I hear, read and also have a lot of conversations with women and my girlfriends who feel like they should have their career and life all mapped and figured out by now. Some feel as if they have not figured out what to do yet, it will never get figured out, and where they are now is where they will stay and it is too late to get started on something new.
It is especially hard when you look back at your 20s, and you might remember how you thought you would be in a different place then maybe you ended up in your 30s.
I wanted to start something new that focused on a quick blurb about a strong woman who did not get her start until she was well into her 30s. I think it is inspiring, even for me. When you start to think you should be a lot further in your career, life, love, family, it is nice to see that these women had a ‘later’ start, but went on to change the world.
When Julia turned 30 in 1942, cooking was the last thing on her mind. In fact, she never really cooked at all and didn’t know much about it. In her early 30s Julia was living in Sri Lanka working in espionage! Julia worked as a research assistant for the Office of Strategy Services, she helped the U.S. government pass secret documents to its intelligence officers.
While in Sri Lanka, she met Paul Cushing Child, also an OSS employee, and the two were married September 1, 1946 when Julia was 35-years-old. They were married for 48 years until Paul’s death in 1994.
“Paul and I always had breakfast and most of our meals with one another. After his retirement, we often ate at home in our kitchen. Upon his death in 1994, Paul and I had eaten together for almost fifty years.” Fifty years. – Source
In 1948, when Julia was 37-years-old, her husband Paul was transferred to Paris and that is where Julia fell in love with the Parisian cuisine. That same year, Julia attended the Le Cordon Bleu cooking school.
Julia decided to join a women’s cooking club where she met Simone Beck who was writing a French cookbook for Americans with Louisette Bertholle. The ladies asked Julia to help them so the book would appeal to American women.
In 1951, when Julia was 39-years-old, the three ladies started to teach American women cooking lessons in Julia’s kitchen, calling their informal school L’école des trois gourmandes, and testing all the recipes that would be in their infamous book.
Julia’s 30s was just the beginning of her long and amazing career and it just got bigger and more inspiring. Happy 100th birthday to a true icon!
I love Julia! LOVE HER.
Great post.
Tab
my-cliffnotes.blogspot.com
I concur, she was amazing!
Erin, I really look forward to this series. I feel like I am supposed to be at a good point in my career right now, and maybe I should be looking for a husband. But I’ve been so unhappy in my career and struggling to figure out what is the next step that I’ve put everything else on hold. I know I am not supposed to let my work define who I am, and I should live to work, but somehow I just feel like until I know where I am going careerwise, it’s hard for me to take any other chances in my life.
I loved the movie Julie and Julia, and I guess I never realized that Julia was in her 30s when she started culinary school. Thank you for the inspiration and I look forward to your next post.
Excellent article! (Just be careful with the hyphens, though. They are not needed in “years old” except when used as an adjective, attributively. In other words: “A 37-year-old person is 37 years old.” Hyphens before the noun, not after the verb.)