working cattle ranch, not romantic like Goleta, but glorious because of the land. It was in the Santa Ynez Valley, about fifty miles inland from Santa Barbara—three thousand acres of dry yellow tableland, with sagebrush and live-oak trees. The buildings were strung out around a big open circle, including a nice big cottage where Jonathan, Kate, Edie, and Suky eventually lived. Everything was painted yellow and brown. Near the back door of the main house there was a huge pepper tree, and a bell which was rung fifteen minutes before meals and again at mealtime. Out of earshot of the main house my parents built three little bunkhouses. Bobby and Pamela and I each had one. There was a bed, a desk and a chair, and hooks screwed into the wall for clothes, simple Indian bedspreads, and one single light bulb in the ceiling with a long string. The main house had a big living room with a polar-bear rug in front of the fireplace. The furniture was all very simple—unpainted, or covered in plain cotton. Everything was plain—no sybaritic pleasures, no tennis court, no pool, no parties to speak of.
DR. JOHN MILLET When the Second World War came, Francis Sedgwick tried very hard to get into the military. His brother, Minturn, was on his way to establishing an excellent and glamorous record with the intelligence branch of the Eighth Air Force in Europe. But though Francis tried very hard, he was turned down—I’m almost sure for the bronchial asthma he had suffered since his early twenties, and very likely because of that large brood of his—six children by then. I wrote to the U.S. Medical Corps that he was a man of exceptional ability and superior intelligence who had learned how to manage his extremely dynamic make-up, both emotional and physical, and that in my opinion he could be of great value in the service. The letter didn’t work.
SAUCIE SEDGWICK I think my father was ashamed and disappointed not to be in the service. He felt that people would look at this glorious physical specimen and think of him as a shirker. I’m sure that’s one of the reasons we moved to California. If anyone thought we were trying to avoid the war, it was ironic, because the only attackon continental American soil took place when a Japanese sub lobbed a few shells into an orchard not far from where we were living.
My father took it very hard when two of his best friends were killed in the war: Richard Scott, who was in the Porcellian Club at Harvard with my father, and who was killed on flight duty in North Africa; and Rex Fink, who was killed on Iwo Jima. Both men were incredibly handsome, and admirable in every way. Certainly their dying heroically added to the effect on my father. He did a painting of Rex, and a bas-relief of Dick Scott, which is at Cambridge University, where they were both at Trinity College. He also dedicated his first novel,
The Rim
, to Dick Scott. Here is the dedication: “To the friend of my boyhood, youth, and manhood,” with a quote, “And the elements / So mix’d in him that Nature might stand up / And say to all the world, This was a man!’” and another: Though they fell, they fell like stars, / Streaming splendour through the sky.” My father was quite self-effacing about his book and it did not get good reviews. The best was in the
Atlantic
. One reviewer said that art and adultery had got a good workout.
JOHN P. MARQUAND, JR. I never read
The Rim
, but I remember hearing that he wrote a horrible description of his poor wife brushing her teeth. She is fat and standing in front of the bathroom mirror; her flesh is jiggling and she is spattering herself with toothpaste. it’s a rather sadistic novel about his wife and children. He had a really brutal kind of hold on all of them and brought his children up on this huge ranch in the Groton-Harvard-Porcellian Club myth that he lived in.
SAUCIE SEDGWICK My father never told my mother anything about the book while he was working on it. She was in the
DR. JOHN MILLET When the Second World War came, Francis Sedgwick tried very hard to get into the military. His brother, Minturn, was on his way to establishing an excellent and glamorous record with the intelligence branch of the Eighth Air Force in Europe. But though Francis tried very hard, he was turned down—I’m almost sure for the bronchial asthma he had suffered since his early twenties, and very likely because of that large brood of his—six children by then. I wrote to the U.S. Medical Corps that he was a man of exceptional ability and superior intelligence who had learned how to manage his extremely dynamic make-up, both emotional and physical, and that in my opinion he could be of great value in the service. The letter didn’t work.
SAUCIE SEDGWICK I think my father was ashamed and disappointed not to be in the service. He felt that people would look at this glorious physical specimen and think of him as a shirker. I’m sure that’s one of the reasons we moved to California. If anyone thought we were trying to avoid the war, it was ironic, because the only attackon continental American soil took place when a Japanese sub lobbed a few shells into an orchard not far from where we were living.
My father took it very hard when two of his best friends were killed in the war: Richard Scott, who was in the Porcellian Club at Harvard with my father, and who was killed on flight duty in North Africa; and Rex Fink, who was killed on Iwo Jima. Both men were incredibly handsome, and admirable in every way. Certainly their dying heroically added to the effect on my father. He did a painting of Rex, and a bas-relief of Dick Scott, which is at Cambridge University, where they were both at Trinity College. He also dedicated his first novel,
The Rim
, to Dick Scott. Here is the dedication: “To the friend of my boyhood, youth, and manhood,” with a quote, “And the elements / So mix’d in him that Nature might stand up / And say to all the world, This was a man!’” and another: Though they fell, they fell like stars, / Streaming splendour through the sky.” My father was quite self-effacing about his book and it did not get good reviews. The best was in the
Atlantic
. One reviewer said that art and adultery had got a good workout.
JOHN P. MARQUAND, JR. I never read
The Rim
, but I remember hearing that he wrote a horrible description of his poor wife brushing her teeth. She is fat and standing in front of the bathroom mirror; her flesh is jiggling and she is spattering herself with toothpaste. it’s a rather sadistic novel about his wife and children. He had a really brutal kind of hold on all of them and brought his children up on this huge ranch in the Groton-Harvard-Porcellian Club myth that he lived in.
SAUCIE SEDGWICK My father never told my mother anything about the book while he was working on it. She was in the
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