Two's Company - set during the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg

Whe Claire Farrell left New York, heading south in her new convertible, it was ostensibly to visit her grandparents in Williamsburg, but really to pursue a handsome actor, Whit Bowdon, performing in summer theater. Whit is sophisticated and willing to do whatever it takes to advance his career, in contrast to Philip Young, a young architect boarding with the Farrells, who is focused on the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg – and enjoys teasing Claire about her lack of interest in history.

Her grandfather considers the restoration “plumb foolishness,” and resents his home town being turned into a tourist attraction. Claire is shallow and thoughtless when she arrives but slowly she matures; she is only eighteen. She gets a job at a bookstore; she goes on the official tour of the historic sites where her aunt is a guide, dressed in 18th century clothing; and she comes to appreciate what Williamsburg represents. She finally sees through self-centered Whit and realizes it is Philip who will bring her happiness.

Restoring Colonial Williamsburg was a 20th century project begun by the determined rector of the historic Bruton Parish Church, who got John D. Rockefeller, Jr. involved financially in the 1920s. Restoration included most of Williamsburg’s original eighteenth-century area, and hundreds of buildings built after 1790 were demolished to create a site that stretches across 301 acres. The restoration was intended to serve an educational purpose and, coming between the two world wars, it stirred patriotic feeling in American values. And while many locals welcomed the project, others were as disturbed as Claire’s grandfather.  I have been to Williamsburg three times: the first was when the Harvard Football team went down to play William & Mary while I was the manager.  Although Coach Restic agreed with me that the trip should include Colonial Williamsburg, there wasn't time so the best we could do was drive past.  I returned a few years later and toured with my parents.  Once, I also managed dinner at the King's Arms Tavern while on a business trip nearby, which was touristy but fun.

Elswyth Thane must have been inspired by the publicity around the restoration when she conceived of her beloved Williamsburg novels. She brings Colonial Williamsburg to life in the first book, Dawn’s Early Light (1943), about a young Englishman, just off the boat in 1774 Williamsburg, who takes a job as a schoolmaster, hoping to make enough money for his return passage home. He is slightly appalled by the revolutionary Virginians he meets but their welcome to a stranger and his own sense of fairness eventually turns him into a patriot, willing to take up arms against his king to help claim independence.

It’s not an unusual plot but it is funny that the two books I requested at the same time, Spring Dream and Two’s Company, both involve young women leaving Manhattan to be with family they don’t know well. Both think they are in love with sophisticated New Yorkers (who care primarily about themselves) but fortunately meet worthwhile young men, committed to supporting their communities, and learn to value them instead. The books were written 12 years apart and set in different parts of the country but have these entertaining similarities.

Betty Cavanna

Source and Bio: InterLibrary Loan from the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore. Cavanna (1909 - 2001) wrote for teens from the early 1940s through 1987, beginning her career with short stories before her first book was published in 1943, Puppy Stakes. Her second husband was a professor at MIT and they lived in Concord, MA (a pity I never wrote to her when she was 40 minutes away). Her final years were spent in Vézelay, France (which I visited nearly two years ago), where her only son had become a priest of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Her manuscripts and correspondence are preserved in the de Grummond Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Author: Betty Cavanna
Illustrator: Edward J. Smith
Publication: The Westminster Press, hardcover, 1951
Genre: Young Adult
Setting: Williamsburg, VA

Photo of Cavanna courtesy Pennsylvania Center for the Book