Carol Brock Oral History

In this oral history, Carol Brock discusses her lifelong Queens residency and her favorite aspects of living in Queens; her birth in Corona in 1923, her family’s move to rural Beechhurst when she was 3, then to Sunnyside and later Douglas Manor with her husband; her father’s career in real estate; her childhood in Beechhurst and memories of her friends, their families, and the trappings of rural life in Queens; attending P.S. 79 in Whitestone; the dress her seamstress grandmother made for her graduation and the skill of her mother who went to millinery school; her grandmother’s home in Fresh Meadows and later Beechhurst; her time in Bayside High School; being influenced to go to Queens College over Cornell by Judge Charles Colden, a founder of the college; details of her Home Economics coursework at Queens College, being president of the Homes Economics Club, and her social life at that time; how her grandmother influenced her work at Queens College because she grew vegetables and made cheese; graduating from Queens and marrying her husband Emil Andrew Brock in the same month; starting her career as an assistant food editor at Good Housekeeping magazine with help from Queens College professors; making lunch every day for the editor, Herbert Mays, and the head of Hearst Corp. Richard E. Berlin, in exchange for lessons about the magazine business; her first bylines and then 23-year career at Good Housekeeping, and then Parents magazine after that; entertaining distinguished guests like Herbert Hoover and the Duke of Windsor; pursuing a master’s degree at New York University in 1963; memories of her friend’s home being demolished when the Cross Island Parkway was built; descriptions of her father and his love of hunting, fishing, and boxing; attending local cultural events in Douglas Manor like the 100th birthday celebration of the Matinecock Chief Waters and writing articles about the tribe’s traditions and recipes; the changing nature of the Douglas Manor neighborhood; attending the World’s Fairs in 1939 and 1964 in Flushing Meadows and the International Expo in Montreal in 1967; her career as a restaurant consultant after her journalism career and her favorite New York City restaurant; working in magazines and newspapers at its height of glamour; founding Les Dames d’Escoffier in 1976, a professional organization for accomplished women in the food, wine and hospitality fields, who had previously been excluded from all-male Escoffier groups.