TO MRS. JOHN J. SINGER December 12, 1947

2

47.12.12A (545w)

TO MRS. JOHN J. SINGER December 12, 1947

London, England

Dear Marie: I have been so busy here that I have not had time to do more than occasional notes to Katherine. You have probably been able to follow some of my doings in the paper but those would pertain only to the actual conference meetings. The long meetings of several hours preliminary to each conference would not be mentioned, nor the continuous engagements I have had for luncheon and dinner usually of a business or semi-business nature.

This week I have had every luncheon and dinner taken up extending all the way from Queen Mary down to nine Labor leaders yesterday. The Duchess of Kent for lunch today and the Pilgrims Society dinner tonight at which I have to speak.

I have been able to get down in the country for Sunday, leaving immediately after the break-up of the conference about 6:30 on Saturday evening and reaching my various destinations in time for late dinner. I spent one week-end with Lady Burghley whom I knew in Bermuda. Her sister is the Duchess of Gloucester (he is the brother of the King). It was with the last-named that I had dinner with Queen Mary the other night. Another week-end was at the Astor Place but she was absent at Plymouth. The following week-end was with the Bowes-Lyons (he is the brother of the Queen). I was the only guest. This week-end I am staying with the Normans. His family once headed the Bank of England and now may be involved in it, I don’t recall, but his wife is the daughter of Dr. Bryan, recently deceased, the head of William and Mary and a very prominent Richmond editor.1

Katherine is comfortably established at Pinehurst and Molly apparently so at Leavenworth. Dodona Manor was successfully closed up and she and the Chinese maid and my orderly motored down in one day reaching Pinehurst at 7 at night.

I do not know when I will get back. My hope is that I get at least a week, though I have been hoping for ten days’ rest at Pinehurst, but already I have been approached with the necessity of speaking preliminary to the reconvening of Congress on January 6. A long message demands that I appear in Madison, Wisconsin on January 5, and there are one or two others that are being heavily pressed from the White House and the State Department—all of which murders any opportunity of rest for me.2

I hope the winter is treating you kindly. Affectionately,

GCMRL/G. C. Marshall Papers (Secretary of State, General)

1. John Stewart Bryan (1871–1944) had been president of the College of William and Mary from 1934 to 1942. A lawyer, he had been publisher of the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Richmond News Leader between 1908 and 1944 and president of the American Newspaper Publishers Association. On April 25, 1933, his niece, Helen, married Mark R. Norman, an English banker whose uncle, Montagu, had been a long-serving governor of the Bank of England.

2. On Marshall’s schedule, see Humelsine to Lovett and Carter, December 16, 1947, pp. 000–00.