Dear Dr. Mudd,

In read­ing a biog­ra­phy of Julia Child, I noticed her father attended Prince­ton. Can you tell me any more details?

With the release of Nora Ephron’s new film, Julie and Julia, Julia Child, the doyenne of tele­vi­sion cook­ing shows, is receiv­ing a lot of buzz, and her life and leg­end have been dis­cov­ered by a new gen­er­a­tion of cooks. A search of our col­lec­tions con­firmed that her father, John McWilliams, Jr. Class of 1901, attended Prince­ton, and also revealed that three of her cousins, Charles “Mac” McWilliams ’29, John P. McWilliams II ’31, and J. Alexan­der McWilliams ’35 attended as well.

Julia Child’s father John McWilliams ‘1901

As an under­grad­u­ate, John McWilliams, Jr., whom his daugh­ter described as “tall — reserved — ath­letic,” majored in his­tory and pol­i­tics and belonged to Colo­nial Club. McWilliams him­self had a dis­tin­guished career in “finance, farm­ing, and in civic and human­i­tar­ian enter­prises,” and he was said to dis­play “rare qual­i­ties of leadership.”

Indeed, after hav­ing worked his way up from assis­tant cashier in the Bank of Odell (Illi­nois) to its pres­i­dency, he moved to Pasadena, where he and his wife Car­olyn had three chil­dren, Julia, John III, and Dorothy. On the West Coast, McWilliams con­tin­ued as a banker and expanded his inter­ests to include a con­glom­er­ate of Arkansas farms, became involved in real estate, and served as pres­i­dent of the Pasadena Cham­ber of Com­merce. In addi­tion he served as a direc­tor or trustee for numer­ous busi­nesses and char­i­ta­ble organizations.

Admis­sions Appli­ca­tion of John McWilliams ‘1901

McWilliams’ devo­tion to Prince­ton was notable as well. His Prince­ton Alumni Weekly obit­u­ary (Feb­ru­ary 23, 1965) notes that he served as a regional trustee, an alumni asso­ci­a­tion rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Los Ange­les, vice pres­i­dent of his class, mem­ber of the Class of 1901 Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee, and for­mer pres­i­dent and vice pres­i­dent of the Prince­ton Club of Cal­i­for­nia. He also founded the John McWilliams Schol­ar­ship in mem­ory of his father and donated car­rels for Fire­stone Library.

At Prince­ton, Julia’s cousins were active in cam­pus life as well. John P. McWilliams won the Keene Fitz­patrick track medal. J. Alexan­der played mul­ti­ple sports, break­ing pole vault records, serv­ing as track team cap­tain, and ascend­ing to what one obit­u­ary described as “one of the world’s three best pole vaulters.” John P. was a mem­ber of Char­ter Club, and J. Alexan­der was voted “third best all-around man” in his class. Charles, also known as “Char­lie” or “Mac”, was more active in his class after grad­u­a­tion, claim­ing mem­ber­ship in the Uni­ver­sity Club of Chicago.

Like Ms. Child’s father, her cousins also became involved in agri­cul­ture and bank­ing. After a false start in archi­tec­ture, Charles devel­oped the family’s agri­cul­tural hold­ings to span more than 12,000 acres in Illi­nois. John P. and J. Alexan­der also helped man­age these farms, and had roles in the family-owned Dwight Bank.

Whether or not Julia Child ever accom­pa­nied her father to a Prince­ton reunion is not known.

Charles a.k.a. “Char­lie” or “Mac” McWilliams ‘1929	John P. McWilliams, Jr. ‘1931	J. Alexan­der McWilliams ‘1935

From the Prince­ton Alumni Weekly, 2/23/1965

–John DeLooper