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Lillian E. Kravetz

Female 1906 - 1993  (86 years)


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  • Name Lillian E. Kravetz 
    Nickname Helaine 
    Born 24 Nov 1906  Baltimore, Baltimore City, Maryland, United States Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Female 
    Died 21 May 1993  Washington, District of Columbia, United States Find all individuals with events at this location  [1
    • Helen Kravadze Williams, 86, who taught classes in protocol for 25 years to diplomats, government officials and others unsure in the ways of Washington rank and etiquette, died May 21 at Georgetown University Hospital after a stroke.
      Mrs. Williams, always known as Mrs. Gladstone Williams, was the sole instructor of the School of Protocol, conducting courses up until the late 1980s in her 22-room town house on Embassy Row. As the center of diplomatic life in Washington, it is one of the last neighborhoods in America where formal etiquette still is taken seriously. Mrs. Williams was the high priestess of form.
      Her four-part classes, at $195 a head, were always well subscribed by representatives of foreign countries just posted to Washington as well as freshly elected members of Congress and their spouses, newly appointed Cabinet officers and generals.
      One typical class included the wife of the Venezuelan ambassador to the Organization of American States, a congressman from Texas, an executive secretary at Comsat, a Japanese journalist, the chief of protocol for the chief of staff of the Army, a White House fellow, a Georgetown International school student and an official of the Federal Railway Administration.
      Mrs. Williams, usually dressed in a graceful sari, her hair raven and her face white and smooth, led her students through the complexities of artichokes, calling cards, seven-course dinners, finger bowls, servant training and tea pouring.
      She taught students how to dress formally, conduct a dinner party for six without household help, seat guests by rank, reply to invitations and survive faux pas. The latter included name-dropping, replying to an engraved invitation by typewriter and leaving a dinner party before the ranking guest.
      "Smile pleasantly" after making a terrible mistake of etiquette, she instructed, "and as soon as possible, tell the story to a friend. It eases the pain."
      Mrs. Williams told interviewers that she was born in Oxfordshire, England, and meticulously bred in Maryland by European parents who instructed her to speak only when spoken to and keep her hands in her lap at dinner. In fact, she was born in Baltimore, to parents who had emigrated from Russia.
      She moved to Washington in the 1930s, where she wrote a column for the women's section of the old Washington Evening Star newspaper and organized fashion shows, which she later conducted with Bootsie Hearst, wife of William Randolph Hearst.
      In 1944, she married Gladstone Williams, the Washington bureau chief of the Atlanta Constitution and the McClatchy newspapers in California. They entertained frequently, achieving the rank of mid- level socialites.
      During the 1950s, Mrs. Williams taught thousands of young women in a finishing school she directed at Southeastern University in Washington. She began her protocol course in 1962 as part of the school's non-credit continuing education program.
      As America's attitudes toward formality changed, and the country endured the upheavals of Vietnam and other social revolutions, Mrs. Williams seemed more and more a memento of times past. But she was encouraged when the Reagans came to live at the White House. She said she welcomed the return to "higher standards" after the "sort of homespun" Carter years.
      While she continued to give her students homework - organizing a tea party and other refined pastimes - she did not resort to the use of texts. She said she had no faith in etiquette books that came after the original Emily Post. The others contradicted each other, she said, "and none of them were written by Washingtonians."
      Mrs. Williams was a member of the Women's National Press Club and the Sulgrave Club.
      Her husband died in 1968. Survivors include two sisters, Sylvia Cullen of Surfside, Fla., and Mathilda Forin of San Carlos, Calif.
    Notes 
    • no kids
    Person ID I4432  Himelfarb Family Tree
    Last Modified 1 Jan 2008 

    Father David Kravetz,   b. 15 Jun 1883, Wilna, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 3 Mar 1943, Baltimore, Baltimore City, Maryland, United States Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 59 years) 
    Mother Blanch Lichtenstein,   b. Telse, Lithuania Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 20 Oct 1963, Miami Beach, Florida, United States Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Family ID F1607  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Gladstone Williams,   b. 1 Dec 1896,   d. Jan 1968, Washington, District of Columbia, United States Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 71 years) 
    Last Modified 1 Mar 2024 
    Family ID F1639  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Sources 
    1. [S6] Family Search US SSDI.