Mavi Boncuk | ARTICLE — From the November 1916 issueThe adventure of the many dishes READ HERE
By Ferdinand Reyher[1]
[1] Ferdinand Reyher was born to German immigrants Max and Lina Reyher on July 6, 1891, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He earned a master’s degree in English from Harvard University in 1913 and taught English for one year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He then became a war correspondent in Europe from 1915 to 1916 for newspapers including the Boston Globe, the Boston Post, and the New York Evening Sun. After covering the war, Reyher moved back to the United States, settling in New York City.
A novelist, journalist, film doctor and screenwriter, playwright and poet, Ferdinand Reyher produced volumes of notes, research, and prose. He was interested in many topics, especially American folklore, and conceived many book projects, including a history of poker. Reyher was active in Hollywood at several studios, including RKO, MGM, and Paramount. Reyher died on October 24, 1967, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• Ferdinand Reyher was among those who helped to extricate German playwright, poet, and dramatic theorist Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) and his family from Nazi Germany in 1941. He also actively promoted the translation and performance of Brecht’s work in the United States. Reyher and Brecht made attempts to collaborate on various works.
• Reyher was an acquaintance of various literary figures such as James Joyce, Joseph Conrad, and Ezra Pound and corresponded with Ford Maddox Ford, Wallace Stevens, and Sinclair Lewis. Reyher also intereacted and corresponded with many prominent photographers of the twentieth century, including Ansel Adams, Berenice Abbott, Beaumont Newhall, and Todd Webb. Friends and correspondents from Reyher’s Hollywood years include actor and director John Huston and his wife Dorothy; actor and producer Paul Henreid; screenwriters Frank “Spig” Wead and Dale Van Every; and director Leopold Jessner. Other notable correspondents include journalist George Seldes, publisher John Rodker, musician George Antheil, and artists Lee Hersch and William and Marguerite Zorach.
• In 1917, Ferdinand Reyher married Rebecca Hourwich[*], the head of the Boston and New York offices of the National Women’s Party, a prominent political and women’s rights activist, and author.
The marriage was unconventional from the beginning, with Reyher continuing to travel for the National Woman's Party; by the late 1920s she was raising Faith by herself. Because she traveled extensively, Reyher often left her daughter in the care of others, occasionally at her cherished house in Robinhood, Maine. The couple divorced in 1934, with Ferdinand continuing to provide financial support for Faith. Rebecca Reyher had many admirers, but remained single for the rest of her life.
• Reyher married Chinese writer and translator Eileen Chang (Zhang Ailing) in August 1956. Best known in America for her novels The Rice Sprout Song (1955) and The Rouge of the North (1967), Chang remains a popular author in China and Taiwan.
• Ferdinand and Rebecca Hourwich Reyher’s only child, Faith, was born in 1919. After retiring as head mistress of the Academy of the Washington [D.C.] Ballet, Faith published Pioneer of Tropical Landscape Architecture: William Lyman Phillips in Florida (1997) and Meadow, Fugue and Descant, a novel (2002).
[*] Rebecca Hourwich Reyher was born on January 21, 1897, in New York City, the second child of Isaac Hourwich (1860-1924) and his second wife Louise Elizabeth "Lisa" (Joffe) Hourwich (1866-1947). They had four other children together: Iskander "Sasha" Hourwich (1895-1968), Olga "Dicky" Hourwich (1902-1977), George Kennan Hourwich (1904-1978), and Ena (Hourwich) Kunzer (1906-1989).
Isaac had fled Russia around 1890, leaving his first wife Yelena (Kushelevsky) Hourwich (whom he later divorced), and four children, Nicholas Hourwich (1882-1934), Maria (Hourwich) Kravitz (1883-), Rosa Hourwich (ca.1884-) , and Vera (Hourwich) Semmens (1890-1976), behind. Isaac was a practicing lawyer in Russia and the United States, as well as a Yiddish newspaper writer. Louise taught school in Russia, and, after immigrating to the United States with her family, attended law school.
In 1900, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where Isaac had a job with the U.S. Census. In 1906, he returned to Russia and ran for election to the Duma in Minsk. By 1915, the family had moved back to New York. Rebecca enrolled at Columbia University's extension school in 1915 and took classes at the University of Chicago in the early 1920s; she received her bachelor's degree in 1954, after taking summer school classes at the University of Chicago. While living in Washington, D.C., Rebecca became interested in the women's movement, and in March 1913, she began her life's work for women's rights by participating in the first national suffrage parade in the United States.
She carried her new-found passion to New York City and beyond, organizing street meetings and opening offices for the National Woman's Party. In 1917, she married fellow writer Ferdinand Reyher. Their daughter Faith was born in 1919.