Extreme Etiquette (cont.)

Emily Posed Anna bears the portrait, and genes, of her aristocratic ancestor.

When I walk through the door of the Institute—a suite of brick-walled offices in a former school building—I startle at the sight of several dogs of the Labrador and German Shepherd variety. Would Emily have approved? Still, I’ve never seen politer dogs. One black lab rises to a sitting position and pants in greeting. It waits hopefully for me to pat it on the head. I wonder if the Posts also have this effect on humans.

Anna comes out of her office with the sort of smile someone gives an old friend. Tall, dark-haired young women like Anna never smile at a guy like me unless I’ve given them a big tip in a restaurant. As she introduces me around, I get a warmer reception than I have at some weddings. They all have perfect posture, great smiles, direct eye contact, firm but not crushing handshakes, and, most of all, an interest in their visitor—or at least the appearance of it.

All that can be taught, but then I notice something deeper. Early on in our conversation, Anna and I are talking about rudeness in movie theaters when she brings up a good example. “I saw March of the Penguins,” she says, “and there was a woman in the row in front of me filing her nails with an emery board. She probably had OCD.” Talk about sympathy for others: Some woman adds a rasp rasp rasp to the cute-penguin soundtrack, and Anna manages to speculate that the obnoxious jerk has a psychological condition. “People are rude because they’re unaware or because they feel justified,” she says. “‘I’m running late because my sitter was late so I’m going to cut you off.’ Or, ‘I didn’t sleep well.’” Talk about sympathy.

You’re Welcome Anna, Lizzie, and father Peter professionally put people at ease from their Vermont HQ.

Anna herself grew up in a family that ensured she would never, ever be unaware. When she was a little girl her Aunt Peggy asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, and she said, “I want to be Emily Post.” Not that she was the perfect little lady herself. Her grandmother once tried to make Anna eat beets in a restaurant. “Emily Post would eat her beets!” the grandmother said. Anna says she responded by throwing up on her dinner plate. You have to love this woman.

When Anna was in elementary school, an occasional student would tease her on the playground by making slurping noises with an imaginary spoon. After graduating from the University of Vermont, Anna went to work for Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy in Washington. A job at the Motion Picture Association of America followed, until the call of etiquette drew her back to Vermont. Anna has big ideas for the Post Institute, involving etiquette around the world. She embraces the Web; both Anna and Lizzie keep blogs.

The Post who begat all the others grew up in New York society, where anyone who was anyone knew everyone, and everyone kept vigilant for the slightest nuances that determined where one stood. (Anna’s grandparents made the move to Vermont.) Born Emily Price in 1872, she was the daughter of a famous architect. She attended finishing school and married a rich stockbroker at age 19. A life-sized oil portrait, painted about that time, hangs in the Post Institute. She was—forgive me, Emily—a babe: dark hair, brilliant gray-blue eyes, and a figure that must have caused whiplash on Park Avenue. She had two sons in rapid succession, but her marriage was a disappointment and her husband, Edwin, often absent. Emily took up writing, and family connections landed her her first magazine story. She would pen novels that had such comfy titles as Purple and Fine Linen and Woven in the Tapestry. Edwin had affairs with fledgling actresses and chorus girls; in 1905, a gossip sheet tried to blackmail him to keep one particular indiscretion silent. The Posts refused to pay and instead helped to expose the scheme that had netted other society folk; the sting turned the incident into a public scandal. By 1906, Emily found herself a divorcee.

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