For the love of Guatemala

In his foreword to Unveiling Estilo Palmer, Alberto Garín, Ph.D., director of the doctoral program at Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala City, writes, “This is the story of Mildred Palmer. She arrived in Guatemala in 1929, fell in love with the country and became an important figure in the conservation of one of the most beautiful cities in Latin America, La Antigua, Guatemala. For that alone, she deserves to be widely remembered, but until Ana Livingston Paddock recovered the memory of her grandmother for us, Mildred had been unjustly erased from history, including from the memory of most Guatemalans, even the Antigüeños.

“Possibly it is best to forget her extravagances because she was a woman who dared to live an independent life when most women remained dependent. Possibly because she was a foreigner who knew how to value what the patriots on duty did not care to protect and openly rejected as old and backward … Possibly because it is difficult to accept that many of the unique features of La Antigua that we see today were not just the residue of its many centuries of history, but were the result of the very style Mildred Palmer herself created at Casa de las Campanas and Casa Popenoe.”