The Life of Julia Child

The Life and Death of Julia Child

Early Life

One hundred years ago today Julia Child was born. For those of you who (for some reason) can’t do basic math she was born on August 15, 1912. She was born in Pasadena, California and was the daughter of John and Julia Child. She attended Westridge School, Polytechnic School from fourth grade all the way up to ninth grade. After ninth grade she attended The Katherine Branson school which at the time was a boarding school. It is located in Ross, California. For her college years she went to Smith college and graduated with a major in English. After graduating college Child moved to New York City and got a job working as a copywriter in the advertising department of a furnishing firm called W. & J. Sloane. After working as a copywrite she returned to California in 1937 and spent four years writing for local publications and working in advertising.

Childs Part In WW2

During WW2 she joined the Office of Strategic Services or OSS because she was to tall to enlist in the Women’s Army Corps (WACs) or in the Navy’s WAVES. She worked as a typist at the OSS’s hedquarters  in Washington. Due to her education she was given more responsibilities and worked as a top secret researcher reporting directly to the head of OSS.  She worked for a year at the OSS Emergency Rescue Equipment Section (ERES) in Washington D.C. as a file clerk. For some of here more odd jobs she worked on producing a shark repellent to prevent sharks from blowing up ordinance targeting German U-boats. In 1944 she was moved to Kandy, Ceylon (which is now Sri Lanka) to catalog a great number of highly classified communications for the OSS stations in Asia. She was later moved to China where she received  the Emblem of Meritorious Civilian award for her service. Her file was declassified in 2008 unlike other files.

Julia Childs First Experience with France

While in Ceylon she met Paul Cushing Child and the two were married on September 1, 1946 in Lumberville, Pennsylvania. They later moved to Washington D.C. Paul Child was a New Jersey native and had lived in Paris as an artist and poet. He introduced his wife to cuisine and was known for his sophisticated plate. He joined the United States Foreign Service and in 1948 the couple moved to Paris. The US State Department assigned Paul as an exhibits officer with the United States Information Agency. Julia and Paul Child never had any children. While in Paris she attended the famous Le Cordon Bleu cooking school. She then later studied with Max Bugnard and other master chefs privately. She joined a women’s cooking club called Cercle des Gourmetted. While in the club she met Simone Beck who was writing a French cookbook for Americans with her friend Louisette Bertholle. Beck asked Child to work with them to make the cookbook more appealing to Americans. In 1951 Child, Beck, and Bertholle began a cooking school for Americans women from Child’s kitchen and called it Le’ecole des trois gourmandes (The School for the Three Food Lovers). For the next 10 years the three moved around Europe and Finally moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts.  They researched and tested recipes and Child translated the French into English. This made the recipes detailed, interesting, and Practical.