Interviewed by Jack W. C. Hagstrom
October 20, 1998
[0:01] Hagstrom: Earlier we were talking about your sabbatical, or King’s sabbatical in 1936, and how important it was going to Cordon Bleu, and especially the business of being the aide to the, what do you call it?
[00:16] Turgeon: The chef.
[00:17] Hagstrom: To the chef. All right, so you come back to Amherst with this training. I mean, why did you go to the Cordon Bleu? To learn to cook for your family?
[0:24] Turgeon: Well, for lack of something better to do, I mean, I had tried the Sorbonne and was bored to death. And it was King’s suggestion. He was a wise man. He knew what he was getting out of. He was a very good cook.
[0:37] Hagstrom: Was he?
[0:38] Turgeon: Oh, yes. He was known for cooking-
[0:39] Hagstrom: How did he happen to come to be a good cook?
[0:43] Turgeon: Because he lived in France so long, as a student, and he loved cooking. And every time anybody came to the house after we were married, they always thanked him.
[0:53] Hagstrom: Really?
[0:54] Turgeon: Oh yes, always thanked him for the food, they just took it for granted. And they were quite right, they were quite right. But that sort of gave me a pain in the neck.
[1:05] Hagstrom: If you'd done some of it, sure.
[1:04] Turgeon: So then when I- he suggested it and I went along and then of course this all evolved.
[1:09] Hagstrom: Well now, that's the question. I mean, you came back to Amherst after ‘36, and the sabbatical and the Cordon Bleu stuff. What was the next step? What was the breakthrough? What got you going other than cooking turnips for dinner?
[1:22] Turgeon: Well, what got me really going was that there was a very famous professor, that a lot of people still remember, by the name of Andre Morize, who was the head of the department, at the French department at Harvard. And he had been very, very kind to King and very encouraging all during King’s PhD experience down there.
[1:45] Hagstrom: Did King do it under Morize?
[1:47] Turgeon: Yes, he did. So when he, uh, after my mother died, and I came up to New London, New Hampshire to take care of my father. With two little boys. The notices went up that Andre Morize was going to give a summer talk at Colby College.
[2:08] Hagstrom: Okay, now when is this Charlotte? Can you date this?
[2:12] Turgeon: This must be about 1941 would it? Something like that. And so King called me and said he was working down here and I was up taking care of my father. And he said, and he'd come up weekends, and he said, “Would you consider giving a dinner for Andre Morize while he was up here”?
[2:35] So I said yes. And in those days, of course, I was scared stiff, and I set the table three days ahead of time. And I did this very difficult plate, plat as we call it in France. And just before, just before dinner was going to be, or at the least the guests will be expected, the telephone rang, it was a friend of my mother's saying “Charlotte would it be alright if I brought my daughter to the dinner?” Well, it was in a tiny dining room. And we already were twelve. But, of course, I said yes. And she came. And the next day, I got a telegram saying, would I complete an unfinished a book by Dione Lucas?
[3:21] Hagstrom: Now how did this happen?
[3:22] Turgeon: That was because the daughter was a publisher with Oxford University Press.
[3:28] Hagstrom: Really?
[3:29] Turgeon: Yeah. And that's how I started.
[3:29] Hagstrom: And what was Dione Lucas's book?
[3:33] Turgeon: It was Tante Marie!
[3:37] Hagstrom: Tante Marie, this book, this very book!
[3:36] Turgeon: That’s the English edition.
[3:39] Hagstrom: It's interesting.
[3:40] Turgeon: I've always called it the Fannie Farmer of France.
[3:44] Hagstrom: Oh, really.
[3:43] Turgeon: It's very, very plain and very simple and easy to do.
[3:49] Hagstrom: And this particular copy happens to belong to Lord Amherst. And he has a notation that he bought in 1950, the English edition, so that was long before you ever met him.
[4:01] Turgeon: That is. Remember he came for some of my cooking classes?
[4:02] Hagstrom: When we would come up to Amherst after Christmas, he would go over and come to your cooking classes.
[04:08] Turgeon: That’s right.
[04:09] Hagstrom: All right, so you did Tante Marie and, with Oxford University Press and then what evolved next?
[4:15] Turgeon: Well then they said, “We want another book by you.” And I did Cooking for Christmas, for Oxford.
[4:22] Hagstrom: Okay.
[4:22] Turgeon: Then after that, the doors opened. And I had people, publishers asking me to do them so I wrote steadily for what 50 years after that, never stopped.
[4:34] Hagstrom: As far as I can see, your books break down into really two categories, ones that are under your own creation, like Summer Cooking, for instance. Or something like this monstrous thing.
[4:48] Turgeon: I did a lot more. Oh, that was the biggest thing I ever did.
[4:54] Hagstrom: The Larousse?
[4:54] Turgeon: The Larousse Gastronomique. And that was, that took me four and a half years.
[4:58] Hagstrom: I remember when you were working on this. Does this still remain pretty much the dictionary of cooking?
[5:04] Turgeon: Well, it's very funny because I was talking with a cookbook author about this just this week over at the Cooks and Books Affair in Northampton. And no, they republished, they asked me to do it, and I said no, I have done my all. And this first one is full of historical facts, customs. It's a real encyclopedia.
[5:28] Hagstrom: I find it fascinating.
[5:30] Turgeon: I think it is a great reading. But the new one is all about the new- They've taken out almost all the history. And it’s- that’s an exaggeration, but most of it is gone. And the new, the new theories and the new machines. There’s a lot about, you know, various machines to make things easier, which of course is important too. And I know a lot of people who want both.
[5:55] Hagstrom: Well I can see that if you want to know something about the background of a strange vegetable or something like that. Everything's in here.
[6:05] Turgeon: Everything is in there.
[6:06] Hagstrom: It really is.
[6:05] Turgeon: A man I worked with in Williamsburg, a chef down there, said it got him through the war because he was on the ship. And he took that to bed every night.
[6:15] Hagstrom: I can see why, it's fascinating to read.
[6:15] Turgeon: And just read it, read it, read it.
[6:16] Hagstrom: It’s historic. It’s history.
[6:19] Turgeon: It is history. It's very informative too.
[6:26] Hagstrom: And then the other, alright- This is the cookbook of the Somerset Club. How did you happen to do something like that?
[6:30] Turgeon: Because he asked me to. I have never once proposed a book after the first one. Well, I never proposed a book. No, somebody asked me to do it. And mine was a very simple approach, you know.
[6:43] Hagstrom: Well alright, one of the things that you and I have been talking about this week that I've been in Amherst, is the difference of your approach and that of Julia Child's. And I'd like to talk a little bit about that. How do you see this difference?
[6:58] Turgeon: Well, I think course I think Julia’s the-
[6:59] Hagstrom: You were classmates at Smith?
[7:00] Turgeon: We were classmates at Smith and very, very good friends. And she had the time, and the money, and the capacity to study every little thing she did. Her work is much more meticulous. What I say on one page, she says on five. But, and she's very thorough and very authoritative and I bow to her every step of the way. But Julia never had children. She was married and they traveled a great deal. And she spent a lot of time doing this and he was a great help to her.
[7:35] Hagstrom: Paul?
[7:37] Turgeon: Paul.
[7:37] Turgeon: But it was a very different regime from mine, which was bringing up children, constantly entertaining here in Amherst, because that was the way it was in those days. And so my whole interest was how can you get it done and not be cross when the guests arrive.
[8:00] Hagstrom: Right. As you know, George Morgan and I both say that the two singular things that you have taught us, inadvertently, were: get things ready in advance so that you can sit and have a drink with your guests and then put it on the table at the last minute, successfully. And then also to clean up as you go along. And I mean, this comes into this whole thing, doesn't it?
[8:23] Turgeon: It does. Not many kitchens are big enough to do, if you're doing a really bang up meal. Unless you keep ahead of the dishes. They're going to be ahead of you forever.
[8:33] Hagstrom: Right. And then also at the end of the meal, you got that pile to face when you come out of the kitchen.
[8:39] Turgeon: Some people are very strong minded about doing it that night. I'm not.
[8:49] Hagstrom: You leave it for the next day? Oh, why not? When you do something like the Somerset Club cookbook. How do you do that? They give you-
[8:55] Turgeon: Well no, this was fun. This was a group of very, I guess snobby is the way-
[9:02] Hagstrom: Proper.
[9:06] Turgeon: Ultra proper. A bunch of Harvard men. And they had had this chef at the Somerset Club for, I don't know, 10 or 15 years and they loved him dearly. And I could see right away how he was handling them, it was lots of fun, but he and I were able to speak French. So when they were talking about all they were going, he and I would talk about food, and we decided on- and we chose these from his repertoire.
[9:39] Hagstrom: The contents.
[9:38] Turgeon: The contents for this book. And he was a joy to work with. Yeah, just a joy. And every Friday noon, for that whole winter, I went down and lunched with these gentlemen and the chef.
[9:53] Hagstrom: Probably were the only woman in the Somerset club ever.
[9:55] Turgeon: Well, I still had come in the women's entrance. I still had to come in the women’s entrance. The, uh, a different door.
[10:04] Hagstrom: And then this particular object. I remember when you got this King really thought it was quite funny.
[10:11] Turgeon: Well, he didn't want me to go way back to New York for it, that’s what it was.
[10:13] Hagstrom: He didn’t want you to do what?
[10:15] Turgeon: Go back to New York to get it.
[10:16] Hagstrom: Okay, what’s the story behind this?
[10:19] Turgeon: Well, I was very surprised. Scribners called me up one day and said, we've got a really, a very good book. But if we don't have a title for it, and we don’t have a, uh- and it's all mixed up. She really doesn't know anything about cooking. And the point, the recipes were all taken out of famous mystery writer’s stories and made- and this was supposed to be a cookbook. So I rewrote the thing for- with her- great harmony. And, um-
[10:57] Hagstrom: We’re talking now about-
[10:57] Turgeon: Jeanine Larmoth. Very much of a scholar. But didn’t-
[11:04] Hagstrom: The book in mind is Murder on the Menu.
[11:09] Turgeon: Murder on the Menu, yes.
[11:10] Hagstrom: Where did the title come from?
[11:10] Turgeon: My head.
[11:12] Hagstrom: [[Laughs][ You called it that?
[11:13] Turgeon: Yes. I call it that. That’s the way I- I named almost all my books.
[11:19] Hagstrom: Really. Tell me about, this has been one of your most successful, Time to Entertain. Tell me about this.
[11:24] Turgeon: Well, that again that was, that was again Little Brown, who was the same man who got me to do that one. And again, he said, I don't care what you do. We’d just like you to do a book. So they had no, no idea. And so I said, well, give me a start, where you want me to start? I don't know why don’t you take a walk, said he. So I walked in the Boston Public Gardens and came up with this idea. And again, like everything else I've done, that wasn’t edited, so to speak, was, you know, just a title that came- that was autobiographical is what I'm trying to say.
[12:04] Hagstrom: When, at home, when you were cooking for your family, did you experiment a lot?
[12:11] Turgeon: All the time.
[12:16] Hagstrom: Was this just a part of the game?
[12:15] Turgeon: Since I was always doing books, they were always being fed from the books. Very cooperative and so are most of my friends in Amherst I must say. I think I- I think- [begins flipping through book]
[12:26] Hagstrom: What did you do with failures?
[12:30] Turgeon: Throw ‘em out.
[12:34] Turgeon: Yeah, “to fellow gourmets in Amherst.” [reading from book]
[12:38] Hagstrom: Right, right.I remember Jeffery Amherst when he would be cooking, it wouldn't work out. He'd take it out the front door, throw it over the cliff into the English Channel. What do you do? Just down the drain?
[12:46] Turgeon: Just down the drain or down the incinerator we had the other house, remember?
[12:52] Hagstrom: What's the, now a little bit serious here, what's the average of failures in terms of experimentation in cooking? That you have to throw away.
[13:03] Turgeon: Ah, not very high, really not very high. Something might not be up to what I hoped it would be. But it was still edible. So the family ate it, or turned into a party or whatever. But I don't remember throwing anything except for an occasional burning.
[13:26] Hagstrom: Interesting. And, was King interested in food per se?
[13:32] Turgeon: Very. In fact more knowledgeable than I. And really knew a great deal about the history of cooking and that kind of thing.
[13:37] Hagstrom: What about your children? Has this rubbed off on any of your children?
[13:40] Turgeon: I would say-
[13:41] Hagstrom: The interest in cooking?
[13:42] Turgeon: Oh, yes, two of mine are professional cooks. Tom and Peggy. My number two son and his wife.
[13:51] Hagstrom: When you say professional cooks, what do you mean?
[13:52] Turgeon: Well they earn money, doesn’t that make them professional?
[13:55] Hagstrom: Sure, sure, sure. But Tom is a professor of drama?
[13:58] Turgeon: Tom is a professor of drama, and she’s a social worker. But they both are caterers.
[14:03] Hagstrom: Oh really? Together?
[14:05] Turgeon: Oh yes. He doesn’t go to the parties himself, but he does all the heavy, the heavy meats the, the big fishes. I think there's no doubt that he's the best cook in the family. Really, including everybody.
[14:19] Hagstrom: And Charlie is a good cook as well?
[14:20] Turgeon: Charlie's a very studied cook and very careful cook. He doesn't have the flair that Tom has. I mean, you have nothing in the house, and all of a sudden Tom comes up with some beautiful pasta dish or something. He's really quite remarkable.
[14:34] Hagstrom: What about Nan?
[14:36] Turgeon: No, we always called her the casserole cookbook cook. She, you know, she wasn’t - In the first place, she had a real resentment about it to begin with.
[14:46] Hagstrom: Did she?
[14:47] Turgeon: Oh, yes, you know, mother-daughter, “I’m never gonna cook a [?].” Perfectly fair. Anyway, she's a very good cook now, of a plain, ordinary.
[14:58] Hagstrom: For her family.
[15:00] Turgeon: For her family, and she loves to entertain, and she does it very well.
[15:04] Hagstrom: I came across this lecture tour brochure that goes, I suppose, back 30, 40 years. You did go out and lecture-
[15:18] Turgeon: All over the country.
[15:21] Hagstrom: On what- These are the subjects Charlotte, “Time to Entertain,” “French Cooking in American Kitchens,” “Cooking for the Young and Hungry,” “Cookbooks Old and New”. Did you do a lot of this traveling around giving talks?
[15:32] Turgeon: Particularly after the publication of a book. I did a lot of traveling, yes. I think I went to the West coast maybe three times, but a lot of Chicago, Washington DC, you know, you had to go wherever you’re sent. That’s part of- You don't write a book unless you agree to do this.
[15:51] Hagstrom: Do a book tour. Yeah.
[15:54] Hagstrom: I suppose one of the more practical questions in all this, did you make some money on these books?
[16:01] Turgeon: Oh yes. Oh yes.
[16:02] Hagstrom: You did?
[16:02] Turgeon: But it's a sign of the times, it was considered a success if you cleared 2,000. Now that wouldn't be anything now. Not with the price of the books these days.
[16:13] Hagstrom: Well, the thing is, they won’t publish a book these days, if they’re only gonna sell 2,000.
[16:18] Turgeon: Yeah, exactly.
[16:21] Hagstrom: The books led to traveling. And I mean, I remember you're taking people on trips to Europe.
[16:28] Turgeon: Well that was really kind of due to the fact that it was obvious that my husband was not going to travel much longer. And I thought, What am I going to do? I can't afford to do this, unless it’s business. So that's how I started doing my groups.
[16:46] Hagstrom: So what did you do? I mean, what did these groups do? I never have been on one of these trips.
[16:50] Turgeon: Well, the first one, let's say 15 years, maybe more than that. We would go over and study at school for one week.
[17:00] Hagstrom: What school?
[17:03] Turgeon: Well mostly La Varenne. We started at the Cordon Bleu in Paris, and then when La Varenne came into being, we went, we went there for a week. And then I would hire a bus and take people to study wine and food in one province or another. Not all over the place at once, we've covered, we've certainly covered all of France and most of Italy now in those groups, but not a- it's only two weeks. They were always two weeks trips. Because I didn’t feel like I should be home away from home any longer than that. That’s why I did that.
[17:32] Hagstrom: And you organized the whole bit?
[17:34] Turgeon: I did the whole thing, I did all the telephoning, I did the- picked out the hotels-
[17:40] Hagstrom: Accommodation and so forth.
[17:42] Turgeon: And there was a young man, now unfortunately dead, Bob Noah, Robert Noah, who was world famous for his knowledge of wines, but he was starting the same thing in the wine thing that I was starting in the food, and we got together. He came from St. Louis and fell in love with France when he was 16. And started in, and he worked for chefs and he knew food wonderfully.
[18:12] Hagstrom: When was the last group you took abroad?
[18:16] Turgeon: Just the year before last. We did Brittany last year. Brittany and Normandy.
[18:22] Hagstrom: And now you're doing this with Charlie? Are you doing this with Tommy?
[18:28] Turgeon: Neither. I'm going, my son- Both my sons are now doing it. Both of them are now doing it. And Charlie with emphasis on wine. And Tom more on theater and history. Though very interested in, both of them, in the food end of it.
[18:46] Hagstrom: Going back, say 20, 30 years, Was there a kind of a club of cookbook writers? I mean, you obviously knew Charles Beard and-
[18:57] Turgeon: Yes, but you don't mean Charles, you mean Jim Beard? Yes, there was a group there. And if I had done what my agent wanted me to do, I would have become a strong part of it. I had this wonderful, you may remember, Charlie Morgan talking about it. Mary Abbott-
[19:20] Hagstrom: Mary Abbott, sure.
[19:19] Turgeon: She had--
[19:24] Hagstrom: You got Charlie Mary Abbott for his books, didn’t you?
[19:25] Turgeon: Yes, that’s right. But this woman was very strict. Never once did I miss a deadline. Never Never. I wouldn't have dared. She was very strict. And she had the effrontery to look like my mother. So when she told me to do something, I did it. And one day, she called me into her office and said, “You got to make up your mind about your future life. Either you're going to get into the New York press where everything is happening,” Boston was dead at those days, “and stay here.” and I said, “What do you mean? Come down here to live?” Well she said, “No you can go home weekends.” And but you really got to do this. And I said-
[20:11] Hagstrom: Go whole hog.
[20:12] Turgeon: Go whole hog, and get into the swing and do the press things and everything else. And I was always back here working hard in my own house and kitchen. And she said, “You're never gonna make it to the top.” And this was just when Julia was coming in and she was kind of resenting that, which I didn't happen to resent. But she felt very strongly about this. And I said, “Give me a week.” But by the time I had come home, I had said to myself, no, that's not what you want out of life. I have three children.
[20:43] Hagstrom: A whole different departure of course.
[20:46] Turgeon: And living in Amherst in those days was a very exciting thing to do. And particularly if you were working, now everybody works, but in my day, I was one of the very few that worked. Life was very exciting and very fulfilling and I didn't want to miss the children's years. So I decided against it.
[21:05] Hagstrom: You did it your way.
[21:06] Turgeon: I still went on writing, but not in the grand manner.
[21:10] Hagstrom: I remember in the breakfast nook at the house in Blake Field. Some cartoons that were from the New York Times Book Review if I'm not mistaken.
[21:20] Turgeon: I did all their book reviews for about five years.
[21:24] Hagstrom: How did you get into that?
[21:27] Turgeon: A cocktail party, where almost everything gets done anyway. I met Francis Brown, who was editor of the book review and the Sunday book review. And he called me up the morning after I met him and said, “Would you be interested in this job?” And I loved it. When I left the house, I couldn't bring all those books with me. And I gave away over 450 cookbooks.
[21:49] Hagstrom: Did you really? You’ve still got quite a collection now.
[21:55] Turgeon: Yes, I do. But mostly, a lot of them are things that I'm particularly interested in now, and that’s mostly just the foreign cookbooks and my own.
[22:01] Hagstrom: When did you stop reviewing for the New York Times?
[22:04] Turgeon: When I got into problems with, can’t even remember which publisher it was, but I said something derogatory, and then they found out that I was writing cookbooks and at the same time working for-
[22:24] Hagstrom: Conflict of interest?
[22:24] Turgeon: -and Francis Brown said, “That's a conflict of interest, bye!”
[22:28] Hagstrom: Really? When did Francis Brown die? Didn't he have a house here in Amherst?
[22:31] Turgeon: He certainly did. And he died actually a year ago, last July.
[22:35] Hagstrom: That recently? Really.
[22:37] Turgeon: He moved up to Maine.
[22:39] Hagstrom: Did he?
[22:39] Turgeon: He was in the same retirement home that George Cadigan is.
[22:44] Hagstrom: Oh really? Tell me about your- as though you didn't have enough to do, what about the Little Red Schoolhouse? What was your involvement in that? First of all, what is the Little Red Schoolhouse?
[22:56] Turgeon: Little Red Schoolhouse was given to the College at the suggestion of Stanley King so that faculty children would have a good school to go to. It was simple as that.
[23:08] Hagstrom: For elementary school?
[23:09] Turgeon: No, no. Preschool and first and second grade. And there was a committee, and I was asked to be on that committee, and eventually I became the head, the chairman for several years.
[23:24] Hagstrom: Where was the Little Red Schoolhouse?
[23:24] Turgeon: Right where it is now.
[23:27] Hagstrom: Where is that?
[23:27] Turgeon: Well, it's down behind the student center. If you go down to the student center, keep right on going you're going to bump right into it.
[23:35] Hagstrom: By railroad tracks?
[23:38] Turgeon: Just before the railroad tracks.
[23:38] Hagstrom: And then what happened? Is? Does it?
[23:40] Turgeon: It still goes!
[23:43] Hagstrom: Does it really?
[23:42] Turgeon: Oh yes, it still goes. And the money was given by one of the Morrow girls, I think I’m right on that. And, it was very successful. Wonderful. All my children went there.
[23:57] Hagstrom: Is that right? I didn't realize that. And it still goes on?
[24:00] Turgeon: Still goes on.
[24:01] Hagstrom: And then, I know, it was Tommy that went to Loomis.
[24:05] Turgeon: Yes.
[24:06] Hagstrom: But how did you get involved in Williston Northampton School?
[24:11] Turgeon: Well I did a book with, with a, I can't even think of her name now, with a French author. And we did have a bad editor. I'll give her that. But she got so upset by the outcome of that book that when we went down to the French Embassy to have it introduced to New York, she behaved in the most unbelievable, first place wouldn't speak to me. All the problems that we have are my fault, you know, that kind of thing.
[24:50] And Toulouse-Lautrec is who it was. The Countess Toulouse-Lautrec had asked me to write this book with her. And I sent it over to her, she said it was fine, then we sent it back. And I agreed a lot with what she said. It was not a great success, but it so disgusted me that I said: okay, that's it, no more cookbooks.
[25:08] Hagstrom: Oh really, you really signed off, did you really?
[25:09] Turgeon: I signed off completely.
[25:14] And at that point, Emmie Snyder, remember her? Anyway, her husband used to be in the secretarial department here.
[25:24] I've given it the wrong name. But anyway, he worked for Amherst College. And his wife called our house one day and said, “When is Charlotte in a good mood?” And my husband came, when I came home, he said, “I don't care what she wants you to do, say no.” But I didn't.
[25:42] What they wanted me to do was to help reorganize the Northampton School For Girls, which was having all kinds of problems, and a lot of it was food problems, but wasn’t- I was hired to raise money for the school.
[25:57] So I did and I ran the Alumni Association. And after about four years, five years, we joined with Williston, which was purely because of the money involved, both schools were having problems. And of course, this was happening everywhere.
[26:15] Hagstrom: This was about 20 years ago?
[26:17] Turgeon: 1968 I think. And, uh, Char- That would be 30 years ago. And I worked very, very hard over there and loved it. I loved the job. But meanwhile, Curtis Publishing had asked me to come on their board to be food editor, and at that time, it was holiday mag- it was four magazines. And so and I had to go up there every other week, four or five days at the time.
[26:43] Hagstrom: Up there from-?
[26:44] Turgeon: Indianapolis.
[26:45] Hagstrom: Oh really?
[26:48] Turgeon: I flew up to Indianapolis and worked very, very hard and came home on a Friday, went out Monday came home on a Friday, and that was fine for a long time. But then I decided-
[26:59] Hagstrom: Well I remember visiting you in Easthampton, that's where Williston was. And did Northampton School of girls move to that campus then?
[27:07] Turgeon: That’s right, that’s right.
[27:08] Hagstrom: I see. And Phil Stevens was the headmaster?
[27:09] Turgeon: He was, but unfortunately, they also decided to try and work together and they couldn't stand each other.
[27:15] Hagstrom: The Headmistress and the Headmaster?
[27:17] Turgeon: No, it wasn't a Headmistress, it was a man who just died… Nathan Fuller. Miss Whitaker and Miss Bement had long since gone. And these two men tried to run it and they couldn't. So the trustees fired them both.
[27:35] Hagstrom: Really. Where did Bob- How did Bob W- Bob Ward was a great friend of yours. I associate him with Williston Northampton.
[27:40] Turgeon: Well you better, he was the Headmaster.
[27:43] Turgeon: What happened was that he said to me once, after a fracas, this was just when women were beginning to appear on the campus, you know, and naughty, naughty, and poor ol’ Bob was no good at that. Had to be the disciplinarian and he didn’t like it, and he said, “I don't think anything you do for a child amounts to much if you don't do it before he's 14.” And it rang a bell with me. We didn't discuss it much, but it did ring a bell with me. When we had to look for a new headmaster, I said to the head of the Board of Trustees at Williston, wonderful man, by the name of Homer Perkins. If you really want to find someone, I've got the perfect man for you. But if you ever tell him that I suggested it, I'll leave the job. So, that's how it happened.
[28:32] Hagstrom: Really. And Bob stayed on there?
[28:35] Turgeon: Bob stayed on for three years, four years. And then got ill and died.
[28:39] Hagstrom: That was- he was last there, was he?
[28:42] Turgeon: Mhmm. That was his last job.
[28:43] Hagstrom: Was he at Loomis before that?
[28:45] Turgeon: He taught at Loomis right after Amherst, he after he left- he graduated in ‘57. From here, from Amherst College.
[28:53] Hagstrom: Okay, and then went to Loomis school?
[28:54] Turgeon: And then went to Harvard. And then went to Loomis, or it may have been the other way around. And then he was in the war movement and then he came back and came back to Amherst.
[29:03] Hagstrom: Okay. Okay, and what did you actually do at Williston? I remember visiting you, but I don't remember what you did there.
[29:10] Turgeon: Again, I wrote- I raised money, but I also made plans for the dining room. We built new buildings, and I redecorated all the interior of the entire school.
[29:23] Hagstrom: That’s right, I remember that. Is it a going concern now? Williston school?
[29:27] Turgeon: It is a very successful school. If I had a child right now, this is where I’d go. It combines simplicity and at the same time, individual-
[29:38] Hagstrom: Coeducational, of course.
[29:42] Turgeon: It is coeducational. And it's a much more exciting school than when I was working over there.
[29:50] Hagstrom: And then what? Your involvement with Applewood, a more recent one.
[29:56] Turgeon: Oh, that is quite recent.
[29:59] Hagstrom: Am I correct in sayin- Whose idea was Applewood?
[30:03] Turgeon: It really was Janet Morgan’s.
[30:05] Hagstrom: That's what I thought.
[30:06] Turgeon: And she called me up one day and she said, “I've got a bee in my bonnet. And I'd like to talk it over with you.” So I went down and we had a cup of coffee, and we discussed it. And I thought it was a wonderful idea. But I said to her, “Well, you know perfectly well that neither you nor I have what it takes to get that ball rolling because it involves a lot of money. And I think we ought to ask Al Guest.”
[30:30] Hagstrom: Who had retired as alumni secretary.
[30:33] Turgeon: Well he hadn't even retired at that point. No, no, we worked six years before we even got anything on paper. So you see, we were a long time getting that ready. And then we formed a committee and we met every month and-
[30:47] Hagstrom: Al thought this was a good idea as well.
[30:50] Turgeon: Yes. And everybody else that we talked- that got on the board thought it was a good idea, and we eventually found the builder we wanted and-
[30:57] Hagstrom: How did you find the property?
[31:00] Turgeon: Well to begin with Amherst College had said to us that we could have the property at the end of Mill Lane. And then they had a new treasurer come in and he said, “We can't do anything for two years until I understand everything there is to understand about Amherst.” So then we started looking for new buildings. And Hampshire College offered us one but I felt very strongly, still do, that we had worked very slowly because we were under the will of Amherst College, until they decided that they- So we gave up that. And here they were going to talk about doing it with Hampshire and I said, “I think we're going to go down the same path.”
[31:44] Hagstrom: You really wanted to break connections with Amherst College?
[31:47] Turgeon: I really wanted to be absolutely independent. Or anybody, not just Amherst, any college. And people began to think that was not such a bad idea. We had a very fine group of people. 16 of us who worked for a good 10 years.
[32:03] Hagstrom: I remember meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting. But how did you find that property?
[32:11] Turgeon: It was already started by the builder who eventually became our builder. And he had built a model or was building a model up there. But it was not for anything like Applewood. It was for retired people, but it was buildings that were being adaptable to people in wheelchairs and things like that. But it was not an institution, it had no dining room or anything like that. And it wasn’t selling one little bit, and they came to us about it. And we got it together and after and after talking with this man, we decided that he was the right person. And he built the whole building for us.
[32:54] Hagstrom: When did Applewood open? Five years ago? Six years ago?
[33:00] Turgeon: Six years ago, I think.
[33:01] Hagstrom: And it's been highly successful.
[33:02] Turgeon: Highly successful, so far so good.
[33:05] Hagstrom: And you moved from Blake Field to where you now live in the Upper Orchard. What is the relationship between Upper Orchard and Applewood right now? Any?
[33:13] Turgeon: None, none, none, except that it happens to be the same builder.
[33:19] Hagstrom: Really. Was it the same property?
[33:18] Turgeon: Not the same architecture, but the same builder, same property, it's all Atkin’s old apple orchard.
[33:27] Hagstrom: And when did you move from Blake Field? And why did you move from Blake Field?
[33:31] Turgeon: Well, my husband died in July, 11 years ago whenever that is.
[33:38] Hagstrom: ‘87
[33:38] Turgeon: Yeah, and then I thought I’d stay right on, but then I got a bill for a thousand dollars because I had to have a maple tree pulled. And I knew that that wasn’t going to work with my kind of income. So I called, and I didn't consult anybody, children or anybody, but I did say, I did call up the real estate. And I put it on the market at one and it was sold at three.
[34:10] Hagstrom: I was staying-
[34:11] Turgeon: You were there! You were staying-
[34:12] Hagstrom: I was staying with you, and I showed the woman around the place.
[34:17] Turgeon: That's right I had forgotten that. With the understanding that I could still have it for a whole year and because my condominium wasn't even a hole in the ground and I knew what I wanted and I wanted to plan it very carefully and-
[34:31] Hagstrom: These were obviously set footprints for these condominiums that were built in the upper orchard?
[34:39] Turgeon: Yes.
[34:42] Hagstrom: Did you change yours at all?
[34:43] Turgeon: Oh, yes. I mean the, uh- Well, the rule was you couldn't change anything on the outside. You could change anything you wanted on the inside.
[34:49] Hagstrom: So what did you do on the inside that changed?
[34:50] Turgeon: Well I had a 30 by 30 garage, and out of that I made- I measured my own little car, and then the rest I put into storage, and study, and pantry.
[35:06] Hagstrom: So you got a whole extra room out of that. Two? Three rooms, really.
[35:06] Turgeon: No three, plus a lot of closets, lots and lots of closets.
[35:10] Hagstrom: Right. And what about dining room?
[35:13] Turgeon: Dining room, I just took one of the three bedrooms and turned that into a dining room.
[35:16] Hagstrom: So you really customized your condominium?
[35:18] Turgeon: I customized the whole thing, and put quite a lot of money into it to do it. But if it's gonna be right-
[35:24] Hagstrom: So it wasn't, I mean, it wasn't a great tr- It was obviously a big deal to move, but it wasn't a great transition in terms of style.
[35:32] Turgeon: Not a bit. Not a bit and it didn't bother me and I can give very large parties, as you know, up there.
[35:38] Hagstrom: Sure, you had 22 when Janet died, 22 or some 24 for dinner.
[35:42] Turgeon: 85 for the reunion class of ‘57. So, you can do it if you want to.
[35:49] Hagstrom: As Amherst was an extraordinarily important part of your life. Maine has become a big deal in terms of you and your family. How did that all come about apart from the fact that King came from Maine. What happened there?
[36:03] Turgeon: That really had nothing to do with it, other than the fact that he always [?] of Maine. So much so that so when he crossed the border his accent changed.
[36:20] What happened was that we had talked about, we had gone up there thanks to Ralph Beebe. We were in Europe, and he wrote and said we think you’re Maine kind of people not Vineyard kind of people and we found a house for you.
[36:36] Hagstrom: Ralph Beebe?
[36:35] Turgeon: Ralph Beebe. And because he summered up there, and they wanted us up there, so King wired back. If memory serves me, without consultation, he wanted it so badly. And he said go ahead and take the house, for next year. So that’s how we started going to Maine.
[36:55] Hagstrom: To rent?
[36:56] Turgeon: To rent.
[36:55] Hagstrom: Where was this Charlotte?
[36:56] Turgeon: This was the next point over. Friendship has seven points, and this was one of them. So that Fall, when we were back and trying to write out our budget and everything else. I had had a little message that morning and, very amicable but, you know, we musn’t buy this and we musn’t do that. And the telephone rang, and the man said, we hear you might be interested in a house in Friendship, Maine. Well, thank you very much, but nothing is further from our thoughts, say I. And when I told this to my husband over a glass of sherry that night, he said, where did you get that idea? And he went right to the telephone and asked [?]. So we went up. And on the way up-
[37:57] Hagstrom: When was this Charlotte?
[38:01] Turgeon: This is 52 years ago, 53 I guess now. Anyway, so, when we're going up, I was sitting in the back with the children, and they were very little. And I heard my brother-in-law say to his brother, no man on your salary should own two houses. And we did own this one down here. And so I said to the children, now, I am going to request that there'll be no reaction. Because I don't think we're gonna have this house.
[38:37] But my brother-in-law went around with his, he was a lumberman, his pipe [mimes knocking on walls with pipe] and, “you can’t afford not to buy this house.”
[38:40] Hagstrom: Really?
[38:41] Turgeon: And so we bought that whole place for $5,000.
[38:49] Hagstrom: Right on the coast in Friendship?
[38:50] Turgeon: Right on the coast in Friendship! And we still have it.
[38:56] Hagstrom: And you’ve added on to it.
[39:00] Turgeon: It’s called Charlotte’s warts. Every year I have added something to it, the house. And of course we’ve built another house on there for-
[39:08] Hagstrom: On the property
[39:09] Turgeon: Which is now considered my house. For the property, because the children have increased. And it’s a very happy summer place, no doubt about it.
[39:21] Hagstrom: Has it changed much over the years?
[39:23] Turgeon: There's no Yacht Club. Everybody has, almost everybody has some kind of a boat. We have a cat boat that’s 111 years old. And we had to change the boat we go out to get into the sailboat on. Or for fishing, I’m trying to think of what we call it but I can’t think of it. So it's very, very simple and very inexpensive way to live.
[39:54] Hagstrom: Right, right. And a lot of lobster.
[39:56] Turgeon: Lobster all the time. In those days, all you did was [?] yell at the lobsterman as he went down and he’d throw some on the rocks. And then you’d take some money and put it in an envelope and throw it to him.
[40:07] Hagstrom: Is that right?
[40:08] Turgeon: That’s how we used to do it. Not that way now, but still.
[40:11] Hagstrom: Did you do much perfecting of your cooking up there?
[40:15] Turgeon: A lot. Of course I wrote the summer cookbook there completely. And I did a lot, no, I worked the whole time during the summer whether I was writing or experimenting.
[40:24] Hagstrom: Are you writing now?
[40:27] Turgeon: No. [Shakes head]
[40:30] Hagstrom: Not at all?
[40:32] Turgeon: No.
[40:32] Hagstrom: Are you creating new recipes still?
[40:32] Turgeon: No, except as I cook I use cookbooks less and less, so I do whatever comes into my head.
[40:50] Hagstrom: What about your neighbors up in Maine? Has there been a big change there?
[40:55] Turgeon: Yes, it’s very sad now because, of course, at my age almost everyone has gone. So it’s very different, the third generation has taken over, that’s all there is to it. But there are enough older people there, I mean people of the old families, and we do things very much as families, not divided by the generations at all. The parties always are 3 or 4 generations.
[41:14] Hagstrom: In that same vein, how has Amherst changed for you? I mean I know some of your great friends have died, Harriet [?] and Janet of course. How about living in Amherst? Is it still commodious?
[41:30] Turgeon: I find it wonderful, I find it wonderful. I have enough friends and a lot of younger friends, like you. And I find it a wonderful place. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. I have no intention of leaving.
[41:41] Hagstrom: And your health has been good, relatively?
[41:44] Turgeon: Relatively speaking, mhmm.
[41:48] Hagstrom: Is there anything that you’d like to finish on Charlotte?
[41:51] Turgeon: No except that Amherst is a great place to live.
[41:55] Hagstrom: And the College has always been a significantly beneficial-
[41:58] Turgeon: Very beneficial, and to this day, supports retirees and everybody that’s-
[42:02] Hagstrom: Does it?
[42:02] Turgeon: Oh yeah. I think the College is very paternal.
[42:08] Hagstrom: Too paternal maybe?
[42:09] Turgeon: Not to me, oh no. Because no one ever tells you what to do or not to do. Oh no, I wouldn’t say so at all. Because we’ve always owned our own house, that makes a difference.
[42:21] Hagstrom: And that’s also a significant difference.
[42:27] Hagstrom: I think that’s it.
Charlotte Turgeon came to Amherst with her husband, Frederick Turgeon, in 1934 when he joined the French Department. During his 1937 sabbatical in Paris, she graduated from the Cordon Bleu Academy. She has been described as a "pioneer forerunner for women in the culinary arts in the United States." Having published fifty-three cookbooks and held cooking classes at her home, she was as prolific off the screen as her classmate and close friend Julia Child was on the screen. She has been quoted as saying, "I just wanted to make the cooking part of life intelligible and fun."
Jack W. C. Hagstrom, class of 1955, is a collector of books, a bibliographic, and a founding member of the Friends of the Library. He is also a close friend of Charlotte Turgeon.
Educational, not-for-profit use is permitted without the owner’s permission if the participants and publisher are acknowledged.
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