From the Archive: My Love Affair With the U.S.A.

In 1950, British-born Royle Dulhunty achieved her dream of becoming an American citizen. But even this Americanophile was still bewildered by the customs of her new country.

Photo by Jacob Lofman

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—“My Love Affair With the U.S.A.” by Royle Dulhunty, in the February 25, 1950, issue of The Saturday Evening Post

Eating was a perplexity; mistakes such as pouring cream over my pie, as in England, instead of into my coffee. And the way Americans have mastered the fork! To this day I cannot dominate a hunk of iceberg lettuce armed only with a fork; such skill must be inbred in the native-born.

A date came all the way from New York to take me out to dinner in Washington, returning on the midnight train. I preened myself that night. Then his offhand acceptance of the long train trip shattered my pride. For Americans there are no distances.

Then there were such problems as my failure to realize that, in the South, promises are the small change of conversation. When I took them literally, the subsequent discomfort was mutual. Worst of all was the way I would instinctively leap to my feet whenever an older woman entered a room. Painfully I learned that this is a land where no woman ever reaches the age of 40.

Read the entire article “My Love Affair With the U.S.A” from the February 25, 1950 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.

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