Liz was born in 1893 in a four-story brownstone in a German immigrant neighborhood called Brewerytown, in Philadelphia.

Fred made money, lost money; was uprooted during the civil war when his anti-slavery beliefs cost him his fortune. Through several incarnations, he prospered and began feeding travelers when he was in his 40’s. He died in 1901, wealthy and accomplished, leaving the hospitality industry better for his having been here.

Liz lived in the same house for 64 years; raised a family, fed them food made from her mother’s time honored recipes and, although accomplished in her own way, died in 1968 by no means a wealthy woman.

Perhaps the most significant traits these two people have in common are an innate sense of hospitality and an unfailing desire to do things the “right way” – as defined by them.

Fred Harvey was a marketing genius before the term was coined. At the time when the Atchison, Topeka & Santé Fe railroad ran from Chicago to Los Angeles, he very successfully developed and managed restaurants and hotels to accommodate the new travelers at stops along the line.

So successful and widespread was Fred’s reach and legend that a book was recently written about this “visionary businessman” Four hundred eighty-one pages of information, stories, statistics and Fred Harvey “firsts” that it took nearly six months to read.

Liz has no books written about her. She has family who still remember her most fondly, but that memory, her tombstone, and this reminiscence are all she has merited.

Why then am I writing about this man and this particular woman? Well, I will tell you the story Fred and Liz.

In Philadelphia in the 1950s there was a restaurant on South Broad Street near Spruce that served the best hot chocolate I had ever tasted. The restaurant was the Harvey House and it was one of the many establishments run by Fred Harvey. He’d been dead for many years but one of his marketing ploys was the use of his name on all of his establishments; branding they call it now. His company had no “Co.” after it, no “Inc.”, and no “Ltd” – just his name. Long after he died, his customers were still being served by Fred Harvey and were largely unaware of the fact that their host was deceased. A meal at the Harvey House was a rare treat, and the hot chocolate was worth almost any hardship.

And so it was how I came to know Fred — through hardship. My mother had a passion for that uniquely Philadelphia tradition, the Mummers and their particular style of music. My brother and I thought it was tacky and very uncool before those words were part of anyone’s vocabulary. Mom didn’t care, and every New Year’s Day we were bundled up, put into the back of a 1935 Ford named “Ambrose” and were dragged kicking, screaming, and whining to the Mummers’ Parade.

Looking back on those days, it seems that the winters were colder. The trip from our house into town meant that we drove along the “East River Drive” as it was known then. It was always frozen over enough for skaters, or so my memory says. Ambrose did not offer much in the heat department so if the sight of merry skaters and the ride didn’t give you a chill, standing on the cold sidewalk for a few hours, barely able to see between the adults, and only occasionally being boosted to Dad’s shoulders certainly would. The music was loud, cheerful, and familiar. We heard it every year on this day and often at home on the record player – Mom always had music on in the house and her taste could best be described as eclectic.

Those cold New Year’s days were made memorable by two people— Fred and Liz. It happened that an ideal vantage point to view all the pageantry of feathers and glitter was right in front of the Harvey House. We knew that if we behaved even remotely reasonably we would get hot chocolate. Not just any hot chocolate, but Fred’s. When he did something he did it right, as did anyone who worked for him. So if you wanted to keep your franchise or have a job in any one of his restaurants, you did things Fred’s way, consistently and with a sense of hospitality. That cup of hot chocolate was put before every chilled child with all the panache that the well trained Harvey Girl could muster.

A “Harvey Girl” was a Fred Harvey concept. In the still wild west of 1883, Fred devised a plan to staff his restaurants along the rail line with young, single women from good families, possessed of manners. They were trained to be friendly, welcoming, lived in dormitories and were well chaperoned. Fred not only brought young ladies to the west, he created a female workforce that was second only to the mill workers in Massachusetts. Harvey Girls were well treated, well trained, and well paid. The concept became so widespread and well known that in 1946 it was the subject of movie starring Judy Garland, Angela Lansbury and the “scarecrow,” Ray Bolger. That year, the song from “The Harvey Girls,” on the Atchison, Topeka & the Santé Fe, won an Academy Award.

The customers’ tip was not the motivating factor for the Harvey Girls; a sense of pride was what kept them on high alert. We kids loved Fred’s hot chocolate and everything about the Harvey House experience, but our day was just beginning, and the fun would continue into the night.

After suffering through the parade, being placated by chocolate, we knew the next stop was dinner with the family. The aforementioned Liz was Grandmom and dinner at Grandmom ‘s was as anticipated and cherished as our snack with Fred.

New Year’s Day in a German-American household was a ritual. You must have pork and sauerkraut or the roof will be blown from your house. True or false, fact or fiction, Liz subscribed to the theory and for better or worse so do I. When the door to that big old house was opened, the aromas pulled you in and warmed you; pork, juniper berries, sauerkraut and her pies – one was never enough, there were always several.

It had taken Grandmom days to put the dinner together. There was no food processor, no microwave, no electric mixer or dishwasher – only Pop who willingly did as she asked. There were no shortcuts either; there was tradition and things done the old way — the right way. The tablecloth was starched and ironed and real silver glistening on the table. The same silver now graces my table but the dinners are fewer.

In Stephen Fried’s homage to Fred Harvey, Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West, he tells of how Fred snatched a wrinkled cloth from a fully set table sending things flying and staff scurrying to reset. It never came to that in Liz’s house, but it might have if she had seen a wrinkle. Harvey’s hospitality philosophy could have been written for the modern day classroom. He had ten “fundamentals” that the Harvey Girls lived by: Courtesy and a smile pay dividends; Tact is an asset and honesty is still a virtue; Have a sincere interest in people, were among them.

Philadelphia resident, Stephen Fried’s credentials are as lofty as his subject’s. A writer and former editor Philadelphia Magazine, Fried teaches at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, has twice won the National Magazine Award, and has written for Vanity Fair, GQ, Rolling Stone, Glamour, The Washington Post Magazine, and Ladies Home Journal.

Fred Harvey, Fried contends was Ray Kroc before there was McDonald’s – only one of his many “firsts.” Harvey lured “hospitality heroes’ to staff his varied operations and keep his guests happy while making industry history. Harvey realized that consistency in all things in food and service was critical in maintaining a loyal customer base. Among many “firsts” Fred Harvey instituted Chef standardized recipes, fresh orange juice squeezed only after being ordered, bread sliced to exactly the same size in all operations, testing water for alkali levels before brewing coffee. The list goes on and on. The Harvey Girls never needed to write down a beverage order as their boss had developed a cup code as a silent signal. Staff was trained to please the most difficult customer, as Harvey said, “it is our job to please a crank; anyone can please a gentleman.” Fried shares the anecdote of a time Kaiser Wilhelm’s son stayed at one of Harvey’s hotels, delighted to find out that the Chef had been a cook for his family in Germany; not so great a coincidence but rather an instance of hospitality heroism. Fred was a wonder of hospitality, perfection, and business savvy.

I spent a long time with the book not only because of the wealth of information, the charm of the way it was presented, but also because I kept stopping to reminisce. I thought about the many Fred Harvey innovations that presaged today’s hospitality practices. I thought about how they were achieved in the age in which Fred Harvey lived. I thought about what it said about America. And I thought about the perfection that greeted a cold and bored little girl when she went to one of Fred’s restaurants on South Broad Street every year. I thought about the equal, if different sense of perfection, that was the hallmark at that little girl’s Grandmother’s house. Liz never cooked for the Kaiser, but she could have and he would have been very pleased. 

Article photograph found here, "Kitchen Library" photograph © Katy Scott, "Pantry" photograph by Áslaug Snorradóttir. 

Donna Maguire, an Assistant Teaching Professor on Drexel’s Hospitality Management Faculty, has spent many years in the industry and has worked “on the line”.