{"id":2173345,"date":"2025-11-23T12:24:26","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T12:24:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2173345"},"modified":"2025-11-23T12:24:26","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T12:24:26","slug":"7-year-old-slidell-girl-writes-princess-kate-gets-a-reply-entertainment-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/7-year-old-slidell-girl-writes-princess-kate-gets-a-reply-entertainment-life\/","title":{"rendered":"7-Year-Old Slidell girl writes Princess Kate; gets a reply | Entertainment\/Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div data-breakout=\"1\" style=\"position:relative;\">\n<div class=\"col-md-8\">\n<p>Roger Clark started his message to me in the way that so many people do: &#8220;I sure do miss Smiley&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Clark is not alone in missing the legend Smiley Anders and his 50 years of writing for the newspaper.<\/p>\n<p>I think of Smiley often and <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"An archeological dig through Smiley's desk reveals that his spirit is still going strong\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nola.com\/tncms\/asset\/editorial\/2482b280-819f-11ef-985f-0700fc151c92\/\" target=\"_blank\">still have his pile of pencils on my desk<\/a>. They remind me of his humor, kindness and mischievous nature.<\/p>\n<p>Since he couldn&#8217;t tell Smiley, Clark decided to share the latest story about his granddaughter Frances with me \u2014 and I&#8217;m glad he did.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Frances is my 7-year-old granddaughter, and she is blessed with an abundance of optimism and innocence,&#8221; Clark wrote. &#8220;She wrote a letter to Kate Middleton after seeing a photo of her and her children, asking the Princess what her favorite hobbies were and what games she played with her kids.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div data-breakout=\"2\" style=\"position:relative;\">\n<div class=\"col-md-8\">\n<p>Early last week, to Clark&#8217;s surprise, Frances called from her home in Slidell to tell him that the Princess had responded. The child was overjoyed as she read the letter to her grandparents.<\/p>\n<p>She continued to explain that she had already started sewing a purse for Kate.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Later, she zoomed us to show us the purse. It had a whale drawn on the side, and I asked her why,&#8221; Clark wrote. &#8220;She said in all seriousness, &#8216;Well, you know, she is the Princess of Whales.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-asset inline-image layout-vertical  subscriber-hide  tnt-inline-asset tnt-inline-relcontent tnt-inline-image tnt-inline-relation-child tnt-inline-presentation-default tnt-inline-alignment-left tnt-inline-width-half\">\n<figure class=\"photo layout-vertical hover-expand letterbox-style-white\"><span class=\"expand hidden-print\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-photo-target=\".photo-2e745a33-33e7-4c51-a6af-095244551bba\" data-instance=\"#gallery-items-649b50bd-51ca-44ec-abf2-368d8be2b8cd-photo-modal\" data-target=\"#photo-carousel-649b50bd-51ca-44ec-abf2-368d8be2b8cd\"><br \/>\n                <span class=\"fas tnt-expand\"\/><br \/>\n            <\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"image\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-photo-target=\".photo-2e745a33-33e7-4c51-a6af-095244551bba\" data-instance=\"#gallery-items-649b50bd-51ca-44ec-abf2-368d8be2b8cd-photo-modal\" data-target=\"#photo-carousel-649b50bd-51ca-44ec-abf2-368d8be2b8cd\">\n<div itemprop=\"image\" itemscope=\"\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\">\n            <meta itemprop=\"width\" content=\"480\"\/><br \/>\n            <meta itemprop=\"height\" content=\"640\"\/><br \/>\n            <meta itemprop=\"contentUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com\/nola.com\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/2\/e7\/2e745a33-33e7-4c51-a6af-095244551bba\/691796f3c6cc8.image.jpg\"\/><br \/>\n            <meta itemprop=\"url\" content=\"https:\/\/bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com\/nola.com\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/2\/e7\/2e745a33-33e7-4c51-a6af-095244551bba\/691796f3c6cc8.image.jpg\"\/><br \/>\n                        \n            <\/div><\/div><figcaption class=\"caption\">\n<p>                                <span class=\"caption-text\"><\/p>\n<p>The beginnings of Frances Case&#8217;s purse for Princess Catherine. Frances chose to draw a whale on the purse in honor of the princess.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>                                <\/span><\/p>\n<p>                                <span class=\"credit\"><br \/>\n                                    <span itemprop=\"author\" class=\"tnt-byline\">PROVIDED PHOTO<\/span><br \/>\n                                <\/span><\/p>\n<p>                        <span class=\"clearfix\"\/><br \/>\n                    <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Here was a girl after my heart. So, I called her mom.<\/p>\n<p>\u200a&#8221;Frances is the most unique little bird I&#8217;ve ever met,&#8221; Katie Clark Case said at the top of our call. &#8220;She just loves to write letters to people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Case said that Frances&#8217; technique to delay bedtime often revolves around important questions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div data-breakout=\"3\" style=\"position:relative;\">\n<div class=\"col-md-8\">\n<p>&#8220;Around the time that Queen Elizabeth died, she had a lot of these questions,&#8221; Case said. &#8220;She would say, &#8216;I need to know, like did Queen Elizabeth like pizza?'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Frances figured out that she can write letters to the people she&#8217;s interested in \u2014 and often they write her back.<\/p>\n<p>When young Frances discovered her mother&#8217;s calligraphy pen and wax seal, she wanted to send Princess Kate a letter.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She thought Princess Kate would get a big kick out of the wax seal,&#8221; Case said. &#8220;She asked her about her hobbies and about her children \u2014 and told her a little bit about our life in Slidell.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I told Case that Frances shared an interest with my older daughter. Around that same age, Greer became fascinated with William and Kate \u2014 enough that, on a spur-of-the-moment trip, she and I flew to London for the royal wedding.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div data-breakout=\"4\" style=\"position:relative;\">\n<div class=\"col-md-8\">\n<p>To get a front-row spot, we camped out the night before along the procession route. It was a long, cold, oddly magical night, made memorable mostly because of a ridiculous detail: behind us stood a row of portable toilets with springs strong enough to snap a bear trap. Every time someone opened a door, it slammed shut with a bang that shook the ground and jolted us awake.<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-asset inline-image layout-vertical  subscriber-hide  tnt-inline-asset tnt-inline-relcontent tnt-inline-image tnt-inline-relation-child tnt-inline-presentation-default tnt-inline-alignment-right tnt-inline-width-half\">\n<figure class=\"photo layout-vertical hover-expand letterbox-style-white\"><span class=\"expand hidden-print\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-photo-target=\".photo-b963d3a2-82dd-40c1-b821-133cf08bccdc\" data-instance=\"#gallery-items-649b50bd-51ca-44ec-abf2-368d8be2b8cd-photo-modal\" data-target=\"#photo-carousel-649b50bd-51ca-44ec-abf2-368d8be2b8cd\"><br \/>\n                <span class=\"fas tnt-expand\"\/><br \/>\n            <\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"image\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-photo-target=\".photo-b963d3a2-82dd-40c1-b821-133cf08bccdc\" data-instance=\"#gallery-items-649b50bd-51ca-44ec-abf2-368d8be2b8cd-photo-modal\" data-target=\"#photo-carousel-649b50bd-51ca-44ec-abf2-368d8be2b8cd\">\n<div itemprop=\"image\" itemscope=\"\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\">\n            <meta itemprop=\"width\" content=\"480\"\/><br \/>\n            <meta itemprop=\"height\" content=\"640\"\/><br \/>\n            <meta itemprop=\"contentUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com\/nola.com\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/b\/96\/b963d3a2-82dd-40c1-b821-133cf08bccdc\/691796f22b954.image.jpg\"\/><br \/>\n            <meta itemprop=\"url\" content=\"https:\/\/bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com\/nola.com\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/b\/96\/b963d3a2-82dd-40c1-b821-133cf08bccdc\/691796f22b954.image.jpg\"\/><br \/>\n                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"Princess letter.jpg\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full white\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com\/nola.com\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/b\/96\/b963d3a2-82dd-40c1-b821-133cf08bccdc\/691796f22b954.image.jpg?resize=150%2C200 150w, https:\/\/bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com\/nola.com\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/b\/96\/b963d3a2-82dd-40c1-b821-133cf08bccdc\/691796f22b954.image.jpg?resize=200%2C267 200w, https:\/\/bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com\/nola.com\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/b\/96\/b963d3a2-82dd-40c1-b821-133cf08bccdc\/691796f22b954.image.jpg?resize=225%2C300 225w, https:\/\/bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com\/nola.com\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/b\/96\/b963d3a2-82dd-40c1-b821-133cf08bccdc\/691796f22b954.image.jpg?resize=300%2C400 300w, https:\/\/bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com\/nola.com\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/b\/96\/b963d3a2-82dd-40c1-b821-133cf08bccdc\/691796f22b954.image.jpg?resize=400%2C533 400w, https:\/\/bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com\/nola.com\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/b\/96\/b963d3a2-82dd-40c1-b821-133cf08bccdc\/691796f22b954.image.jpg 540w\"\/>\n            <\/div><\/div><figcaption class=\"caption\">\n<p>                                <span class=\"caption-text\"><\/p>\n<p>The Head of Royal Correspondence responded to Frances Case&#8217;s letter to Princess Catherine with a kind letter.<\/p>\n<p>                                <\/span><\/p>\n<p>                                <span class=\"credit\"><br \/>\n                                    <span itemprop=\"author\" class=\"tnt-byline\">PROVIDED PHOTO<\/span><br \/>\n                                <\/span><\/p>\n<p>                        <span class=\"clearfix\"\/><br \/>\n                    <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Months after we returned home, I watched an interview with Prince William. He mentioned being exhausted on his wedding day, and when the interviewer guessed it was nerves, William explained it was actually \u201cthose portable toilets outside St. James Palace \u2014 their doors kept slamming all night.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When I told Case the story, she said, &#8220;What a funny thing to have in common with the future king of England!&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div data-breakout=\"5\" style=\"position:relative;\">\n<div class=\"col-md-8\">\n<p>Maybe stories like Frances\u2019 remind us the world isn\u2019t as big or distant as we think.<\/p>\n<p>A little girl in Slidell can write to a princess and get a letter back \u2014 and somehow, the future king of England and I can lose sleep to the same ridiculous row of portable potties.<\/p>\n<p>Life is absurd, yes \u2014 but full of small moments that pull us closer than we expect.<\/p>\n<p>Clark is right. Smiley would have gotten a kick out of this one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.nola.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Roger Clark started his message to me in the way that so many people do: &#8220;I sure do miss Smiley&#8230;&#8221; Clark is not alone in missing the legend Smiley Anders and his 50 years of writing for the newspaper. I think of Smiley often and still have his pile of pencils on my desk. They [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2173346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2173345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/7-Year-Old-Slidell-girl-writes-Princess-Kate-gets-a-reply.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2173345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2173345"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2173345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2173347,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2173345\/revisions\/2173347"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2173346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2173345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2173345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2173345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}