Alice Delemar Lecture
January 22, 2020 - 7:00 PM
Weston Historical Society
Lecture by historian Nona Footz
Nona Footz, a former Weston resident and historian, will present a slide lecture: “The Missing Manuscript – In Search of Alice DeLamar’s Life Story” on Wednesday, January 22, 2020 at 7 pm at the Weston Historical Society, 104 Weston Road, Weston CT. The event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP at info@westonhistoricalsociety.org or call 203-226-1804. In 1918, Alice DeLamar was one of America’s wealthiest women. Long-time residents of Weston and Westport will recognize the DeLamar name from her former estate on Norfield Road and her 7,000-book bequest to the Weston Public Library. Neighbors still talk about her Olympic-size pool complete with a 66-foot swim tunnel. What is less known about DeLamar was her financial contribution and societal impact on arts and culture. She thought enough of her extraordinary life to write her memoir, yet the manuscript disappeared upon her death in August 1983.
Historian Nona Footz has been on an eight-year journey to uncover DeLamar’s privileged and secretive life story. Footz’s lecture will explore how she uncovered DeLamar’s story, travelling to Switzerland, France, Monaco, and across five U.S. states in search of the elusive memoir. She has collected an extensive array of letters, photographs and video coverage which she will present to tell DeLamar’s compelling story. Alice DeLamar is one of the extraordinary women featured in the Weston Historical Society’s current exhibit, “Three Women Who Made Weston Weston” which is on view through January 2020.
Nona Footz lived in Weston from 2010-2014 and became a freelance writer for art and culture magazine Venü. Nona discovered the subject of Westonite Alice Antoniette DeLamar (1895-1983) from an intriguing one-line reference to her in the biography of actress Eva LeGallienne leading Nona on an eight-year journey to uncover the privileged yet secretive life story of Miss DeLamar.
Nona spent the first half of her career in corporate America and is now a board and executive recruiter (“a head hunter”) in the healthcare industry. She continues to write, publish and explore interesting topics and people to interview. She’s an adjunct faculty member at New York University and currently a resident of Scottsdale, Arizona. She continues to travel extensively for business and for her writing. You can follow Nona on her blog “The Manuscript Hunter”.
he Weston Historical Society would like to thank its annual sponsors: Fairfield County Bank and KMS Partners at Compass. The exhibit sponsors are Teed & Brown, Aquarion, Eleish Van Breems Home, JD Rogers Development, Architectural Preservation Studio DPC, Weston Arborists, and Jeff Moore. A special thank you to the Aspetuck Land Trust and The Nature Conservancy for their help in the development of the exhibition.