Viewing page 25 of 128

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

- 236 - 

The contacts with these new friends opened a wider world of art for me.

       Another friendship began with a jape in which I was neatly hoodwinked. I had arranged a luncheon at the Yerba Buena Club for Aalto, the distinguished Finnish architect. The club, built on the Exposition grounds, had been set up for entertaining visiting VIP's. Frances Elkins had decorated it elegantly and the Worn sisters, known to everyone in San Francisco, added to its beauty with their fabulous flower arrangements.

       The guests were already assembling when a tall, leathery-looking young man approached me. In broken English, a kind of jumble of double-talk, he said he was a reporter for a Finnish newspaper and hoped to get an interview with Aalto. I said I was delighted to have him and invited him to lunch, telling the waiters to set an extra place at the table. He carried on the masquerade, fooling