Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

Papers of J. Rives Childs, Accession #9256-v, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

This collection was made a gift to the Library by Mrs. Hilda Schroetter of Richmond, Virginia, on November 2, 1990.

Scope and Content Information

This collection consists of 834 items, 1950(1975-1987), containing the personal papers of J. Rives Childs (1893-1987), retired foreign service officer. Following his military career during World War I, Childs entered the American Consular Service in 1923, and served in Israel, Romania, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kingdom Yemen, and [Kingdom] Ethiopia, until his retirement in 1953. Ambassador Childs authored several books, including Reliques of the Rives (1929); American Foreign Service (1948); Casanoviana (1956); Casanova, A Biography Based on New Documents (1961); Collector's Quest: The Correspondence of Henry Miller and J. Rives Childs, 1947-1965 (1968); Farewell to Foreign Service: Thirty Years in the Near East (1969); Vignettes, or Autobiographical Fragments (1977); and, his complete autobiography Let the Credit Go (1983). Included are correspondence, financial and legal papers, personal and miscellaneous papers, and printed material related to J. Rives Childs during his later years while living in Richmond, Virginia, especially his interest in Randolph-Macon College and the Virginia Museum.

The correspondence, 1950(1975-1984), reveals the high regard and affection felt for Childs by his family, friends, and acquaintances. Among the correspondence is a copy of a letter, August 28, 1950, from President Harry S. Truman to Childs, concerning his resignation as Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Minister to the Kingdom of Yemen. There is a letter, June 5, 1975, from Theodore J. Hadraba, Executive Director of Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired, about their library's holdings of Childs' books. Letters from August 4, 1977, August 25 and September 12, 1978, and March 5, 1981, are concerned with Childs' Casanova. A letter, April 3, 1979, from Christiana Rives de Chaugrigny, Nice, France, mentions Ambassador Gazell, Ambassador Francois Briere, Madame Crossa-Raynaud, Mr. and Mrs. William Swayne, and the American Consulate in Nice-Monaco. There is a carbon of a letter, April 28, 1979, from Childs, to the Embassy of the United States of America, Prague, Czechoslovakia, concerning their treatment of Marco Leeflang. Other correspondents include Giuseppe Bignami, Genova, Italy (February 14, 1983); Jamie H. Cockfield, Mercer University, Macon, Georgia (August 3 and September 28, 1983); John Boyd (January 23 and March 3, 1984); Francis L. Mars, Nice, France (March 5 and April 9, 1984); Marco Leeflang, Utrecht, Netherlands (May 3, 1984); and, Jane Sommerich, representative at the United Nations (May 5, 1984). There are also several letters from Herrick Black Young: September 28, 1982, in which he sends a copy of Childs' TMs "The March of Modernism in Persia"; October 5, 1982, in which he encloses a photograph of Childs with companions at a wayside teahouse; and September 20, 1983, in which he sends an account of an "Interview with General Douglas MacArthur/Tokyo, August 28, 1947." Financial papers, 1968-1987, include reports on dividends, savings and checking accounts, and securities. Legal papers, 1977-1981, include a purchase agreement, 1977, between Childs and Stanton L. Triester for Casanova; last will and testament, 1979, for Childs, along with 1980 redrafts; and, papers, 1981, concerning setting up an annual income for Hilda Schroetter from a unitrust. Miscellaneous papers include a review of Childs' Casanova; "Souvenir de l'excursion Casanovienne," signed Juno Luccichenti; a 1982 weekly diary of Childs; and, an inscribed portrait of Hilda Schroetter. In addition, there are two volumes of the Memoirs of J. Rives Childs.