Sister: the Life of Legendary American Interior Decorator Mrs Henry Parish II Book

Born with the silverest of spoons in her mouth, Mrs. Henry Parish II went on to become, of all things, a working woman. Yet she couldn't have picked a métier more suited to her milieu. As a decorator, she drew upon both her blue-blood connections and the exquisite taste that was her birthright to become one of the foremost figures in American interior design. Not bad for a woman who never received a high school diploma, and who was known most often (and most endearingly) by her childhood nickname of Sister. (When she was hired to do over the White House for Jackie, the headlines read "Kennedys Pick Nun to Decorate White House.") In Sister, Parish's daughter and granddaughter lovingly chronicle this remarkable woman's life and work. She began adulthood as the wife and mother she had been expensively nurtured to become. But when the Depression hit and her husband's stockbroker salary plummeted, this Sister started doing it for herself. She hung out a shingle, literally, and soon upper-crust types from far and wide were clamoring for her untrained but decidedly stylish services. In narrating the illustrious career that followed, the book alternates interviews with past clients, coworkers, and friends with excerpts from Sister's never-completed autobiography--and with few exceptions, the most vivid passages are those in her own inimitable voice. Parish described her own style, quite correctly, as "timeless and personal," yet she actually innovated key elements of what we now take for granted as the "American country" look, including quilts, painted floors, and mattress ticking upholstery. But she never sacrificed a client's wishes to an inflexible ideal. For her, design was always about matching a house with the personality of those who lived inside it, making her work the truest extension of her love of family and home. More than just a tribute to a remarkable woman, Sister is also a fascinating portrait of a bygone world, almost Jamesian in its manners and morals. --Chloe Byrne Read More