terhune Herrick! Chrissie Herrick was not what you describe. First of all, that was her real name, not something made up to sound "high society." She was the daughter of a Presbyterian minister (The Rev. Dr. Edward Payson Terhune) and wife of a reporter on the Brooklyn Eagle (Fred Herrick). She lived in Brooklyn, for heaven's sake. She, along with her parents, her sister Virginia and brother Albert Payson Terhune, were all writers. Although her books on domestic economy seem dated and quaint now, they were very popular because they were written from experience for middle-class women who did not have unlimited resources.

Her great-great grandniece, also named Christine Terhune Herrick, is an attorney in Washington State. She'd probably have a good laugh over your remarks, but I'm not forwarding your site to her, just in case!

Kathleen Rais (MacMurray)

Huh? What!? I confessed to Chet no small amount of consternation, given that I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what this was all about.

(To myself I kept my fears that possibly once again I had been latched onto by a raving moonbat who had mistaken me for someone else—it has happened before, although at least this time there was a bit more to go on to deduce the reasoning behind this Herrickean fury.)

To the magic Google machine I flew, where I tapped in good Mrs. Herrick’s name and the name of this blog, and LO AND/OR BEHOLD, there it was—back on Wednesday, January 3 of this year, I was waxing rhapsodic about my then-new Christmas gift of Everybody’s Writing-Desk Book, an interesting feature of which was a listing of books in the back by authors of the time—including one Christine Terhune Herrick! One of her titles from the list (What To Eat -- How To Serve It) I had managed to find on Barnes and Noble’s Out of Print Book site, and I then had this to say about her:

Apparently a well-known cookbook [author] and general household scold of the late 19th- and early 20th centuries, with a name that desperately belongs to a high society dinner party hostess in a Three Stooges movie. Looking at her copious list of titles on B&N, it's hard to believe that they are missing some of her other fine works published by Harper's, which are listed as House-Keeping Made Easy and Cradle and Nursery. Bet those are some corkers, alright.

Ahhh.

Well, now.

Ahem.

Hmm.

I suppose my waywardness with the vowels and consonants could have caused some pain to devotees of Mrs. Herrick, so I cobbled together a response to Mrs. MacMurray and pled insanity, begging forgiveness for being a brash upstart and sporting about with the Terhune legacy, and asked if posting her defense of Mrs. Herrick would be acceptable.

Thankfully, Mrs. MacMurray had been in the teasing mode, and she quickly wrote back that she knew my gentle prodding was done with tongue firmly encheeked. It seems that Kathleen has written several scholarly articles and a book about the Terhune family, and is quite up on many obscure facets of Terhunania. In addition, for many years she dealt in rare books, specializing in the Terhune family.

Breathing a great sigh of relief (along with the Possumblog Legal Department), I told Kathleen I would be happy to direct my readers to her website. She demurred (having not yet taken the plunge into the icy waters of Oceanus Interneticus) but did not object in the least if I directed you all to her book, Albert Payson Terhune : A Bibliography of Primary Works, which is listed on Amazon. Although the book is about brother Albert, it also contains Christine’s bibliography and a photograph of her.

So, there now! Go, read! Or I shall scold you once more!

posted by Terry at 3:19:00 PM