Frances Wilson Huard

Frances Barrie Wilson was the daughter of comic actor Francis Wilson and his first wife, actress Mira Barrie.^[1]

Huard is best known for her memoirs, My Home in the Field of Honour (1916),^[2] and My Home in the Field of Mercy (1917), both about living in France during World War I. Her husband Charles Huard, a French artist, provided illustrations for her books. She described turning their summer estate at Villiers, near Soissons, into a hospital,^[3][4] riding a bicycle after her horses were requisitioned, and managing a household under wartime conditions. In one incident, rather than waking the young men assigned for late night guard duty, she (and her dogs) went in their stead:

Poor little chaps, it seemed a pity to wake them, but what was to be done? Presently an idea of replacing them myself dawned upon me: a second later it so enchanted me that I wouldn't have had them wake for anything. The whole thing was beginning to be terribly romantic. Slipping quietly away, I went to my room and got my revolver, and then going to the south front of the château, I softly whistled for my dogs... With these five as bodyguard I sauntered up the road in the brilliant moonlight, arriving in front of the town hall just as the clock was striking eleven.^[2]

Her home was damaged by bombs and occupied by German troops. Later in the war, she ran a hospital in Paris.^[5] During and after the war, she toured the United States and Canada as a lecturer and sold her husband's etchings to raise funds for post-war relief.^[6][7][8]

Other works by Huard were With Those Who Wait (1918),^[9] Lilies, White and Red (1919, a book of short fiction),^[10] American Footprints in Paris (1921, co-authored with François Boucher),^[11] and a biography of her husband, Charles Huard, 1874–1965 (1969).^[12]

She also translated Maurice Barrès' novel Colette Baudoche (1918),^[13] Marcel Nadaud's The Flying Poilu: A Story of Aerial Warfare (1918), Alfred de Vigny's Military Servitude and Grandeur (1919), and Paul Arène's The Golden Goat (1921) into English.^[14] She wrote essays from France for American publications, including The Century, The Bookman,^[15] and Scribner's Magazine.^[16]

Her American family feared for her safety in France again during World War II.^[17]

Frances Wilson married artist Charles Adolphe Huard in 1905.^[18] She was widowed when he died in 1965, at their home in Poncey-sur-l'Ignon. She died in 1969, aged 84 years.