LENORE GLEN OFFORD, ASH, BSI
Remembering The Old Russian Woman (BSI: The Old Russian Woman), 1905-1991
by Evelyn Herzog
Both the BSI and ASH lost a well-respected member when Lenore Glen Offord (“The Old Russian Woman” in both groups) died on April 24th, her eighty-fifth-and-a-half birthday.
She wrote a dozen novels between 1938 and 1959. Most of them were mysteries, in the Golden Age tradition, with enjoyable plots and engaging characters. They’ve well repaid my searching them out in book dealers’ catalogs, and I advise you to keep your eyes open for them.
She was also mystery book critic for the San Francisco Chronicle for more than thirty years. Her verse “Memoirs of a Mystery Critic” is crammed with telegraphic summations of the many mystery plots she’d come to know so well, concluding:
The top-secret labs … the pursuers in cabs…
The hero impugned … the party marooned…
The bosoms, the brandy … the cyanide candy …
The hidden defectors … the lies to Inspectors …
Home life of a cop … and the Man at the Top…
By now, for these plots
I could fill in the dots
With one hand behind me
And a blindfold to blind me.
And yet I keep reading them,
Greedily needing them.
Don’t think of stinting them,
Just keep on printing them!
While all detective literature was her field, Sherlock Holmes had a special place in her life. As early as 1946 she contributed an article (under her full name) to the first volume of the original Baker Street Journal, and she was a long-time member of The Scowrers and Molly Maguires of San Francisco.
In 1958 Edgar Smith invested her in the Baker Street Irregulars, the first (and for over twenty years the only) woman to hold that honor. Shortly thereafter she composed the verse “A Case of Lost Identity (Addressed to the Noble Gentlemen who Invested Me with a Title)” in which her investiture character regrets that she can throw no light on her unchronicled case:
I’m the Old Russian Woman, I haven’t a doubt.
As such, on the roster engrave me.
But my untold Adventure – what was it about?
I cannot remember to save me.
A mysterious title you gave me!
I brought him adventure – and was it his first?
But its nature’s erased from my mind.
My riddle he read, or my perils dispersed,
Or he saved me from being maligned.
I forget; but I know he was kind….
In 1981 she accepted membership in ASH. You can read her article on Mary Sutherland’s profession in The Serpentine Muse, Vol. 6, No. 3. Visits to East Coast gatherings were, unfortunately, out of the question: “If only I had a real magic carpet,” she wrote us, “and all parties were held in the middle of the day!” Still, the printed page is a kind of magic carpet: we’ll stay in touch.
The Serpentine Muse is copyrighted by the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes, and written permission must be obtained for reproduction of an article in another publication or website. Contact mmckayATL@comcast.net for more information.
And a good story about her…
Lenore Glen Offord, “The Old Russian Woman” to both ASH and BSI, was the first woman to be invested in the Baker Street Irregulars back in 1958. She was a mystery writer who lived on Russian Hill in San Francisco.
There is a famous, though apocryphal, story about her investiture. It’s said that Edgar W. Smith, then head of the Baker Street Irregulars, was planning a visit to San Francisco. He tells Anthony Boucher, head of the local BSI scion society, The Scowrers & Molly Maguires, that he would like to give a BSI shilling to their most notable and deserving member. Who would that be? The answer comes back, “Glen Offord.” (In some versions it’s “Lee Offord.”) When Edgar W. Smith arrives, to his astonishment, it turns out to be a woman. But he’s a good sport about it and gives her the shilling despite the fact that the BSI is an all-male group.
The truth is that Smith knew that he was giving it to a woman. He arrived with a certificate of investiture for Lenore Glen Offord as “The Old Russian Woman.” And he was already acquainted with her personally from previous trips to San Francisco and meetings with the Scowrers and Molly Maguires.
She never attended a dinner of the Baker Street Irregulars.
