Rose Mary Kunz appeared in Virginia Fontaine’s diaries on January 19, 1951, but not as a new friend, but as someone flying up to Frankfurt to the Rhein-Main Air Force base to visit Virginia in particular. Rose Mary worked in the Madrid embassy but came to Germany often, always visiting Virginia. We have no information…
Women Spies Part I: Patricia Van Delden
Patricia Van Delden, (1908-unknown). Alias: Sonneveer. Van Delden was a Los Angeles native who studied biology in Munich, Zurich, and Vienna in the 1930s, and married a Dutch electrical engineer in 1939. After he was captured by the Nazis in 1942 for sabotage, and later died in a concentration camp, she continued his work transmitting…
It’s Women’s History Month! Introducing: Women Spies
Women’s History Month calls us to discover, tell and uplift the history and stories of women across the world and throughout the decades! To celebrate this month, we will be giving you a two part series on women spies and their mysterious identity and impactful legacy in breaking ground for the abilities and accomplishments of…
“Tite as a Tick” Virginia Fontaine Meets Billie Holiday and Gives Frank Review of her Performance
Congratulations to actress Andra Day for winning Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama Golden Globe in “US vs. Billie Holiday” (Hulu)! Day sang remarkably close to the recordings of Holiday, and this win sparked the archive to dig up a first hand encounter Virginia Fontaine had with Holiday in New York at Club…
Photography, Dance, and Difficult Decisions
In modern dance, the American Martha Graham (1894-1991) comes to mind as the leader. But in Germany, the iconic name in contemporary dance was Mary Wigman (1886-1983), who studied under the Swiss teacher, Rudolf Laban. In 1919 she performed her first Expressionist Dance and in 1920 opened her dance school. Graham was introduced to the…
A Look into a 1947 Fasching Party (Happy Mardi Gras!)
Happy Mardi Gras! Recently the archive received a request for information and images of Ernst Wilhelm Nay (1902-1968), a German painter, that ended in uncovering an image of a Fasching Party (Mardi Gras) from 1947. Surprisingly we didn’t have much on Nay when information was requested on him. Surprising, because he was so often at…
A Request for Information on Ewald Mataré
Ever wonder what types of materials are requested from the Fontaine Archive and where they may be used? This week we received a request for images of artist Ewald Mataré (1887-1965) from the director of the Germany’s Museum Kurhaus Kleve, which owns the representative collection of Mataré works. Continue reading to learn more about Mataré’s…
The Milwaukee women adventurers – expatriates: Polly Coan and Virginia Fontaine
In Virginia Fontaine’s effort to work while her husband, Paul, was at war in Italy (building and destroying bridges with the Army Corp of Engineers), she assisted the director of the Milwaukee Art Institute (now Milwaukee Art Museum), Polly Coan (1919-2015) (later Frances Nemtin). Polly, a Bryn Mawr graduate, had the most extraordinary upbringing in…
Deciphering Guestbook Signatures
Deciphering the signatures in the Fontaine guestbooks held in the Fontaine Archive collection is a fun game. Who were these people? Were they important? Or notorious? Are they still alive or are their heirs? Maybe they would like to know where and what their parents were doing in the 1950s in Germany? Fortunately we can…
On the Eve of International Holocaust Memorial Day
In advance of January 27th’s International Holocaust Memorial Day, here is a first account on what Europe was like right after World War II. Virginia wrote, “In 1946-47, the roads were clogged with refugees walking and pulling carts from East Germany to West Germany. It was the coldest winter in about 100 years—even the Rhine…