Free Personal History by Katharine Graham

sense that it had proper lights and comfortable chairs.
    No room on the ground floor had enough chairs for a cozy group to sit and talk, except for an outdoor porch off my father’s study. We just about lived on this porch, which was open but roofed. It was in my father’s study that we always gathered after dinner. There, too, there were only two large chairs, placed on either side of the fireplace. My father’s desk and chair and a sofa were way off in opposite corners, so the conversation group had to be created anew each evening by bringing extra chairs in and pulling them close to the fireplace.
    Not only did my mother never have a decorator, but she never changed anything once it was in place, except as we children grew up and altered our room arrangements. At first, I lived with Ruthie and a nurse, later a governess, in a room with a porch off it, on which we slept, and a playroom next door. Flo and Bis and their governess lived in a similar arrangement. My parents had a suite at the end of the hall. Bill and his tutor lived up on the third floor.
    The whole house was lined with large Chinese paintings. In the biggest living room was a table on which sat many of my mother’s beautiful bronzes, vases, and other objects. In her study stood two Brancusis—
Danaïde
on the mantel and
The Blonde Negress
at the door. In the library there was the large white marble
Bird in Space
, on a wooden base that Brancusi had carved in our garden on his first visit to the United States, when he had stayed with us at Mount Kisco. I remember sitting around watching while Brancusi hacked away and chatted with us simultaneously.
    As Ruthie and I got older, meals were mostly taken together, the whole family gathered, especially on weekends, when my father arrived from Washington. We had two dining rooms. If there were a lot of us, we used the larger, more formal, marble-floored inside dining room, which was rare and special. When it was just the family and a few friends we would eat in what we called the “outside” dining room, which could still seat about twenty. It had a green Venetian dining-room set and was enclosed by large glass windows that provided views of the terrace and woods beyond the house. The only decoration in this room was a sculpture by Brancusi, his rendition of my mother. Needless to say, this was a very abstract black marble, which he called
La Reine pas Dédaigneuse
, or
The Not-Disdainful Queen
. Many people laughed at it, describing it, among other ways, as a horse’s swollen knee. Only once was it shown in a Brancusi show, at which my sister Bis heard someone remark, “What the hell is that thing?” She turned to the poor baffled stranger and said, “Sir, that is my mother!” I’ve always found it extraordinarily beautiful.
    In my early childhood, there was a household staff of roughly ten to twelve servants. Most of them stayed a long time and became acquaintances,confidants, and sometimes friends. There were two bells in each of the bedrooms by which you could summon a maid or the butler. I never did, but I think my older sisters did, and my parents certainly did. In addition, there were the chauffeur, Phil, and the groom and his assistant, who cared for as many as eight or nine horses.
    All this was supervised first by a farm superintendent named John Cummins, and after him by the head gardener, a Scottish gentleman named Charles Ruthven, who lived in a nice white farmhouse on the place. His daughter, Jean, and her younger brother, George, were my playmates when we were in Mount Kisco. The groom and his wife lived in another cottage, and Al Phillips and his wife lived in an apartment over the garage. Their son, Tom, was another of Ruthie’s and my playmates. We all had a happy time together, picking fruit in the orchards and riding on the hay wagons in the afternoons, after mornings spent on lessons.
    All my life I had ambivalent emotions about Mount Kisco. On one level I deeply loved it and had