Helene on the radio in 1959

I had a fair number of technical difficulties with this entry as the reel-to-reel from 1959 was damaged. You’ll hear some interference despite my best efforts to clean up the audio. In any case, this is an 8-minute interview my grandmother did on talk radio in Chicago in 1959, a mere 17 months after arriving in the United States. It’s delightful to hear her broken English and thick French accent. She’s talking here of her process as a portrait artist as she launched the career that would have her painting socialites and movie stars by the 1960s.

The host, Jack Taylor, is a fixture of the Chicago airwaves and became a good family friend. My grandmother was always good at making friends.

This also afforded me the opportunity to grab some of the 12,000+ family photographs I have of her. If there’s a painting in the picture or a mural in the background then it’s included because she painted it.

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