Questions and Answers

In the lives of famous people anniversaries are easy to find. The only decision is whether you limit them to years ending in 0 or 5 and determining whether any number preceding those is fair game.

In Europe, where anniversaries are a really big deal, numbers have gone into the 1,000’s for city anniversaries and into the 100’s for famous writers, artists, composers and major historic events. As you see below, I’m not limiting myself to the ‘0 or 5’ anniversary formula.

Another anniversary today – it’s forty-three years since the death of Alice B.  Toklas.  Not just Alice Toklas, but Alice B. Toklas!

And that’s the rub, the ‘B.’ (Sounds a bit Steinian, like something from TENDER BUTTONS or LIFTING BELLY.)

Though I have seen letters that Alice signed without the ‘B’, many are signed including the initial with some signed  “A.B. Toklas.”  Letters to friends were often signed just plain “Alice”, preceded by “Affectionately,” “Ever affectionately,” “Always affectionately,” or “Affectionately and cordially.”

The  ‘B’ stood for Babette though in her obituary in TIME magazine the writer indicated that it stood for  Boyd.  So much for fact-checkers.

But what’s in a middle initial or middle name?  Take for example the following:

Sarah Jessica Parker (less sexy without the Jessica?)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (less poetic without Barrett?)

Helen Gurley Brown (less of a Cosmo girl without Gurley?)

Harriet Beecher Stowe (less abolitionist without Beecher?)

Ann B. Davis (less control over that Brady bunch?)

Gertrude May Stein (less…!!!!)

(GERTRUDE MAY STEIN!!!! Take heart, that is not our Gertrude Stein, though when I first saw an item on e bay purporting to be the 1898 autograph of our Gertrude, but with a middle name, I got very excited.  I searched various books and documents to see if I could find any record of our Gertrude having a middle name and found no proof, but did discover that there was a well-known opera singer in the 19th century named Gertrude May Stein, this was her autograph – mystery solved.)

But back to Alice B.

Alice Toklas without the ‘B’ or ‘Babette’ somehow doesn’t seem right. It’s unrefined, unauthoritative, incomplete like trying to make her “Liberation Fruitcake”  without the four pounds of citron, white currants and almonds (page 222 of her cookbook.)  And Alice did know a thing or two about cooking and baking.

So on this anniversary, let’s remember her in all of her glory with a name complete with all of the joys of a sumptuous meal.

Alice Babette Toklas.

Alice B. Toklas.

After all, there was a Babette’s Feast!

COPYRIGHT HANS GALLAS ©2010

Tagged Alice B. Toklas, Babette's Feast, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Gertrude May Stein, Gertrude Stein, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Helen Gurley Brown, Sarah Jessica Parker