This Pride Month I Honor LQBTQ Hero Frank Kameny

Let us never forget that we stand on the shoulders of giants. Frank Kameny's efforts to fight for Gay Rights throughout his long life means we all owe him a debt of gratitude. Yes, Gay is Good! 

Watch my tribute video: Happy Pride!

Final Bow

By Robert Hudson Westover

Chairman Emeritus, S.S. United States Foundation

Seeing the film Titanic when it was released in December 1997 proved to be pivotal moment for me. That’s because watching Mr. Cameron’s near exact replica of the 1912 White Star ocean liner reminded me of another ship I had adored, imagined and built (the Revel model that is!) as a child. A ship whose very name made me feel patriotic.

The S.S. United States.

Titanic made me want to know where the S.S. United States had gone. I went on (what we called then) the World Wide Web and discovered (to my delighted surprise) that America’s flagship was very much still afloat and a former passenger, Mike Alexander, had started a Website to bring awareness to her plight.

That following January I went to visit the United States for the first time. I could hardly sleep the night before! I felt like a little boy going to Disneyland for the first time! I’ll never forget seeing her red, white and blue funnels for the first time that day. Her sleek profile. Her dramatic and cutting bow.

She was weather beaten for sure, but where others saw discouragement and a badly decaying vessel I saw hope and a glorious restoration like the RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA.

I was 33 years old and full of excitement and possibilities. I didn’t care that the herculean task of saving this ship would take years of my life. I didn’t care that many other interests where vying with their own visions--and, sadly, personal self-aggrandized agendas.

I just knew I could do this.

And I began by starting an organization I named the S.S. United States Foundation.

I’m not going delve into the details--the impossible odds of creating and leading one of the largest all volunteer preservation non-profits in the country--because this amazing story has been covered in many news stories and in books.

Safe to say, the attention I sought to bring to the ship via the SSUS Foundation, went well beyond anything I could have imagined. For the first time since the ship won the Blue Riban for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic Ocean (and her untimely retirement in 1969) her story appeared in the New York Times, then the BBC World News Service, then ABC World News Tonight and on and on.          (Click on video below)

This constant national and international media attention began in April 1999 and has never let up.

With success came attention and many now wanted to become part of what had been a few, but highly devoted, Big U (her nickname) fans in varying fields of expertise from advertising, public relations, media relation, maritime and legislative-based professions.

The SSUS Foundation's greatest accomplish happened when we lead the effort and succeeded in placing the S.S. United States on the National Register of Historic Places when she was less than 50 years old. This "less than 50 years old" is important because we had to prove the Big U met the National Register's stringent “National Significance” criterion.

We did and the Big U was placed on the National Register in June 1999 resulting in another round of national attention including a prime time broadcast on CNN. (Click on video below)

But soon the reality of having to actually convince a municipality to take her in as a Queen Mary type attraction set in. Meetings were held with elected representatives but no one seemed to grasp (or have the vision) of what a huge tourist attraction the SS United States could become—a classic problem in preservation efforts.

Then the owner, who had allowed the SSUS Foundation free and near unfetter access to the ship passed away. She was sold to NCL and the Foundation’s noble vision to see the S.S United States preserved as a monument to her splendor (and being able to keep her on the National Register) seemed lost.

Then everything changed.

The official logo of the S.S. United States Foundation.

The Foundation's confrontational approached to NCL’s renovation plans didn’t sit well with some members of the board of directors.

In the ensuing heightened climate of profound ideological differences a new non-profit, the S.S. United States Conservancy, was created (or reemerged from an existing organization as some would insist) and they succeeded in purchasing the United States from NCL after the cruises line abandoned its renovation plans.

Not long after the remaining board of the SSUS Foundation voted to suspend any further activities and to not compete for our vision of preservation.

Since that time I have maintained a social media presence as a fascinated spectator of the SSUS Conservancy’s efforts to bring their vision of the Big U to fruition--I even donated my last royalty proceeds from the book SS United States Fastest Ship in World (Turner) to the Conservancy. And until their recent announcement about the deal worked out with Crystal Cruise Lines I was as unaware of their vision as anyone else.

Cover to the successful book
SS United States Fastest ship in the World (Turner)

Let me be clear. I cannot begin to express my profound disappointment in the future chosen by the SSUS Conservancy for this great historic site.

To me the plans are an abomination of what I, and many others feel, was the epitome of ship building. And I realize many feel differently but I very much disagree with the argument that all that matters is that she sails again.

Sails as what?

To me it’s analogous to giving Queen Elizabeth a Hollywood-style face lift, collagen lip injections, massive Dolly Parton-esque breast implants, a tummy tuck and a rear-end lift, put her in a red, skin-tight beaded dress and parade her around with the Kardashian sisters.

Yes, what a comical and ridiculous site that would be and what horrid last visual memories of a great queen!

Yet, I’m supposed to feel that what is planned for the S.S. United States is any different?

Well, I can’t.

Now that the board of the SSUS Conservancy has made their choice to, what I strongly feel, eviscerate the remaining historic integrity (as I believe is clearly spelled in the requirements for historic designation by The National Register of Historic Places), I will suspend any involvement in and abandon my watch as a preservationist seeking to protect this amazing relic of maritime greatness.

Good-by once great Queen of the Seas.

I did my best to save you.

Lessons in Nobility - A Real Downton Abbey Story

Now Available on Amazon 

Who wouldn’t want a fairy godmother? They would lavish you with gifts, of course, but more importantly they would teach you how to be a better person by bringing out your inner nobility. Lessons in Nobility is about how a very real fairy godmother changed the author’s life from a self-destructive one to a life of noble aspirations and wonderful achievements. 

While still a teenager, Robert Westover was introduced to his “fairy godmother” who, like the plot of so many Russian novels, was a delightfully eccentric countess. Countess Olga de Chravpovitsky was raised in the court of Tsar Nicholas II. She was a playmate of the legendary Grand Duchess Anastasia and at one point even encountered the mysterious Siberian monk, Rasputin. 

Despite the horrors of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Olga’s family managed to escape. Exiled in America, she became a relative (through marriage) to Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy and helped influence the former First Lady’s fascination with imperial Russia—a fact known by few. But all these things were just the baubles of a life of any well-born person with great connections. What made Olga special was the nobility she expressed in nearly everything she did—and how she taught it to Robert. 

So how did a middle class kid from LA become the “honorary godson” to such a regal and highborn woman? That will be for the reader to decide. Some will see it as pure luck while others will see it as fate. But, no matter the conclusion, the story of how Robert was taught to be noble is one that everyone can gain from. 

The reader will walk away with a better understanding of what being noble is and how they can apply these lessons in their own lives. Sometimes dramatic and often moving, Lessons in Nobility has a timeless appeal. 

Never before Published Insight into Jackie Kennedy’s Life 
As an exciting addition to the book, the author has included an article he wrote about the relationship between Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Hugh D. “Yusha” Auchincloss III, Olga's newphew. Step brother and sister, Yusha and Jackie shared a love that lasted their entire lives. 

Mr. Westover had unique access to Yusha Auchincloss and interviewed him on several occasions at Hammersmith Farm in Newport, Rhode Island. The interviews, in the twilight of Mr. Auchincloss' life, reveal just how much love he and Jackie had for each other. 

Available on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012OIEGV4?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Robert Hudson Westover is a professional writer of articles, humorous columns, and was the subject of many national news stories including ABC World News Tonight (2000), The New York Times (1998/2003) and the BBC (1998/2000). His "Lord Westover" blog was nominated to the Washington Post's "Best Blog Award" by its readers and mentioned in the Christian Science Monitor. Mr. Westover is co-author of the well-received “S.S. United States – Fastest Ship in the World” (Turner). He and his husband, Gay rights activist Tom Fulton, live in Virginia.

Getty Images: Same sex couples activists celebrate US Supreme Court decision

You know you’re part of LGBT media history when Getty Images, the world’s largest repository of pictures and broadcast roll media has you in their database. Tom, me and our friend Phil Attey appear in the attached clip—note the caption! So proud to be a “Flag waving LGBT rights” advocate!

This news clip (or portions of it) were broadcast around the world to over 100 countries. Take that LGBT haters!

Getty Images: Same sex couples activists celebrate US Supreme Court decision

Credit: AFP Footage

More from this filmmaker

Caption: Flag waving LGBT rights advocates on the packed Supreme Court forecourt some in tears cheered danced shouted USA USA and sang The Star Spangled Banner in celebration of the high court’s decision to make same sex marriage legal throughout the US

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/flag-waving-lgbt-rights-advocates-on-the-packed-supreme-news-footage/479216098

Let’s Talk Story - Be a Witness to Climate Change

By Robert Westover

On our way into work this morning my husband, Tom, was reading an article in The Atlantic about Microsoft founder Bill Gate’s perspective on climate change when Tom abruptly turned to me and said: I hear so much about the science of climate change but I rarely hear people tell how it has affected them...on an individual level. I want to hear about their personal experiences.

Tom enjoying New Zealand's great outdoors
 (Photo credit Robert Westover)

I was astounded that I hadn’t thought to promote this type of anecdotal climate change awareness on a more focused level in the ten years I’ve been writing about global warming. (Full disclosure: for many years I’ve been a “true believer” in the effects of climate change, as a man-made phenomenon. Tom has always been a keen observer and skeptic of political/environmental trends but he now agrees wholeheartedly with me that climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing mankind and we need to do something about it.)

Well, I got to work—immediately (as in today).  And here's the start.

I’ve launched a Facebook page called Witness to Climate Change https://www.facebook.com/witnesstoclimatechange/ to capture in one location as many personal storied of how climate change has affected You and Me—all of us on an individual level. This is how the story needs to be told. This is how people learn. Anecdotes of this-is-what-happened-to-me have guided humanity for millennia and I now feel this should be the focus of a worldwide climate change awareness campaign I’m calling (like the Facebook handle) Witness to Climate Change.  

Shortly after meeting Prince Charles
 (Photo credit Robert Westover)

Back a few years ago, I had the opportunity to meet one of the great climate change spokespersons (if you will) in the world. I shook hands with Prince Charles and told him I worked on climate change issues to which he responded, “But is anyone listening?" to which I replied, "We're making progress. They will listen..."

I hope the Witness to Climate Change grassroots awareness campaign is an answer so that many more will start “listening”.

Please go to the new Witness to Climate Change Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/witnesstoclimatechange/ and share your own experiences of what you've seen, lived or how you’ve been affected by climate change. I’ll choose stories to be promoted on this blog and my Twitter site @MrClimateChange.

Let’s fight Climate Change one story at a time!

An Open Letter to Pope Francis on Gay Marriage

“In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.” – Christ Jesus

Dear Pope Francis:

As a baptized and loving Catholic I have worked to thread my Catholic upbringing into daily living as I have sought to lead a life with integrity, dignity, and personal success as a natural gay man created by God as Gay.  I have a wonderful loving husband named Robert who, although not Catholic (I’m working on it), loves God with such profundity that it was one of the reasons I married him.

My often difficult but blessed personal journey has occurred while at the same time, throughout the advanced world we all have witnessed, as part of each generation’s spiritual revelation, a deeper understanding of same-sex attraction within the human race, as well as the animal kingdom. And are not animals in their simplistic innocent creatures of God? If same sex attraction was not natural, why did God instill it in a small percentage of his lessor creation?

My Husband and me after the US Supreme ruled that our
marriage, our devotion and love for each other, was
equal to every other married couple in America.
This picture was the lead photo on the Huffington Post's
website and was picked up all over the world

I, and others like me, seek to demonstrate that values such as wholesome living, honor, love and fidelity can be lived while having a spouse of the same-sex. Millions of us seek to live a life in Christ.  As with all people, this walk is often a challenge, but made unnecessarily difficult by unloving, uniformed, or less spiritually developed forces which attack and demonize Gay people. 

And, we as LGBT Catholics have an additional cross put upon our shoulders by our own church. Many of us turn in despair to anti-spiritual fronts, often exemplified by popular culture which often elevates and glorifies baser ways of living, which many do know, through often tragic personal experience, leads to a spiritual dead end--yet even as this “front” has offered us refuge when the Church has turned against us! 

Indeed, this is a challenge calling for great gifts of discernment.

I too have a concern for the “family”, Pope Francis, which I agree can be greatly healed by individuals committing to living lives far more focused on self-less love, and service. Please pray to understand, though, that physical expressions, depending upon body parts, DO NOT, Pope Francis, change “fundamental relationships” that you expressed concern about in the marriage covenant.  Rather sexuality, including Gay sexuality, is truly a mysterious wonder which according to God’s plan, when property used, can lead to a deeper, richer life in every way. 

With our natural sexuality intact we can develop towards a deeper life in Christ.  Many things threaten all types of family life today, I agree: a culture which too often degrades or ridicules wholesome values, rather than the transformational power of love for another. Or others: worldwide economic pressures, self-centeredness, declining discipline, delaying gratification, a changing socialization which focuses on short-term versus long-term goals, and many many other challenges. 

This ostracized community of Gay people, especially middle-age elders, can actually offer tremendous insight into how to counter these corrosive visions within the flock. Holy Father, you can seize this opportunity and actually help by understanding and speaking compassionately about our rightful place within the body of Christ!  

You can speak forth that our dreams too reflect the dream that Martin Luther King Jr. had that men and women should be judged by the content of their character, and people who are LGBT should not in any way be discriminated within the public realm, and this must be clearly stated in federal law, and throughout the world. 

Your Holiness you are actually in concert with another fellow Catholic, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Kennedy.  Yes, in removing the splinter from the Church’s eye, you may see symmetry, mathematical beauty.  You reiterated the importance, above all, of the richness and the beauty of family life, likewise through the movement of the Holy Spirit, Justice Kennedy affirmed in his ruling regarding marriage equality that no union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, and sacrifice, and FAMILY.  In forming a marital union two people (regardless of body parts which soon enough turn to dust) become something greater than they once were.

Marriage embodies a love that may endure even beyond death.  It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. We in the LGBT community respect it so much that we want to be part of it, find fulfillment in it for themselves and proclaim its great value to others. 

The loving and equal affirmation of LGBT people, Holy Father, is human dignity. It is this generation’s spiritual revelation, that I deeply pray every night that your will ultimately proclaim during your Papacy. 

I know in this life I will never meet with you, Holy Father, to sit down together and share in the spirit of Christ's Love, but in heaven when all is clearly seen, I pray we will see eye-to-eye as brothers of the faith in the most holy council of Our Lord. 

I’d like to end this letter with another mention of my husband. Holy Father you took the name of my most admired saint. Fifteen years ago when I showed Robert, the film Brother Son, Sister Moon by Franco Zeffirelli’s he cried. Two weeks before your ascendancy to the Throne of Saint Peter, Robert told a friend, who had hardened their heart toward our one true and Apostolic Church, they should watch the film because “Saint Francis of Assisi was what being a Christian and Catholic means…”

With Great Love in Christ Our Savior,

Thomas Eugene Fulton,
Washington, DC

Our Marriage is Now Equal and The Whole World Knows It!

By Robert Hudson Westover

My husband and I knew something incredibly unusual for us was unfolding after the Marriage Equality ruling was handed down last Friday by the Supreme Court. We were there, outside the imposing white marble facade of America's most iconic building of Justice with the words carved in marble above it's giant bronze doors: Equal Justice Under Law.

The general consensus was that a ruling wasn't supposed to be handed down until Monday, June 29, or the high court's last day in session for the year. This is how the other landmark Gay Rights rulings had been handled in the past (see my previous blog post on the End of DOMA ruling in 2013).

Tom and I ten minutes before the Marriage Equality Ruling.

But I had a premonition that it would happen on Friday and told Tom we needed to get to the Court in the morning, before 10 AM (the time that rulings for the day are handed down). Fortunately, we both work walking distance from the Supreme Court, so we rendezvoused at about 15 minutes before the rulings of the day would be announced. 

Would I be right?

Our hearts beat rapidly in anticipation as we hoped and prayed that for the first time in our lives, the statement Equal Justice would be met out in its totality. Would this day bring us unfathomable joy by changing our lives forever and making our marriage, our love, truly equal under the law? Or would it be yet another half measure of dignity handed out to us like ravaged prisoners hoping for the full pardon that would someday open our cell doors and free us--forever--from the jail house of second class citizenship? 

We knew this ruling was going to change the lives of millions...Tom and I just two of those millions.

And when that crowd shouted out LOVE HAS WON! we jumped for joy, broke into tears and just held each other.

A picture taken of US by CBS News moments after the ruling.

It took 15 years to get Equal Justice in our marriage.

Many, many more years for many others.

"What do you think of the swiftness of the change?" One reporter asked us. Tom replied "Swiftness? It's been over 50 years since WE started our fight for equality. It hasn't come fast enough... We love you Justice Kennedy!"

"Kiss your husband!" a reporter asked, so I did!

And then many other reporters started asking us questions, taking our picture and filming us. This had happened the last time a great barrier of bigotry had fallen: DOMA. In fact, the reporters were asking lots of us, lots of questions. We were more than thrilled to respond. Maybe some young person, struggling under the weight of oppression might hear our story and be inspired to love themselves, feel sorry for their persecutors and look forward to a life in a community of kindred hearts.

But, to our amazement, that day, our ripple in the pond of outreach was beyond anything we could have imagined. We knew this when a text arrived from a friend we hadn't heard from in ages telling us to look at CBS New's Twitter page. There we were, in full embrace--our devotion and love--for all the world to see.

And the world did see, read and hear from us! On six continents! 

As the day unfolded, and into the night, the texts and Facebook messages kept coming: Saw you in the Huffington Post! One friend wrote from LA. Then the PBS News Hour reporter who had interview us texted to tell us we'd be featured at the top of the hour as the Network's lead story.

Three days later and we're still blown away. Think of how many millions of LGBTQ folks have seen that, "Yes, it does get better." 

Tom and I are so very humbled and grateful to have been able to speak for the LGBTQ Community that historic day. There were so many of us, the quiet foot soldiers there that day, and many of our voices were not broadcast to the world. That's the price we pay for loyalty to our cause, to our community.

From the Huffington Post. 

But, sometimes, like what happened for us, the spotlight turns and there you are. As Christians we believe that God does work in mysterious ways. We don't always understand it, but all things can (and often do) work together for those who have faith. So many words and expressions are timeless and this quote from Psalms really says it for us--for what happened on that momentous day "This is the Lord's work and it is marvelous in our eyes..."

                                                                             ***

Below are links to some of the worldwide media coverage our voice received.

North America:

Lead story PBS News Hour

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/sex-couples-gain-equal-right-marry/

Yahoo News

http://news.yahoo.com/us-supreme-court-rules-gay-marriage-nationwide-141601707.html

The Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/26/photos-show-celebration-o_n_7671690.html

CBS News Twitter

https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/614460786853965824?utm_source=fb&fb_ref=Default&utm_content=614461716102021120&utm_campaign=dantracht&utm_medium=fb

International Pick Up

South America:

http://www.la-razon.com/mundo/Suprema-Unidos-legaliza-matrimonios-gay_0_2297170288.html

Africa:

http://nigeria.shafaqna.com/EN/NG/515857

http://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-herald-south-africa/20150627/281754152971553/TextView

Australia:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-27/us-supreme-court-rules-in-favor-of-gay-marriage-nationwide/6577294

Asia:

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/international/americas/2015/06/28/439406/Overflowing-joy.htm

http://defence.pk/threads/u-s-supreme-court-makes-gay-marriage-legal-throughout-us.382878/

Middle East:

http://www.gulf-times.com/us-latin%20america/182/details/444751/supreme-court-makes-gay-marriage-legal-throughout-us-

Europe:

http://www.newsjs.com/us/its-reason-to-live-here/

The Last Knight of JFK’s Camelot has Died

A tribute to Hugh D. "Yusha" Auchincloss III

By Robert Hudson Westover

I believe the course of history changed one summer evening over steak and daiquiris at the Auchincloss family estate, Merrywood, in northern Virginia. That was the night Hugh D. “Yusha” Auchincloss III entertained, with his stepsister, a young Congressman from Massachusetts.

Despite some confusion by biographers and journalists, the dinner party was Yusha’s idea (or so he told me). His stepsister, Jackie, was attempting to win over the heart of a man she had met a few months prior but was getting nowhere with him romantically. 

His name was John F. Kennedy. 

After that fateful dinner party a match was made and shortly thereafter Jaqueline Bouvier would become Mrs. John F. Kennedy and play a role in history that would put both her and her husband in the pantheon of the unforgettable personages of recorded civilization.

Yusha Auchincloss (left) with Robert H. Westover
Hammersmith Farm, Newport, RI 2013

Years later, at another dinner party, at yet another Auchincloss estate, Hammersmith Farm, in Newport, Rhode Island, Yusha had this to say about the couple he’d helped to match make,  “First, Mr. President, I want to congratulate you. You’ve been a very good president. I’m glad you had your wedding here in Newport. I’m glad you’re celebrating your wedding anniversary here with Jackie. But I have to remind you: if you hadn’t gotten engaged to Jackie, my stepsister, neither one of you would have been in the White House. And I wouldn’t have had a chance to stay in the White House. So I have to thank you for that!”

What Yusha left out in his now famous toast was that without him, JFK’s Camelot would possibly have never existed.

I call Yusha a knight of Camelot because he not only facilitated that decisive evening at Merrywood, he also became an important adviser to the future President on Middle Eastern issues right up until JFK’s assassination.

But most importantly he was a man both JFK and Jackie could confide in and never worry about a tell-all-book-deal. The First couple was not mistaken in relying on this thoughtful, gentle man. He never betrayed them. He never revealed to the press so many of their secrets. Because of this, few know that Yusha spent many an hour at a sickly John Kennedy’s bedside reading or watching TV with the future President. And, few know that it was Yusha who Jackie considered her dearest friend until her dying day. “You know how much I love you…” she wrote to him just before her death in 1994.

My relationship with Yusha developed in the twilight years of his life. His beloved aunt, a former Russian countess, Olga C. Morgan, was a dear friend of mine and someone I was so close to that I referred to her as my “honorary godmother”. Yusha and I would sit and listen to tapes that I had recorded of Olga, who had passed away in 1991(to read more about my relationship with Olga see previous blog postings below). We became instant “family” and he let me call him “uncle” because “a lot of people call me that…” he jovially commented in his charming wit that only those who knew him could understand.

My husband, Tom Fulton (left), chats with Uncle Yusha about middle east politics. The cane Yusha is holding
was given to him by President John F. Kennedy on one of his visits to Hammersmith Farm in Newport, RI

I will greatly miss my uncle Yusha and only regret I had not spent more time with him. He was the embodiment of a true Noble spirit. If the world were full of Yusha Auchincloss’ we’d have a much better place to live and, now without him, the world has one less living example of honesty and kindness.

The aspect of his passing I'm comforted by is knowing that he died peacefully at his beloved home on Hammersmith Farm—the home of his ancestors. “Behold the upright man, for the end of that man is peace.”

Downton Abbey - Russian Style: World War One (Part Two)

An interview with one of the last living Russian countesses before her death in 1991.

By Robert Hudson Westover

Part Two of a Series

August 2014 marked one hundred years since the start of World War I, the “war to end all wars” or more to the point the war to launch a century of bloodshed, upheaval, more wars of horrific proportions and the greatest rewrite of national territories since the fall of the Roman Empire in the 4^th Century. 

Perhaps the most catastrophic collapse of these latter day empires was that of Russia. For more than three hundred years the Romanov dynasty had held their empire together with a supreme autocratic rule that mirrored the nation’s cultural inheritance from the Byzantine Empire. It was no accident of history that the throne the tsarina’s sat upon during the coronation of a new tsar in the Kremlin’s Annunciation Cathedral was claimed to be the very throne of the Byzantine empresses that once rested on a green marble slab on the first tier of the cavernous and magnificent “greatest church in Christendom” the 5^th Century Hagia Sophia in ancient Constantinople.

As with so many of us, the cataclysms of life changing events are often unexpected and we look back to our time before the incineration of what we once knew with a strange melancholy or sentimental fascination.

Robert H. Westover and Olga C. Morgan in Olga's garden,
Laguna Beach, CA (April 1991)
Photo Credit: Lawrence R. Westover

In the following interview Olga Morgan, born Countess Olga de Chrapovitsky, looks back to her vanished world of imperial Russia from the perspective of nearly 70 years. 

Olga was destined to be connected by either blood or marriage to two of the most prominent and tragic families of the Twentieth Century, the Romanovs and the Kennedys. Part Two and Three of these interviews with Olga are something of an amazement in that any one person would be an intimate witness, per se, of both the bloody and murderous fall of the House of Romanov and the tragic event Jackie Kennedy, her niece via marriage, experienced on the on that horrible day in Dallas when her husband, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in front of the entire world.

Olga C. Morgan's nephew,
Hugh D. "Yusha" Auchincloss III
(left next to JFK) is pictured here
at JFK's and Jackie Kennedy's
wedding reception held at
Hammersmith Farm, Newport, RI.

It’s a wonderment to me that anyone, seeing what Olga had observed from the front lines of several of humanities' most wrenching and barbarous hours, could still hold out hope for the betterment of the species. 

But she did. 

And her joyous and hopeful attitude, laced with her noble spirit inspired me in my darkest times and I hope will inspire the reader as well.

Note: All photographs are either the property of the author, used by permission or thought to be in the public domain. 




World War I for a Russian Countess

A Compilation of Two Interviews with Olga C. Morgan

Location: Mrs. Morgan’s villa overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Laguna Beach, California. 1983 (Dr. Richard Pierce*)/1991 (Robert H. Westover)

Richard Pierce (RP): And then the war? [World War I]

Morgan: We were still studying when the war broke out in August 1914. I still had a year, but we refused to study German after that; we thought it was unpatriotic.

RP: Was this suggested?

Morgan: No, no, we refused, and mother was furious with us.

RP: When the war broke out, we were in the country; I remember it very well. We were more or less expecting it, because there was that murder in Sarajevo, and the whole thing which led up to it, but we knew a lot of the military men. My step-father having been commander of a division, all the men who were stationed in the country, in Gatchina, for instance, had to come and call on us and leave their visiting cards, and then some of them were invited to the house; mother knew their family or something; she wanted us to have some kind of rapport with other people. We used to drive to the station to see all the regiments off, and wave goodbye to them, and it was all very heart-rending, that they were all leaving.

Robert Westover (RW): How did people look at the war?

Countess Olga de Chrapovisky with departing
troops at her home in Gatchina, Russia (1914)

Morgan: Well, we were all very patriotic, but honestly I really don't know others outside my family felt. I was still a teenager and certainly not very interested in a war that seemed so remote. My great enthusiasm was riding on horseback, and of course when the war came on, then it was a little harder, because the men were all called along with many horses and other animals to supply the front lines so I wasn't able to ride much, which made me a little bit sad. 

RP: And then the casualties began to mount?

Morgan: Yes, and then we were called on to help in the hospitals. We were very young; I was 17, but we were asked. All the young girls in town who were well bred were asked. It was not a military hospital, but they had nobody else. I think there was one doctor for the whole hospital, because the nurses had all gone to the front. Everything was depleted.

RP: So although technically a nurse's aid you were taking the role of a nurse?

Morgan: I don't even know what role we took, because we had nothing to do with the bed making, or cleaning up or anything of that nature. They had peasant women who did all the work, but what we had to do was bandage, help the doctor when he was seeing patients, and sometimes stay late and wait at the door for people who would come in.

I remember one evening I was asked to stay later, and this man came in and he said "I got off the train. I was going to the front but I got off the train because I feel very ill." There was nobody in the hospital except me, that is, of the staff; it was full of patients, but they were mostly peasants. So I took him up to a room which was free, and I took his temperature which was very, very high. "I'll leave a note for the doctor when he comes in the morning," I said.

In the morning the doctor called me, and he said, "Did you touch that man?"

"Yes," I said, "I took his temperature."

And he said "You'll have to go into quarantine because he has spotted typhus."

I had noticed when I was taking his temperature that his chest was all covered with spots, so I was in quarantine for two or three weeks. It was very boring obviously; I couldn't work in the hospital; I couldn't see anyone; I just had to stay in my room.

RP: Your room at the hospital?

Morgan: No, no, at home. So I could have given it to everybody at home, if I had had it. I think spotted typhus was carried by lice. I don't think it came from touching a person. Well, anyway, they didn't have a chance in my case, because I never got it, but it was very annoying. I was completely quarantined; I couldn't go and see any friends.

RP: So you were in this capacity throughout the war?

Morgan: Throughout the war, yes. Then, towards the end of the war a lot of wounded began to come in, and then mother decided to open a little hospital. We had a building, it was not very big, but I think it had about thirty beds in it, and it was fixed up, more or less. I don't know who took care of it or anything.

I know that we spent all our days there, but we didn't really do anything very much except bandage. Sometimes the bandage would fall off immediately because we didn't know how to do this thing, but I suppose it was a morale builder, and they were not really people who were very ill, but they were somebody, for instance, who came with a broken leg and had to wait until the leg mended. You know, things like that; it took a little time. They were not ordinary citizens; they were military men who were convalescing, and then they'd have to go back to the front again.

So different doctors used to come in every day and check everybody, and it was a little bit better taken care of than the one we had worked in first, and mother was paying for it.

In our moments away from the hospital we used to go to a little tennis club, and that's where we had our fun. We all played tennis, and all these officers would come and be playing tennis too.

Then, during the sport, we didn't seem to have a governess with us all the time.

RP: A governess was around, then, even while you were working in the hospital?

Morgan: Oh yes! Sometimes they used to come and pick us up at the hospital and walk us home; very rarely did they let us walk in the evening alone. But at the tennis club we were free, and we met some very attractive young men there, and flirtations started.

RP: The family must have had very good means.

Morgan: Oh, mother was very wealthy. But unfortunately she took all her fortune out of the United States and took it over to Russia about 1910 so it went down the drain with the revolution, completely.

RW: Did you like working in the hospital? And did it become more horrific as the casualties mounted?

Morgan: No, I didn't like it, working in the hospital, but my sister [Maya] and I were very patriotic. We had to do it. There was no question whether the war was for the right or for the wrong; we hated the Germans and we wanted to do everything we could for the war. 

Yes, things did become more difficult as the war continued. Now I assisted in operations. In the first operation I assisted in I had until that point never even seen a naked man in my life. I ran out of the room and vomited! 

In another operation, I was attempting to distract my thoughts, trying not to watch what they were doing. We had no anesthetics, so they had to give the injured solider liquor as they removed his leg! Imagine no anesthetics at all! There was a terrible shortage. And the poor man was screaming his head off. I just stood there trying in vain not to concentrate on what was going on and then suddenly I looked down and I had this unattached leg in my arms! I fainted. But, eventually, in other operations I became less squeamish. What choice did I have? It couldn't be helped!  Things were far worse in St. Petersburg, I mean Petrograd...

Countess Olga de Chrapovitsky served
as a nurse during Word War One

RW: That's right, St. Petersburg was renamed Petrograd as the Tsar felt it was more patriotic.

Morgan: Yes, but of course we had one thing that was very difficult. My mother, first of all, her name was der Felden [Derfelden], which was a German name, and secondly she had a terrible accent; she spoke very poor Russian, so many people thought that she was German. She would go into a shop and give her name and the salesperson would look at her and say "Oh, Nemetskii, German!" So she had a very difficult time.

RP: This takes you, then, through 1916, when things were getting increasingly difficult. Was the assassination of Rasputin looked upon as a patriotic act, or as an aberration?

Morgan: Oh, it was considered very patriotic, very much so. Because everybody hated Rasputin; they felt that he had a terrible influence on the Empress, and through her on the Emperor.

RP: But a great deal of this was exaggerated, was it not? Evidently, though, he did have a hypnotic power.

Morgan: Because he was able to cure the young Tsarevich. And now I have read some books about the medicines in Siberia. And there are really some very interesting herbs and things that people still use.

Or he might have been just lucky. Or he might have been just lucky. He was really a horrid man; everybody who knew him thought that he was a terrible creature.

RP: Except for those in his own circle.

Morgan: Yes, his own circle. Madame Vyrubova, who introduced him to the Empress, thinking that he might help the boy, and he did help him, there is no denying it, but it really was one of the reasons that there were less and less people willing to take the side of the Tsar.

But we were very far away from all that, because you see my stepfather had already died, thank God, and we were living in the country; we had moved out of St. Petersburg, so we had very little contact with people there. Before that, mother had lots of friends who lived in St. Petersburg, and she was seeing them all the time, but when we moved out into the country we had very few people. There was the Grand Duke Michael, who used to come to see us all the time, who never talked of politics, obviously. And a few of the grand dukes who lived in Gatchina at that time. And the Dowager Empress used to come and live in Gatchina at that time. We used to see them quite a lot. And I used to play with Prince Vasilii Romanov and the children in the palace; they had slides, indoor slides, and used to enjoy that very much. But otherwise I think mother was very much out of touch with the world, so when the revolution came it was quite a shock.

This picture of the Dowager Empress
Marie was give to Olga C. Morgan's
mother, Baroness Derfelden

RP: What do you recall of February 1917? Was the Revolution quite evident?

Morgan: No, not too evident at first except that the servants got a little bit disagreeable and mother put red [Soviet] armbands on our arms, so that nobody would stop us on the street.

Things got to be sticky, but we didn't realize it too much until finally one night we were all awakened, and soldiers came to the door and said "We want to see what you have in the house!"

We had a great marvelous collection of antiques and different kinds of firearms which my father and then my stepfather both had collected, and they took every one of them.

RP: When did that occur?

Morgan: At the beginning of the revolution. I can't give you the date because I don't know, but it was very, very frightening. First the knocking on the door, and then they came in. Soon they came knocking on the door again, another night; they wanted something else, and then suddenly mother said, "This is going to end very badly, because everybody knows that we have a great cellar of wines!"

So then she had a file of servants stand, and take the bottles out of the cellar and pass from one to another. Then at a deep ditch by the street the neck of each bottle was knocked off and the street was running with wine for miles. After that they lost interest in coming.

She was afraid they would come to the house, get drunk, and rape the girls. I thought that was a very clever move. Everybody said "She's crazy; that foreign woman is crazy, what she did, she poured all the wine on the street, all the good wine!"

I think we saved two bottles of Napoleon brandy, which we buried. It was very hard to do, so it must have still been February or March, the ground was not thawed yet, because we had a very difficult time burying those two bottles. I know where they are, but I don't think I'll ever be able to find them!

RP: So this was probably at the outset, in February or March?

Morgan: Yes. The Americans had already congratulated the Russians on how clever they were to depose the Tsar and start a new democratic life. We were absolutely infuriated by that. It was some time after that. Before that they couldn't come knocking at your door and coming in at night. Then there were police, but later you were on your own.

We didn't feel it in the country that much, but then the governess was sent to St. Petersburg to feel things out, and see what it was like, and she used to come back with lurid tales about what was going on, so we felt we had to get out. Our name, der Felden, was a German name, and mother spoke Russian with a very bad accent, so that everybody took her for a German, and then all the grand dukes had visited us all the time, so we were definitely in danger.

RW: You were in grave danger. Your mother must have been quite concerned.

Morgan: Absolutely. We were very frightened by this point. So mother went to the American embassy and asked them to help her get us all out of the country. They did so even though she had given up her citizenship. They restored her citizenship and we were safe to leave. That is if we departed soon. The situation was deteriorating fast.

So we got on the train and went across Siberia. We left just before the Provisional Government was ousted and the Soviets took over on November 7, 1917. We left just before that, and not a moment too late.

It was the last train before the line was cut, Elihu Root, the last scheduled trains to cross Siberia!

The journey took two weeks. The train was full of soldiers, who were all running away from the front, who didn't want to fight anymore. The whole country was in disarray! We were just very lucky to get out.