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Interview #759: Theoryland: An Hour with Harriet McDougal Rigney, Entry #5
Matt Hatch
Can you tell us a little bit more about your mother? What she did, how she influenced you?
Harriet McDougal
Louisa McCord Popham
Yeah. She was a beauty, and she sang and whistled, sort of like the Irish song about the Whistling Gypsy. She was quite an irresistible character; tremendous charm. She was a wonderful cook and hostess. She wasn’t much on intimate warmth, but she was great really, in every way. She sewed. They never had a whole lot of money. We had a grand house at the Navy Yard, and I remember going with her—I was getting on, like, five at this point—to Woolworth’s to buy great lengths of some horrible rayon for her to make curtains for the huge windows. But as somebody said to me later who came to visit, he said, “I bet when your father married her, his career took off like a rocket!” And I think it did! That was of course so many years before I was born. But she was a charmer and a half—just darling.
Matt Hatch
How old were they when they got married?
Harriet McDougal
Daddy was in I guess his mid-twenties, and she was eighteen.
Matt Hatch
In what way do you think she influenced you the most?
Harriet McDougal
Well, I don’t know; I’ve never really thought about it. I know that I never really thought I was pretty—not next to her. And she also had a very…she had a great way of turning her hand to what needed to be done. There was no stuff about,”Oh, I don’t know how to do this.” She would pick up a hammer—do a poor job of hammering in the nails, but she’d do it. And also, a sense of “Housekeeping is really important as a form of stage management.” She said—somebody said—”Weeza!”—her name was Louisa but she was called “Weeza”, or “Gay”, in the earlier sense, and apparently—I’ve been told that came about in her childhood because she was said to look like some politician of the day named John Gary Evans . It was not about her gaiety, but that was really inborn. And on her tombstone , my sister and I chose “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine,” and she had one. So I’ve forgotten what you asked me.
Teri Hatch
That’s beautiful.
Matt Hatch
No, the influence…what you said, that she would just pick up a hammer…
Harriet McDougal
Yeah! She sewed all the time; she did cross-stitch. I have some table mats she made for me, which she did for brides—she made them a set of linen table mats with their initials stamped inside—and also camisoles, which people used to wear.
Matt Hatch
Sounds like she was very productive.
Harriet McDougal
Yes, she believed in that.
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