(Signed and inscribed by author on front endpaper.)
Signed and inscribed by author on front endpaper.
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Perle Reid Skirvin Mesta was born on October 12, 1889, in Sturgis, Michigan. She was the daughter of Harriet Elizabeth Reid and William Balser Skirvin, a successful oil prospector, real estate investor, and hotel owner. Mesta changed the spelling of her first name from "Pearl" to "Perle" in the 1920's, a change that was made legal in 1944.
Mesta's elementary and secondary education took place in private schools in Galveston, Texas, where the Skirvins were residing. In 1906 the family moved to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where, in 1911, William Skirvin built the luxury Skirvin Hotel that afterward served as the family's home. Aspiring to a career in music, Mesta studied voice and piano at the Sherwood School of Music in Chicago. In 1915, seeking work as a "dramatic soprano, " she moved to New York City.
The Mestas made their home in Pittsburgh but traveled extensively, especially to Washington, D. C. , where George Mesta was a steel consultant during World War I, and later to Europe, where he had business interests. In Washington, Mesta met current and future national leaders as well as the foremost political hostesses of the day, contacts that would have an influence on her political-social role in later years. In 1925, George Mesta died, bequeathing to his wife the bulk of his fortune, primarily stock in the Mesta Machine Company. She became a director of the company and gradually learned the business. Since she was not actively involved in running the company, Mesta moved to Washington, D. C. During the next ten years, she also had residences at different times in Boston, New York City, and Newport, Rhode Island, where she dedicated her time to musical and social interests, and to her beloved niece and nephews. Although Mesta showed an occasional interest in politics in the 1920's, such as serving as state chairman of a 1928 presidential campaign organization called the Hoover-Curtis Junior League, she did not exhibit a sustained involvement in political issues and candidates until almost a decade later. In 1936, having maintained connections to Oklahoma through her frequent trips home, she helped organize the Oklahoma State Council of Republican Women for Alfred M. Landon's presidential candidacy. She also attended the Republican National Convention, where she found herself "suddenly filled with the political fever. " In 1937, she was an Oklahoma representative to the Republican National Policy Committee. Mesta also joined the National Woman's Party (NWP) in 1938, becoming an advocate of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and a member of the NWP's executive council and its public relations committee. That same year, she also helped organize the World Woman's Party and served as the international publicity chairman for the organization's first meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1939. In 1940, Mesta continued her lobbying efforts for the ERA at the Republican National Convention, and she has been credited with getting the plank in the Republican platform that advocated a constitutional amendment guaranteeing equal rights for women. This was the first time a major party's platform had supported the issue. Mesta was also an ardent campaigner for the Republican presidential candidate, Wendell Willkie.
After Willkie's defeat in 1940, Mesta left the Republican party to protest the lack of support given the candidate by the conservative wing of the party. Subsequently, as her interests and stands on issues became more closely aligned with those of the Democratic party, so did her commitment to that group. In the 1944 federal election campaign, Mesta attended the Democratic convention as a representative to the Platform and Resolutions Committee from Arizona, her official residence at the time, and for a second time played a role in getting a national party's platform to endorse a constitutional amendment for equal rights. Through her lobbying efforts on behalf of the ERA, Mesta got to know many prominent politicians, including Senator Harry S Truman in 1942. Truman was sympathetic to the equal rights issue and used his influence on its behalf. In response, Mesta organized a party for Truman during a Democratic rally in Oklahoma City in 1943. This gesture reflected a developing friendship with the Trumans and was the first of a number of parties she would give for the Truman family. As Truman's political fortunes rose, so did Mesta's importance as a Washington hostess. Although Mesta inherited wealth from her husband, which was increased on the death of her father in 1944, she also expanded her fortune in the 1930's and 1940's through shrewd investments in oil, real estate, and her eighteen-thousand-acre Arizona cattle ranch. Although the career diplomatic corps and some of the press were somewhat critical of her appointment, she was well received by the people of Luxembourg, who seemed charmed by her style of diplomacy and the attention it brought to the country. Because of her experience with the steel industry, she demonstrated an informed interest in Luxembourg's position as a leading steel-producing nation, and she took time to visit mines and industrial plants throughout the country. After her diplomatic career ended, Mesta traveled extensively, wrote newspaper and magazine articles based on her experiences, continued to work for an equal rights amendment for American women, served as an accredited representative to the United Nations for the World Woman's Party and the National Woman's Party, helped start a dairy business in Nevada and continued giving elaborate parties. Because of declining health, Mesta moved to Oklahoma City in early 1974. She died there, a year later, of hemolytic anemia. She was buried in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, next to her husband.
Mesta's wealth, combined with hard work, a friendly personality, and a flair for entertaining, helped to make Perle Mesta a prominent and influential figure in official Washington circles for several decades. She earned a reputation as Washington's premier hostess. Her parties were known for being lavish, lively gatherings of the famous and powerful, the great and near-great, from the worlds of government, business, and entertainment. Mesta believed she was providing a political service by bringing important bipartisan individuals together so that they might informally discuss issues and perhaps work out problems. Mesta was also an accomplished fund-raiser for Truman and the Democrats, and her personal appeals to wealthy friends in 1948 kept the party's campaign afloat. She served as chairman of the national Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners in 1948, and in 1949 she again assisted with the dinners, helping to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Democrats. In January 1949, she was given the honor of serving as co-chairman of the nation's biggest party, Truman's inaugural ball. Later that year, President Truman appointed Mesta to the post of United States minister to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, an appointment generally regarded as a recognition of her past support of Truman and the Democratic party. She was the third woman in American history to be selected as a foreign minister and the first envoy ever appointed to Luxembourg. She had been inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1951. She helped establish a scholarship fund for Luxembourg students to study in the United States, and during one two-week period in the summer of 1950, she helped arrange for food and lodging for several hundred American students visiting Luxembourg. Before leaving Luxembourg in 1953, Mesta was awarded the country's highest honor, the Grand Cross of the Crown of Oak, a decoration never before given to a woman. Because of her special style and prominence, Mesta, who was called "Madam Minister" by her staff, became the inspiration for the successful 1950 Broadway musical comedy, "Call Me Madam, " a story about an American woman ambassador. The phrase "The Hostess with the Mostes', " from an Irving Berlin song in the show, provided a sobriquet that Mesta carried for the rest of her life.
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As anticipated, Mesta maintained her reputation for frequent, gracious entertaining, much of which was financed by her own funds. Besides hosting the usual affairs of state, she entertained orphans on several occasions, giving them gifts, and held an annual party for all of the mayors of Luxembourg. Once a month, she held a party for American servicemen and servicewomen stationed in the countries surrounding Luxembourg. These events were so popular that she is said to have hosted over twenty-five thousand members of the armed services during her four-year tenure.
During the last two decades of her life, she was a popular Washington hostess to all of the presidential administrations except that of Kennedy, although her political prominence never reached the same height as it did during the Truman era. Even though her legal residences in those years were often in places other than the capital, Mesta wrote that she was "never unconscious of the fact that my heart belongs and always will belong to Washington. "
On February 12, 1917, Perle married George Mesta, a wealthy Pittsburgh steel machinery manufacturer who was more than fifteen years her senior; they had no children.
10 November 1860 - 25 March 1944
1861 - 13 March 1908
1 April 1897 - 30 November 1981
4 November 1893 - 26 March 1963
31 March 1862 - 22 April 1925
