September 2011 | Page 2 of 2 | Richard M. Langworth

Lady Soames Diaries

5 September 2011 Comments 1 Comment

The diaries of Churchill’s youngest and only living daughter, Mary Soames, are to be published on her 89th birthday, September 15th, by Doubleday UK, and is available for shipment worldwide from Amazon UK. An e-book will also be available. American publication will be in May 2012 by Random House in New York. The Amazon UK price is £16.50 ($26.50) and airmail shipment to the USA costs about £7 ($11).

Much younger than her siblings, Mary had an idyllic youth, growing up at Chartwell, her father’s beloved Kentish home, but always in the background was his preoccupation with the growing threat of Hitler, and in 1939 the war arrived, and with it Mary’s life was dramatically altered.…

Jordan, Part 4: “Somewhere West of Laramie”

2 September 2011 Comments 6 Comments

Continued from Part 3

Ned Jordan spent July 4th, 1923 at his Rhode Island summer home, watching his daughter Jane perform tricks on a salty pony: “That child could ride—well enough to win prizes at rodeos….

Three days later, on the Overland Limited, bound for San Francisco. A chat, at about dusk, with Mr. Austin, a New York lawyer, in the forward end of the lounge car. We passed some station in Wyoming, too late to catch the sign. Just then a husky somebody whirled up on a rarin’ cayoose…he, acting as if he’d never seen a Union Pacific train.…

Jordan, Part 3: “What Price Tiffany?”

1 September 2011 Comments 2 Comments

Continued from Part 2…

The Jordan Motor Car Company began without a factory. In Detroit, chief engineer Russell Begg developed a body to wrap around a six-cylinder Continental engine. Finally Ned paid $50,000 for a five-acre site in Cleveland, and by early July 1915 Jordans were coming off the line.

Jordan quickly recognized the closed car market and added a sedan and coupe in 1917. By 1918 he was building 5000 cars a year, heady business for a small independent in those days. Plant space was expanded, bonuses paid. Then in April 1919 came the first Jordan Playboy.…