The Outbreak of War In June 1939, Anne Morgan arrived in France to prepare for the coming war. Several world leaders were claiming that peace was still possible, but Anne Morgan knew better. The daughter of the eminent New York financier, J. Pierpont Morgan, she was already famous in France and America for the extraordinary quantity and quality of help she had brought to French civilians in World War I. Through her energy and eloquence she had raised over five million dollars and personally administered the giving of this aid to the devastated areas of northern France.
When war was declared between France and Germany in September 1939, Anne Morgan was already sixty-six years old. Almost anyone else would have stayed home now, but there was no one else who could take her place. Anne Morgan had inherited her father's talent for drawing people into a joint enterprise as well as his inability to accept defeat, and she knew exactly what was needed now to help the women and children of France who were about to bear the burden of a second devastating war.
The people Anne Morgan drew to her cause were many of the elite families of America who gave generously to support her work, while many of the daughters of these same families volunteered to become her work force in France. One of the first to join Anne Morgan in 1939 was Rose Dolan, who had worked with Miss Morgan in World War I. Since then Rose Dolan had spent much of her time in France working at a private medical clinic before opening and running her own home for orphaned and delinquent boys in a big old country house that had once been a royal hunting lodge.
On July 15, Anne Morgan reported from Paris,
Rose is fire and flame to work with us in every way ... her present home for children goes into a military hospital three weeks after mobilization.
Rose Dolan, a lean, wiry woman in her early forties, was as forceful and unforgettable a woman as Anne Morgan herself. Even Anne Morgan stood back when Rose Dolan was set on doing something. Soon after Rose joined her, Miss Morgan commented,
Rose is exactly the same steam engine and I can assure you feathers fly when she wants to get something done.
As soon as war was declared on September 3, the French Government placed the Château of Blérancourt at Miss Morgan's disposition once more. The ruins of this small charming château, fifty miles northeast of Paris in the département of the Aisne, had been her headquarters in World War I. In the 1920's Miss Morgan had completely restored the beautiful seventeenth-century pavilions and installed a collection of art and historical objects to commemorate French-American friendship. Then in 1927 Miss Morgan gave the restored château and new museum to the village of Blérancourt, which in turn gave the château and museum to the French government. As the National Museum of French-American Cooperation, the château became one of France's thirty-five national Museums.
The Château of Blérancourt as it was in 1790 shortly before the main building was almost entirely demolished. The two pavilions in the foreground, the gateways, bridge and grounds, which were restored by Anne Morgan, form part of the current museum. work under copyright
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