Josephine Van De Grift

Josephine Van de Grift (January 7, 1894 - August 21, 1927) was an early 20th-century American woman writer and newspaper columnist for the Akron Beacon Journal in Akron, Ohio. She was born in Shelbyville, Indiana, to Bess "Bessie" Gates and Harry W. Vandegrift. She was known as Josephine Vandegrift, Josephine Van De Grift, and upon her marriage in her private life she was Mrs. William H. Rigby. To her readers she was known as "Jo".

Josephine Van de Grift
Born	Helen Josephine Van de Grift (1894-01-07)January 7, 1894 Shelbyville, Indiana, U.S.
Died	August 21, 1927(1927-08-21) (aged 33) Akron, Ohio, U.S.
Occupation	Writer, journalist, screenwriter
Genre	short stories
Years active	1914-1927
Notable awards	Harvard Workshop 47 for screenplay The Lonely Road 1922
Spouse	William Henry Rigby Jr. ​ ​ (m. 1925)​
Children	2, Mary Josephine Rigby and son
Literature portal

Column photo of Josephine Van De Grift for "Demi-Tasse & Mrs. Grundy"

Josephine Van De Grift in the Indianapolis Star Newspaper 1914

Career

In August 1922, her play The Lonely Road won her a scholarship to partake in Dr. George Pierce Baker's Harvard 47 Workshop in Cambridge, Mass.

From 1923 to 1925, she worked with the N.E.A. (Newspaper Enterprise Association) in New York interviewing notable persons such as John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Will Rogers, Ring Lardner, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Dorothy Parker, Joan Gardner and others.

She joined the Blue Pencil Club, an elite literary guild in 1923–1924 during the time H.P. Lovecraft was also a member.

In 1923, she went undercover as a reporter on Broadway under the pseudonym of Huldah Benson, showcasing the "lure of the floodlights to a country girl". It was a time in the early 1920s where women dreamt of being on stage as chorus girls and actresses. The news agency she worked for had given her a "script" to memorize about her name, her history, her family - all fabricated while she was working undercover.

"I gave the history of my life as I had carefully prepared and rehearsed it. I was Huldah Benson and I was 23 and I had left home in Akron, Ohio to go on the stage. No, I hadn't any brothers or sisters and my mother was dead. Had I ever worked before? Oh, yes, I had given music lessons once and I used to sell records in a piano company back home"

she says as she introduces herself for the first time in New York as Huldah. The 6-part series was published nationwide in the newspapers, with accompanying illustrations for each segment of "Huldah"'s journey as a chorus girl on Broadway.

Her stories and daily column "Demi-Tasse and Mrs. Grundy" were published 1924–1927 in the Akron Beacon Journal. She wrote this daily column from her point of view about all topics ranging from day-to-day life in Akron, travelling, meeting her husband Bill in the 'Rigby's Books' bookstore (which is now the Akron Public Library), 1920s prohibition and speakeasys, raising a family, and book and film reviews. Following the birth of her daughter, Mary, born New Years Eve 1925, several of her columns would talk of Mary and her ambitions. A year after Mary's birth, Josephine published a poem to her daughter titled "Letter to a little girl on her first birthday" and an image of her daughter appeared in place of the usual photograph of Josephine on that day.

She was close friends with co-worker Herman Fetzer who went by the penname of Jake Falstaff, and wrote his column "Pippins and Cheese" during the same years Van de Grift worked at the Beacon Journal. Many years after his death, his columns were published into a book of the same namesake "Pippins and Cheese". His desk sat adjacent to Josephine and his column "A Tale O' The Town" began on the same date as Josephine's column in July 1925. He was Josephine's neighbor when he lived at 508 Buchtel Avenue in Akron. Upon her death in 1927, Herman wrote a full front page tribute to Josephine for the Akron Beacon Journal on 23 August 1927, which was reprinted in November of the same year.

Legacy

After spending five weeks in the hospital following an unsuccessful childbirth delivery, she received several blood transfusions in attempts to save her life, Van de Grift died suddenly at the age of 33 in late August 1927, leaving her devoted readers wondering what would become of her 18-month-old daughter, Mary. Hundreds were present at a solemn high mass sung for Josephine, which was the cover story on the front page of the Akron Beacon Journal after her death.

Upon her passing, writer and poet Herman Fetzer wrote a tribute to her in the Akron Beacon Journal, which follows:

“There will be no more columns under the title of “Demi-Tasse and Mrs. Grundy” and no more feature stories in the Beacon Journal signed “Josephine Van De Grift.” Josephine Van De Grift died yesterday at 3:45 p.m. at the Peoples hospital. One the hospital records she is listed as Mrs. William H. Rigby. That was her name in private life, but for every person who knew her by that name there were hundreds that knew her only by the other. Her death closes a life in which the final audit must appear on the credit side.

"Wins Place in Public Affection She had achieved more than mere popularity. She had attained a public affection. Her excellence as a writer would have assured her of the former. Only her innate sympathy could have won her the latter. To the people who were constant readers of her column – and they were legion – it is as if a blind were drawn over a window through which they often looked, and always with pleasure. The little house at 320 Fairy st., becomes a private residence now. What goes on behind its walls will no longer be a part of the mental experience of a sympathetic public. The friendly figure which stood always at the doorstep, beckoning the world in for tea and talk, is inanimate now. Mary is motherless. Bill is a widower. After one day less than five weeks of pain, after operations and blood transfusions and the complicated attention of nurses and surgeons, Josephine crossed the narrow space that had lain between her and the shadows, and was alive no more.

"Sympathy For Others This pain which she endured hurt her less than the same pain in another person would have hurt her. The thought of another’s misery was her greatest grief. She could not sleep when Floyd Collins was held, crippled but alive, a prisoner in Sand Cave. A story about a man who had thrown a live guinea-pig into a furnace made her a changed person for a week. This was linked with her generosity. No beggar who ever accosted her left without his piece of silver. It was oftener a quarter than a dime, and not infrequently it was a half dollar. After he had gone, she wished she had given him more. She tipped waiters exorbitantly. When she was chided for this by her table companions, she said, “But their feet hurt them!” Her desk at the Beacon Journal office was the mecca for Lord knows what queer fish. To every person who differed from the normal mass she freely gave her attention and her sympathy. This was, in part, because she knew that the world hurts every person who does not conform to its norms. She had not conformed. She had been hurt. This recollection was not as important to her as the knowledge that the thing was still going on in the lives of other people. Her own experience merely opened a window into the secret histories of other human beings.

"Splendid As Interviewer As an interviewer, she was splendid. The person much used to talking with reporters was grateful to her because she dealt efficiently and tactfully with him. The person who was new to the experience she put at his ease, assuming the role of hostess to him, chatting with him about the questions she wanted to ask if it were a personal encounter rather than the greeting of a reporter and a person to be interviewed. She was forever doing some small service for somebody. She wrote letters for people who did not feel at home with the written word; she transmitted telephone messages for printers who were prevented by their work from doing it themselves; she listened to the domestic troubles of many and gave each one what advice he needed – and what is more – the sympathy that he wanted. Her speeches were always brief. She did not care greatly about speaking, but she hated to refuse. She was nervous in advance of her appearance and unsettled afterward. But she did not betray this in her delivery. Her speeches like her columns were intimate and friendly and confiding.

"Won Friends Readily People who attended them merely for the sake of saying that they had seen Josephine Van De Grift went away with the feeling that they knew her very well. It was not her original intention to be a writer. She construed her talents to be musical – and there was no doubt that she had a sincere feeling and a definite gift in that direction. Her musical ambitions led her to Chicago for training. This was her first taste of life away from home. It was through her music that she first wrote for a newspaper. She was asked to write an account of a musical event. The account so pleased the editor to whom it was given that she was offered a job. She took it. Thenceforth she was a newspaper woman. For some time she conducted the society columns for the Beacon Journal, entering her connection with his paper seven years ago. Then she was given a try at feature writing. She was an immediate success at this. Her name over a feature story became a daily thing in the Beacon Journal.

"Prize Winning Play She entered a competition in playwriting. The prize was admission to the exclusive Harvard workshop for playwrights. Her entry ranked first. She did not follow up this opportunity to learn the technique of the drama, preferring to remain a newspaperwoman. Five years ago this fall, a syndicate, attracted by the character of her feature stories, offered her a situation in New York. She took the job. For a year and a half she lived in the metropolis, accumulating as miscellaneous a group of friends as she had in this city. They ranged from millionaires to peanut vendors – from successful authors to the shadowy, impoverished denizens of The Village . In The Village itself she lived a great deal of the time she spent in New York. She was fond of the queer people to whom one might speak on Washington Square Park; she loved the soft dreamy evenings of Chelsea. She talked with Christopher Morley on the subway; William McFee wanted her to collaborate with him on a play.

"Fragments of Life There remains from her Greenwich Village experience a small sheaf of sketches – quiet little character studies which were not artificial enough for the magazines. Editors sent letters back with the manuscripts and said these were very excellent, but not the kind of material they wanted. Something commercial – something that followed the modern formula. But that wasn’t what Josephine had found in the Village. She had found fragments of life. After he return to Akron she started her “Demi-Tasse and Mrs. Grundy” column. The title was a combination of two she liked. From the first, it was immensely popular. It was hard work. Some days it was done in a jiffy. On other days, the last paragraph would keep her chained to her typewriter until long after the night-side of printers had returned from their evening meal. Now and then she touched upon a vein that was little short of greatness. She had a way of seeing into the hearts of lonely and timid people. When she dealt with them she was at her best.

"Husband’s First Customer At the time she returned from New York, Bill Rigby was opening his bookshop on High st. She was the first customer, and that encounter was her first meeting with the man who was to become her husband. They were married in May, 1925. Josephine continued her work at the Beacon Journal. And then Mary came, and a new personality entered “Demi-Tasse and Mrs. Grundy.” Mary was known and loved as her mother was by thousands of persons who had never knowingly seen her. The problems of the young mother entered into Josephine’s writings, and the community which she had built up with all women was cemented by another bond. She had become a local institution. Hundreds of people knew her well; other hundreds knew her by sight. But thousands knew her by her name and her writings and had never seen her. When the word was printed, five weeks ago today, that she had undergone a major operation, and was in serious danger of death, it was a shock to the whole city.

"Entire City Mourns Her own friends had known that she was not well. But she had continued her column, and there was no hint of her condition in it. For many days the city with its multitudinous voices poured its queries into the ears of every agency that might give an intelligent answer: How was Josephine? After a little more than a week the word was passed that she was better. Thousands were pleased by the news. There was a turn for the worse. Another operation was necessary. To give her strength for it, a blood transfusion was needed. Her father, Harry Van De Grift, 620 E. Buchtel av., gave the blood that was required. After the operation, gloomy reports came from the hospital. She was hovering between life and death. Another transfusion would have to be made. Literally scores of people offered their blood. It was difficult to find a person whose blood would do. At length it was found that Mrs. Irene Britt, proofreader at the Beacon Journal, had the right type of blood. Mrs. Britt left a sick-bed to go to the hospital. She gave more than a pint of her life-fluid to the stricken writer.

"No Efforts Spared The slender fighting chances grew narrower and narrower. But no efforts were spared to bring her through the seemingly impregnable barrier between her and recuperation. The efforts were in vain. Now and then it seemed that she was a little better. At one time, her condition was so serious that she was given oxygen. During the last two weeks she did little but hold her own. Her decline became apparent during the week-end, and Sunday afternoon she died – a woman too young for death, but one who had done excellently well with what years were vouchsafed her. The last human offices were performed for her at St. Vincent’s church Wednesday morning at 9. Her body was interred in Holy Cross cemetery.”

-
by Herman Fetzer

A few years after her passing, 8 grade school pupils at the (Samuel) Findley School in Akron formed and created the "Van De Grift Writing Club" in 1930. A photograph naming these 8 students appears in the Akron newspaper in 1930. This writing club was named for Josephine Van De Grift Beacon Journal columnist and writer, who was also an instructor in the school. This writing club continued into the late 1930s with their monthly publication of the Findleyite, which was awarded national honors.

In December 2019, on Christmas Day, author Kristin Carter-Groulx, great-granddaughter of Van de Grift, published a 700 page biographical book about Van de Grift and her column "Demi-Tasse and Mrs. Grundy" including transcribed news articles and photographs from Josephine's collection

Selected bibliography

• The Lonely Road by Josephine Vandegrift. Harvard University, 1922.
• Demi-Tasse and Mrs. Grundy by Kristin Carter-Groulx and Josephine Van De Grift. The Tenth Muse Books, 2019.

References

• "Herman Fetzer". The New York Times. January 18, 1935. p. 24
• "Latest Works of Fiction". The New York Times. November 1, 1942. p. BR24