Frances Train

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