Sundays were spent at church, usually followed by a fried chicken lunch and then visiting neighbors. “I don’t know of anyone that didn’t love her,” says Kay Tolbert Buckland. “I can remember at Christmastime my father would take me and we would go and deliver presents … there in Shreveport because [all the recipients] were all good friends of my grandmother. And my grandmother didn’t have any money. She was a schoolteacher! But they all wanted to be her friend.” French was a “friend of the wealthiest people and the poorest people”: “They all loved her.”36
As noted, French often played hostess to a wide range of people in her home. A favorite tradition was the Christmas morning eggnog party. French made a brew, imported from her native Kentucky, called “Henry Clay eggnog.” The recipe involved two dozen eggs, a lot of milk, and a lot of cream plus a quart of bourbon and a quart of rum. Her teetotalist guests “would come to her eggnog party, not knowing all the booze that was in the eggnog”: “They … never said a thing about it.” These guests apparently remained blissfully ignorant of the alcohol-induced cause of their early morning Christmas cheer.37
French kept in contact with Science Hill Academy, the school that had opened so many doors for her. Her high regard for Science Hill was genuine, evidenced by the fact that she sent her own daughter there. In 1925, the school held a centennial celebration. French was chosen from among hundreds of graduates to represent students from the Wiley Poynter years. Her speech honored him, reflected her ongoing passion for opening up educational possibilities for women, and also paid homage to Poynter’s wife and successor, Clara. “Tonight,” she declared, “I come to place two wreaths upon two brows, upon the one a crown of service for seventeen years of marvelous beginnings; upon the other a crown for thirty-nine years of exampled carrying-on.”38
French attained local recognition in the Shreveport community on a number of counts, many of which she appears to have engineered herself. She was mentioned frequently in the Shreveport Times for her work with the Woman’s Department Club. The paper pointedly uses her proper title in a 1920 article: “And by the way, for our everyday saying, she is our friend, Mrs. French, but whenever she is doing any work along the lines for which she received her degree, she has been asked to use the title bestowed upon her and be called Dr. Katherine Jackson French.”39 (Whoever “asked” her is not stated.) In 1930, the paper began to publish her weekly lectures. That same year, she is quoted in an article, “What Music Means to Me.”40 In 1933, she is the subject of a lengthy feature article: “The proud boast of Centenary college that its English department is unexcelled by any college in the entire South is supported among other reasons by the fact that it has been fortunate enough for 10 years to have identified with it one of the foremost English scholars in the entire country, Dr. Katherine Jackson French.” The article refers to her work in the British Museum and mentions hobnobbing with education leaders at the Columbia University Library during summers off. It also makes a point of noting that French had met distinguished speakers and performers through the Woman’s Department Club and that with many “she has had delightful associations.”41 This collection of famous acquaintances is corroborated by her granddaughter, who remembers going to a Broadway play when she was a child and being introduced to Richard Rodgers, a friend of her grandmother’s.42
Not surprisingly, French became active in the early organizational efforts of both the Shreveport and the state chapters of the AAUW. In March 1941, nine months before Pearl Harbor, she was elected president of the Louisiana chapter. Immediately following her election, she and her secretary-treasurer, Mrs. C. L. Mooney (also of Shreveport), traveled to Alexandria for the tenth state convention. The focus of the convention was “the place of women in the defense program.” French also traveled to the national convention in Cincinnati in May, that year’s theme being summed up in the statement: “The American Cause is again the cause of the creative human spirit, which no enemy has ever overcome.”43
At the national convention French heard Erika Mann, the daughter of German ex-patriot novelist Thomas Mann, speak of the dangers of Hitler’s youth education programs as outlined in her book School for Barbarians (1938). She took copious notes on Mann’s speech, the main points of which lamented the “blind obedience” of the Hitler youth and outlined Mann’s solution: the “battering rams” of group action and the inculcation of the democratic process in schools. Mrs. Edward R. Murrow also spoke (albeit from London), as did Ambassador Mary Craig McGeachy, the first woman ever to receive a British embassy appointment. Dr. Margaret Mead, who had not yet become a cultural icon, also delivered an address titled “What Women Might Contribute to Science.” (She also spoke to the state chapter in 1947.) French’s circle of acquaintances and influences thus grew to include some of the most prominent female thinkers of the time.44
French’s election as president of the Louisiana chapter of the AAUW came at a time of great world turmoil. Europe was being overrun by Nazi Germany, England had been attacked, and the United States was torn over whether to enter the war. In October 1941, French wrote to her AAUW colleagues: “Another year lies before us, filled with terrific problems to be solved. We must not merely be another club, but must recognize the challenge to think, face our obligation to society, and encourage our members steadfastly in the search after Truth, which will bring to us the courage and rebuild or uphold our morale. ‘We have within ourselves the power to conquer bestiality, not with our muscles and our swords, but with the power of the light which is always in our minds.’ (There Shall Be No Night).”45
In 1942, French invited Ambassador McGeachy to speak at the AAUW Louisiana state convention in Hammond, where she spoke on the subject “British University Women in War.” An article in the Shreveport Times attests that McGeachy stated that British women were happy to be involved in the war effort and were part of an overall feeling of national unity. It quotes her as proclaiming: “Plato stated three things that save us … justice, self-demand, and truth, and I would add a fourth, love.”46 A photograph in an unidentified newspaper article shows McGeachy with French and the vice president of the Alabama AAUW.47 French stands in the middle, as though bringing the two together. The visit was facilitated by Lord Halifax, to whom French wrote afterward: “[McGeachy] brought to us a message that is rarely heard…. You are making a great contribution to our civilian defense when you furnish such a marvelous speaker.”48 Other topics at the 1942 conference included the importance of the arts for preserving morale and culture and educating for times of peace.49
Dr. Ellen Agnes Harris, Dr. Katherine Jackson French, British ambassador Mary Craig McGeachy. Courtesy of Kay Tolbert Buckland.
Perhaps partially spurred on by the enlistment of her son-in-law, Carl, French yearned for the AAUW to take a more active role in issues related to the war. She had been warned of the difficulties of this by her predecessor, Lucy Lamb. Lamb’s view proved to be correct. After Pearl Harbor, the war was in full swing, and everything else was put on hold. The national AAUW meeting in Dallas in 1942 “fell through,” as did an attempt at a biennial in Kansas City. Still, French soldiered on. On behalf of the AAUW, she was appointed to the Louisiana Salvage for Victory Council in 1942. By 1943, she had visited every local AAUW chapter and in April 1942 reported to the state membership: “All [are] … flourishing, all busily engaged in civic defense work, social welfare, and educational projects in their communities. Many are furnishing teachers and leaders of all sorts, who are upbuilding and upholding the morale, conscious of having received especial gifts from life, and burdened with the responsibility of making honorable returns.”50
French again wrote to the Louisiana membership in March 1943, advocating for a meeting of the leadership, and urgently asking each chapter to pay for its leaders to attend. “We have an unfinished task in the world,” she proclaimed, “and as we now perform those assigned us, will we be able to share in the global policy of the post-war world, when questions of tremendous magnitude await us? A world society in security
