My Life With Goudy
 

ALICE GOUDY LOCHHEAD

When we learned that Mrs. Lochhead would be willing to relate
some reminiscences of her fam.ous father-in-law, the late Frederic
W. Goudy, we were delighted to let her tell the story in her own
way and in her own words. We are sure that our readers will he as
delighted as we were in this affectionate account of her life with
one of the great type designers.
 

T'lp^HE FIRST TIME I met Mother and Dad Goudy was
I      at the pier in New York City. They were coming home

Jl from Europe, where Dad had gone to buy an engraving
machine. Dad, of course, was very gruff and very important. For
the first couple of months, every time I started to say something,
I would feel that he was looking right through me.

After a while I found that this gruffness was only on the surface,
that he wanted everybody to think he was just the gruffest person,
but that he wasn't at all. Inside he was warm-hearted and very,
very nice. I think he was perfect. He was very fond of animals,
especially cats and dogs. We had lots of dogs — two Newfound¬
landers, a Great Dane, a Boston terrier, and an English toy spaniel.
We sometimes had as many as three toy spaniels at one time. Dad
never liked dachshunds untU, when his spaniel died, I brought one
home and said, "This is for you." He said, "I wouldn't be caught
feeding that dog a biscuit." But it wasn't long before "that dog"
was in his lap and he was petting it.

When Mother Goudy died, I took over completely for twelve
years. Dad and I never really disagreed, but we did have our argu¬
ments of course. Having worked so closely with Mother for forty
years and taken her advice on so many things, he naturally turned
to me. He would bring a piece of printing or layout to me and ask
me how I Uked it. If I said, "It doesn't look right, Goudy," he
would come back with, "Well, what do you know about it? You