Patchwork Child: Early Memories

This is the first of the two memoirs of Brooke Astor. Through her "worm's eye view" we get a glimpse a turn of the century childhood that spans cultures and continents. We see the genteel life of the period's US military abroad who assisted in building the Panama Canal and represented US interests in China. While Brooke sees the new amazing flying machine in China and the funeral of China's last empress, stateside, Brooke's grandparents continue to employ their former slave as a cook. We see the mores of the times, in her British school in China, students who slump get a board tied to their backs, and stateside, her grandmother, most concerned about whom her daughters will marry, sees Catholicism as the religion of her servants and the laborers. Brooke's mother clearly predates Dr. Spock, abruptly giving away her dolls (after the trauma of an international move and the loss of the family dogs), mandating that the academic Brooke would not go to college and telling Brooke and others that she was too homely to attend a Princeton dance. Brooke's later life would certainly gratify her status conscious mother and grandmother. Mrs. Astor's life has been an adventure. From these beginnings, she faced problems and constraints with optimism and grit. She transcended the times and her Edwardian-like childhood. As I write this, she is still alive at 105. This book and her second memoir, Footprints give a unique perspective on the times. It is unfortunate that there will never be a third.