Theodate Pope Riddle
Biographie
Née sous le nom de Effie Brooks Pope à Salem dans l'État de l'Ohio, elle est la fille unique de l'industriel et collectionneur d'art Alfred Atmore Pope et de son épouse Ada Lunette Brooks. Quand Effie a 19 ans, elle change son prénom en Theodate en hommage à sa grand-mère Theodate Stackpole. Elle est diplômée de la Miss Porter's School de Farmington dans le Connecticut. Elle dessine les plans du Hill-Stead Museum à Farmington et fonde et dessine l'école Avon Old Farms à Avon, ainsi que la Westover School. Parmi ses autres réalisations, elle réalise la reconstruction de la maison natale du président américain Theodore Roosevelt à New York. Elle est aussi la cousine germaine de la mère du célèbre architecte Philip Johnson.
Theodate Pope est membre de la Architectural League of New York, la Archaeological Institute of America et la Medieval Academy of America.
le Lusitania
Texte anglais à traduire :
On May 1, 1915, she boarded the British ocean liner Lusitania as a First Class passenger, together with her maid Miss Emily Robinson and Professor Edwin W. Friend, a fellow Farmington resident. When the ship was torpedoed by a German submarine on May 7, Theodate and Edwin were just going for a walk on the boat deck. They almost got into one of the lifeboats but before stepping inside, the couple watched the boat being thrown up into the air. They decided it was a better idea to jump off the deck. Theodate turned to her maid saying "Come, Robinson" and then jumped. When she rose to the surface, both Emily and Edwin had disappeared. Instead, she found herself caught in a mob of screaming, struggling people trying to keep themselves alive. She found herself "being washed and whirled up against wood." Something hit her hard on the head, but, although half-stunned, she surfaced at last. "People all around me were fighting, striking and struggling," she later recalled. Then a man "insane with fright" made "a sudden jump and landed clean on my shoulders, believing I could support him." He had no life jacket, and his weight was pushing her back under. Somehow she found the strength to say "Oh, please don't" before the waters closed over her. Feeling her sink, the man let go. Theodate surfaced again and looked around for Edwin Friend. Instead she saw close by her an elderly man, another man with a bloody gash in his forehead, and a third clasping a small tin tank as a float. Seeing an oar floating nearby, she pushed one end toward the old man and took hold of the other. Moments later she lost consciousness but was pulled in from the sea with boat hooks and laid among the dead "like a sack of cement." One woman pleaded with the resuers to give her artificial respiration. They cut off her fashionable clothing and went to work. To their amazement, she came around. Gazing confusedly around her, Theodate gradually realized she was lying on the floor wrapped in a blanket and staring into a small open-grate fire. Neither her maid nor Professor Friend had survived.[1]
Le , Theodate épouse le diplomate américain John Wallace Riddle, alors âgé de 52 ans. Elle meurt le chez elle à Farmington.
Références
- Brandegee, Arthur L. et Eddy H. Smith. Farmington, Connecticut, The Village of Beautiful Homes. Farmington, CT, 1906. Reprinted by the Farmington Historical Society, 1997.
- Cunningham, Phyllis Fenn. My Godmother, Theodate Pope Riddle. Canaan, NH: published privately, 1983.
- Emeny, Brooks. Theodate Pope Riddle and the Founding of Avon Old Farms School. Avon, CT: published privately, 1973 and 1977.
- Hewitt, Mark A. The Architect and the American Country House 1890-1940. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990.
- Hill-Stead: An Illustrated Museum Guide. Farmington, CT: Hill-Stead Museum, 2003.
- Katz, Sandra L. Dearest of Geniuses, A Life of Theodate Pope Riddle. Windsor, CT: Tide-Mark Press, 2003. www.tide-mark.com.
- Mercer, William W., ed. Avon Old Farms School. Arlington, MA: Royalston Press, 2001.
- Paine, Judith. Theodate Pope Riddle: Her Life and Work. Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, 1979.
- Preston, Diana. Lusitania, An Epic Tragedy. New York, NY: Walker & Company, 2002.
- Ramsey, Gordon, ed. Aspiration and Perseverance, The History of Avon Old Farms School, 1984.
- Smith, Sharon. Theodate Pope Riddle, Her Life and Architecture. Internet publication: www.valinet.com/~smithash/, 2002.
- Stern, Robert A. M. Pride of Place, Building the American Dream. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1988.
- Torre, Susanna, ed. Women in American Architecture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective, A Publication and Exhibition Organized by the Architectural League of New York. New York, NY: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1977.
- Diana Preston, Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy (2002)
Liens externes
- Portail de l’architecture et de l’urbanisme