About Me

Denise and Diana, Linden House, Bristol, R.I., August 1999. Photo used with permission of Jeanne Grandchamp.

I'm a woman who just turned 50, if you hadn't already guessed that by the size and boldness of the type used on these pages. It's much easier to read.

I'm a college librarian, and a graduate of Sweet Briar College. I like to read murder mysteries, travel books, history, and biographies. I'm also interested in the Lizzie Borden case. I love silent movies and classic films of the 30s, so I'm a great fan of  Turner Classic Movies. I love everything about travel except having to pack, but I don't get to do as much of it as I'd like to. Favorite places I have visited include New England (especially Rhode Island and Massachusetts), Charleston, SC, Washington DC, Calgary, Lake Tahoe, London, Ireland, and Switzerland.

My interest in Diana, Princess of Wales (to use her proper title) developed rather late, since it did not start until 1990, when the marriage was publicly showing serious cracks and she was displaying signs of becoming something more than just a pretty face on a magazine cover. I actually visited London in 1989 and 1990, but the closest I got to seeing her was when I couldn't find the entrance to the tourist part of Kensington Palace and wandered past an empty security checkpoint till I found myself behind the palace in an area where there were cars parked next to parts of the building. I kept walking till I encountered a very nice policeman who told me that it was an area I shouldn't be in. Fortunately he accepted me as the tourist I was and escorted me out the way I came without comment, even when I remarked that such a breach of security wouldn't have been possible at the White House, since the gate was still up and unattended as I departed. I did some reading over the years and checked out daily accounts of the family's doings via the news section of The Unofficial British Royal Pages, but it wasn't until after she died that I began collecting in earnest. After I bought various books that came out in 1997-98, I realized I could do a service to my fellow librarians by evaluating the books according to essential, optional, and stinkers, though I used a more polite tern to describe the latter category; and this resulted in a handout evaluating about 28 titles which was distributed to librarians who attended the collection development meeting of the Georgia Library Association in October 1998. (I tried to publish it in a couple of different library journals, but one editor politely evaded the issue and the other rejected it outright.) That same autumn AmazonUK went online and I spent lavishly. I might have just stuck to book collecting except that Jeanne who took the picture on this page mentioned to me that Ebay had terrific Princess Diana memorabilia in January 1999. What got me started looking there seriously was a health problem which began around that time and lasted till August 1999, for I found that looking and buying and reading and having the things around my house somehow lessened my anxiety, and I enjoyed the people I met through this means. One thing I noticed in my buying was how items sold at fantastic sums beyond their value due to bidding wars, and it amused me to see if I could find places out on the internet that had the same items for less. I certainly knew plenty about how and where to buy books, but as I became knowledgeable about other items, I was sending increasingly longer e-mail messages to fellow collectors with tips about where to buy things and around April of 1999 I realized I had a concept for a web site. My friend Jeanne was very patient and helpful in answering my e-mails and phone calls when I got stuck on some technical aspect, and  by coincidence, on William's 17th birthday (June 21) I had a test version up for some e-mail buddies to preview, all of whom were wildly ecstatic. The original site actually contained all the merchandise categories from Books to A Word About Auctions on one page, so you can see how many more shopping sites I have found since then. And though my collection is beginning to get bigger than the amount of space originally allotted to it, the only reason it will be leaving my house is because I have made an arrangement with my alma mater Sweet Briar College that it will be donated to their library and it will be maintained as a special collection there. But unless I get tired of it or it seriously impairs my living quarters, it will be a few more decades before the collection takes up residence there.

I admire Princess Diana very much. To me she exemplifies Hemingway's definition of courage as "grace under pressure" because she had some very bad breaks in life and did the best she could with the card of hands she had been dealt. When you see the luminous--and I don't think I'm exaggerating to use this adjective--pictures of her, she captivates the viewer as only a small number of other historical figures or a small group of great portraits are capable of doing. One can only hope that her appeal will be timeless and those same pictures will reach out to viewers a century from now, and drown out the chorus of Prince Charles' lackeys and others who would diminish her light.

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