Local woman remembers Diamond Jubilee
From her apartment in Whitefish last week, Elsie Persicke couldn’t help but think of home as she watched on TV the Diamond Jubilee celebration for Queen Elizabeth II.
Persicke was born in England and moved to the United States after she married her husband Don in 1944.
“Watching it brings back memories,” she said. “I’ve had more time to think about home ever since my children were grown.”
The queen’s Diamond Jubilee this year celebrates her 60-year reign in Britain.
Although, Persicke left England she has kept up with the going-ons of the royal family over the years. Her family has sent her newspapers and magazines from those historic events.
Persicke made a visit to England shortly before Queen Elizabeth’s coronation on June 2, 1953. She actually left England roughly a week before the coronation, but her family sent her a newspaper filled with photographs from the event. Persicke still has those original newspaper clippings.
In a cabinet in her dinning room next to her bone china, Persicke keeps a commemorative plate from the event. The tin plate features a picture of the queen on the front with the inscription on the back stating it is to commemorate the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
She recalls the coronation pointing to the newspaper clippings and the black and white photographs showing the queen dressed for the coronation. “She’s really fancy,” said Persicke, who turns 89 this year and has felt a certain connection to the monarch because they are so close in age.
Persicke still remembers London in the days before the coronation.
“We drove around and there were lots of decorations,” she said. “They were really pretty.”
Persicke has made her home in Whitefish since 1946 with many of those years living in a house on Washington Avenue. As a young wife and mother with two young sons she found herself homesick for England.
Her husband suggested she go home for a visit. So in 1953 she traveled from Whitefish by train to New York and then on the RMS Queen Mary ship to England.
“I was homesick for so many years,” she said. “It was difficult traveling with two young children. We stayed for three months with my parents.”
Persicke met her husband while he was stationed in London during World War II. She was working in a factory. The girls would leave at noon for lunch and take their candy coupons to a nearby store. Next to the factory was a lumber yard where several American soldiers were standing.
“They asked us what we did for entertainment,” she remembered. “They wanted us to show them the town.”
They all went out to a road house together. “When it was time to go my husband grabbed my hand and we walked apart from everyone else,” she said.
The couple would marry in England in August of 1944.
Persicke has saved newspapers and magazines over the years with photos of the royal family.
From her stack pulling out multiple publications following Princess Diana’s death, Persicke remembers her fondly.
“Isn’t she lovely,” she asks. “I just love her. I think she’s so beautiful.”
Persicke also watched the wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton last year and has saved magazines from that event also.
“I hope I get more pictures from the Jubilee,” she said. “They’re all memories.”