In Those Days: Tales of a Happy Childhood 1926-1940

by Frances Cheston Train

Frances Cheston Train was born into a wealthy Philadelphia family in 1926. This tender, minutely observed and humorous memoir is packed with detailed descriptions of the Edwardian manners, rules and customs of Philadelphia society. Train grew up in an enormous house in Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania, but her youth was marked by seasonal migrations to the family's various homes-summers in Dark Harbor, Maine on the island of Islesboro, Christmas and Easter vacations at a plantation in South Carolina and weekends in the hunt country near Unionville, Pennsylvania. In her Upstairs Downstairs childhood, young Francie spent as much time with the chauffeurs, the maids and her beloved nurse (as nannies were then called) as she did with her friends and family. She moved easily from one world to the other, her social consciousness gradually awakening as a teenager. In Those Days is a vivid mosaic of a privileged and sheltered childhood in the 1930's, insulated from the hardships of the Depression. The author remembers with affection those days of innocence, gentleness, kindliness and uncomplicated fun.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0595409687
• ISBN13: 9780595409686
• Release Date: November 2006
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Length: 164 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A good summer read

Frances Cheston Train is the real McCoy, a Philadelphian right out of the Philadelphia Story. The tomboy daughter of older parents, she romps through the edges of her family life in the company of family servants and retainers, of her adored cousins and of various animals of all sizes and persuasions. She is disarmingly frank about her budding sexuality, her eccentric relations, her family's complex marital history, her upbringing by a Scots nanny and her stubborn refusal to be the perfect young lady. From a less perpetually optimistic being this memoir might be full of self dramatizing angst. In Train's hands there is nothing but sunny delight and appreciation for her colorful privledged, though in contex unpretentious and considerate, world. Find a hammock and settle down for a trip back to those days.