1939: THE VISIT OF QUEEN ELIZABETH-TO-BE

Queen Elizabeth II and Me

   Shortly Queen Elizabeth II of England will be celebrating her 90^th birthday. She is almost exactly half a year older than I am. We will not be on the same continent when Britain’s longest serving monarch reaches that milestone. However, when both of us were twelve years old we were at the same place at the same time, separated by only a couple of hundred feet.

   You may be aware that in the spring of 1939, when the European war was brewing but not yet actual, Franklin Roosevelt invited King George VI to make a family visit to the United States, as a  way of encouraging the isolationist public to support Britain in the war that was expected to come. The accounts of that visit usually focus on the Royals touring Washington and especially on their visit to the Roosevelts’ home in Hyde Park—with its American fare (including hot dogs, if I remember correctly), far simpler than the meals in Buckingham Palace familiar to them.

   But the royal threesome also visited New York City, a sojourn that included a ride in a horse-drawn carriage in Central Park. To cheer them on, New York public school children converged on the park and waved greetings at the passing Royals; I cannot remember for sure whether the small American flag (with just 48 stars) in our house stems from that occasion, but I think so. I certainly recall standing lined up at the edge of the Central Park Drive and cheering the passing carriage.

   Not long after this, Britain was at war and young Elizabeth became an important member of  the Royals who devoted themselves to upholding the morale of the British public. And not long after that, with Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into the war, my family and I became what were called Enemy Aliens, with special identification cards no less. As I somewhat vaguely recall, my parents found it a bit strange that we, who had ourselves been persecuted by that enemy, should be so labeled; but I don’t remember any resentment.

   The burdens of that classification were not onerous. [1] No short wave radio, leading us to have that unused capacity removed from a radio in a klutzy wooden box that we owned. [2] No cameras; no sweat, since no one in the family was much of a photographer. [3] Permission was required to travel more than so-and-so-many miles from home, permission that seemed to be easily granted when our family wanted to go up the Hudson to Bear Mountain on a Sunday outing. More significantly, our Enemy Alien status did not prevent us from becoming American citizens just five years after arriving in New York.

   “Looking back in retrospect,” as Mr. Redundant would have it, “how benign!” It is hard to resist those Old Fogey remarks, “Those were the good old days” and “things ain’t what they used to be.” That’s not news, of course; nor is the fact that there has been much progress since then.