#ex-pat

Today we honor a great “Dane” - jazz tenor-man Ben Webster (March 27, 1909 - 1973) who lived in Denmark the last years of his life and is buried at the Assistens Cemetery in Copenhagen.

This Woman Crush Wednesday we're delighted to present Five Facts and a short bio about Alice B. Toklas, (April 30th, 1877 – March 7th, 1967) an American-expat, member of the early 20th center Parisian avant-garde art movement, and long-term partner of Gertrude Stein.

 During World War I, Toklas served as a volunteer ambulance driver alongside her partner Gertrude Stein

 "The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook" contained a recipe contributed by a friend for a hedonistic delicacy of fruit, nuts, spices, and marijuana. Despite the fact that the method did not originate with Toklas, nor is there any record of her personally making it, it remains the book’s most famous recipe.

 The San Francisco Board of Supervisors renamed a block of Myrtle Street “Alice B. Toklas Place”, due to Toklas being born a block away on O'Farrell Street.

Toklas referred to Stein as “husband” and “lovey,” and Stein referred to Toklas as “wifey” and “baby precious.”

 The first organization for LGBTQ Democrats in the United States, The Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club was founded in 1971 by activists Del Martin, Phyllis Lyon, Beth Elliott, and Jim Foster.

Alice B. Toklas’ cookbooks, correspondences, and love letters are sprinkled all over the SFPL shelves click here to taste test them.

 Alice Babette Toklas was born on April 30, 1877, in San Francisco, CA. Toklas grew up in an upper-middle-class Jewish family of Polish descent. She once hoped to be a pianist after briefly studying music in college at the University of Washington. However, the death of her mother in 1897 required the twenty-year-old Toklas to accept a submissive and domestic role to caretake for her father and brother.

Dissatisfied with this role, questioning her burgeoning same-gender attractions, and devastated by the 1906 earthquake, Toklas traveled to Paris, where she met a then-unknown Gertrude Stein, and she began assisting Stein in her pursuit of a writing career by typing her manuscripts.Once Toklas and Stein had been professionally involved for some time, the duo realized a romantic connection had blossomed and they began building a life together in France that would span roughly four decades until Stein's death in 1946.During their relationship, they were well known for co-hosting regular literary salons catered to American writers like Ernest Hemingway and Sherwood Anderson who were also living abroad, as well as members of the Parisian avant-garde art movement like famed painters, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse.Following Stein's death, Toklas began releasing books mixing both memoir and cooking recipes. 

However, her financial situation deteriorated. Despite Stein’s efforts to leave much of her estate to Toklas and the longevity of their relationship, the couple's same-gender relationship had no legal recognition.In a wildly self-serving and cutting move, Stein's family accessed the couple's shared art collection-- which included gifts from their friend Pablo Picasso-- and placed the entire collection in a bank vault while Toklas was out of town on vacation. 

Left with next to nothing due to same-sex marriage protections not existing at the time, Toklas was forced to rely on her writing and the scattered largesse of friends, which complicated her later years. Possibly due to her failing health and monetary circumstances, Toklas converted from Judaism to Roman Catholicism and in 1967 died in financial ruin at the age of 89, and was buried next to Stein in Père Lachaise Cemetery. 

The view from my friend’s house. Life in Doha right now looks almost exactly like it did before the bombings. I realize that might sound strange coming from someone living about a hundred miles from Iran during a war, and whose city is being intermittently targeted. But it’s the truth. For one thing, it’s Ramadan. Which means that during the day, Doha is quieter than usual anyway. Most…