Michael Hodder and Q. David Bowers
There was no need to move, however. On July 18, Marshall Foch launched his counteroffensive, which halted the German attack along the Aisne-Marne front. From early August, when the British attacked along the Somme sector, until early November, the Allies pushed the German armies back, out of range of Paris. The guns fell silent on November 11, 1918. The war was over, and with it came an end to a period in Emery May's life. She had lived through events of historical importance, and in a small way, had tested herself against them. Her success at this, and her marriage later, provided the foundation for the self confidence that was characteristic of her from then on.
Courtship and Marriage 1916-1917
Emery May's introduction to R. Henry Norweb, and their immediate feelings for each other, have been described earlier. The couple seems to have decided immediately that they should marry, but without her guardians approval of the match they were forced to wait. After the Harvard senior dance, the couple went their separate ways.
Emery May set off for her trip to Japan in July 1916. Henry went to the American Embassy in Paris, where he acted as private secretary to the Ambassador. Shortly afterward, he received an official appointment to the embassy staff. We can be sure that the couple corresponded with each other during this time. Henry's influence in Paris helped Emery May obtain passport validation for France. Some in the Department of State felt Americans should not travel to a belligerent nation where their lives might be endangered, and legislation to that effect had been proposed by Senator Gore of Oklahoma early in 1916.
Emery May arrived in Paris late at night on Tuesday, October 10, 1916. The following Sunday she met Henry, and a friend of his from the embassy, walking along the Rue de Rivoli. That evening, they had dinner at Popardo's, a fashionable restaurant. Henry called on her the next day, and every day thereafter they met for tea, or a movie, or a walk in the Paris parks. The pair were always accompanied by a friend, or by Miss Upton, her chaperone in Paris, and it must have been difficult for them to communicate their feelings, given their lack of privacy.
On November 16 Henry formally proposed marriage, and they announced their engagement to their Paris friends. Emery May cabled her guardians with the news two days later, and was kept in suspense for nearly a week, awaiting their answer. When it came, her diary notes: "Cable came in afternoon. Not very satisfactory. Harry came over and had talk with Miss Upton [who, presumably, had received her own instructions from the guardians]. They decided we had better go back to old footing. It can't be for long." A second cable from her Aunt Robbie (one of her guardians) arrived with encouraging news shortly afterward, and she and Henry felt optimistic about finally gaining approval for their match. It was not to be, however. On December 7 Emery May received further encouragement from her Uncle Ben, but Aunt Robbie had hag a change of heart and sent a discouraging cable to Miss Upton. The diary notes: "Engagement broken for six months."
Her diary hints that the couple were told not to see each other again. She recorded her "last talk" with Henry on December 9, and her "last dinner" with him on December 11. A month later she had decided to accept the hospital job at St ... Valery, and early in February, 1917 she left Paris.
True to their word, she and Henry did not see each other while she was working at St-Valery. In late July 1917, she left the hospital and returned to Paris. She and Henry began seeing each other again, meeting for tea, dinner, trips to the opera, and so forth. Their feelings for each other had not lessened, and this was apparent to everyone who knew them, including the chaparone Miss Upton, who seems to have become an ally by this time, Henry enlisted the help of all his friends in Paris for the cause. In early September, Ambassador Sharp met with Miss Upton, ensured her that Henry had a promising career ahead of him in the diplomatic service, and Miss Upton communicated the gist of her meeting to Emery May's guardians. The Ambassador's support won them the day, and her guardians finally consented to her marriage with Henry. She was almost 21 years old, and it is likely that she would have married Henry as soon as she came of age even without her guardians' approval.
Emery May Holden and R. Henry Norweb were married in a French civil ceremony at the mayor's office on October 18, 1917. That afternoon a religious ceremony at the American Church confirmed the marriage. The Ambassador and his wife attended the reception later, at the Hotel Castiglione. Henry and Mrs. Norweb spent the night at the palace of Versailles and honeymooned at Sr-lean-de-Luz, near Biarritz. They returned to Paris a month later, to find an apartment furnished and ready for them, arranged by Henry's embassy friends. Emery May wrote in her diary: "November 16, 1917. Left St-Jean-de-Luz for Paris. What a year!"
Mrs. Norweb's first child, named Raymond Henry after his father, was born in Paris on August 19, 1918. The hospital she had been-taken to for her delivery apparently was targeted by German Gothas, the heavy bombers of the time, so Mrs. Norweb was rushed from the hospital to the safety of a bomb shelter before the raid began. There her first son was born. Shortly afterward, R. Henry Norweb, Jr's introduction to the world was again threatened, this time not by German bombers but by French officialdom.
After the raid was over and Mrs. Norweb and her son had returned to the relative safety of the hospital, a bureaucrat from the local registry of births visited her. The official complained that the baby's birth had not been registered with his department, in accordance with French law. Mrs. Norweb tried to explain to him that, as the son of a staff member of the American Embassy, international law accorded the baby his father's citizenship. Therefore, she said, the child was legally an American and was not subject to the French law requiring registry of all new births. The petty official had not encountered a situation like this before, and was plainly confused about what to do. Finally, after some head scratching, his patriotism rose to the occasion, and he declared "Madame, as far as France is concerned, this child has not been born" and he left. Little R. Henry Norweb, Jr. was then allowed to grow up, unmolested by officialdom.
Mr. and Mrs. Norweb's second child, Jeanne Katherine (named after her parents own mothers), was born in Cleveland on April 18, 1920. Their third, and final child, Albert Holden Norweb (named for his maternal grandfather, Bert Holden), was born in Washington on November 20, 1921. Their parents deliberately timed the births to coincide with tours or long vacations in the United States, to avoid any difficulties about legal citizenship of the sort that had arisen over their firstborn's birth in France. This was just one of many adjustments Mr. and Mrs. Norweb had to make as a career foreign service family.