The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 110

MISS qvtins Mlpf iff 1 1 hi si; VJiOmt MANHATTAN. ZrF4 S.F. EXAMINER Aug. 4, 1982 The 'gutsy, tough mamas' of a grandes dames past A By Barbara Varro Chic ago Sun-Times HEY PROBABLY WOULD be called gutsy old dames today, or, in street jargon tough mamas. In a gentler era, when propriety was as fashionable as pearl chokers, they were known as grandes dames.

They were the gold plated doyennes who reigned imperiously over American society from the Victorian era until World War They launched opera companies or sponsored starving artists with leftovers from their husbands' profits made in railroading, banking, meat packing, retailing, etc. They are a vanishing breed now that billions are hard to come by, and precious few of this country's filthy rich live on the grand scale of their counterparts of yesteryear. Furthermore, for the most part, the largesse of the wealthy has been supplanted today by charitable foundations. Writer Stephen Birmingham thought it would be fun to remember some of the activities and antics of the formidable ladies of past eras. So he compiled a social history including eight major characters and assorted minor ones in "The Grandes Dames" (Simon Schuster, Birmingham, author of "California Rich" and books on Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and the Duchess of Windsor, said the women he spotlights in his new book were not merely rich, frivolous females.

They were strong women who had a great sense of responsibility to their communities; women who made things happen with their husbands' money, of course. "These women were our aristocracy," he said. "They believed in noblesse oblige nobility is obligated to do something for society. And they were the types of women who were afraid of nothing. They made enemies all over the place, but they didn't care." While their children were cared for by governesses or nannies and their homes were run by staffs of servants, they had time to get involved in myriad projects.

Their husbands were busy making deals or buying railroads, so they were glad to have wives to ornament them." Birmingham said. "John Jacob Astor, for instance, was a thoroughly hated man because of dirty deals in New York real estate. So he was pleased to have a wife who came through as a leading hostess. "Edward Stotesbury of Philadelphia made so much money, about $40 million a year, that it was almost embar Examiner file photo Where were you in '24? So you think you have fashion down to the art of a dame that's grande? Then cast your eyes upwards and weep, sweetheart. Here, photographed together, are the eight greater New York, Hoboken and Jersey City beauty prize winners in the Daily Mirror's $5,000 Atlantic City pageant competition in 1924.

The beauties are shown attired in Princess May Bando-Vests (the things allegedly flatten you for flapper garb) that they were to wear in the week's round of boardwalk events. We don't know what those events were, but from the contestants' facial expressions, the pulse that paces quickly in the fever of competition was really at an all-time high. Now for the contestants. From left, we have Miss Richmond. Melise Banning, Miss Queens, Mary Carlson, Miss Hoboken, Emerita Monsch.

Miss Jersey City, Bobbie Blair, Miss Bronx, Frances Harten, Miss Manhattan. Beatrice Roberts and Miss Greater New York, Margie Booth. Seated is Miss Brooklyn, Hildur Johnson. We unfortunately couldn't come up with a winner, (though we're certain it was a tough choice), but according to the photo caption of 1924, all the lovelies said that "next to themselves, they liked these best." We don't know what "these" were either. Good luck to all.

rassing. He was pleased to have a wife (Lucretia who was decorative, colorful, gave wonderful parties, collected art, was philanthropic and contributed to the community. And Eleanor Belmont is credited with single-handedly saving the Metropolitan Opera through the Depression." Grandes dames were marked by more than excessive wealth. They had what Birmingham calls a sense of personal theater. "When a grande dame walked into a room, even if you didn't know who she was, you suddenly knew you were in the presence of someone pretty damned important," he said.

"She carried a personal spotlight around with her, finding the key light the way an actress does." Some of the grandes dames were true eccentrics who played the part to the hilt. Edith Rockefeller McCormick, for instance, is tagged by Birmingham, "the oddest Rockefeller of all." She was the second daughter of John D. Rockefeller and was a spoiled woman married to womanizer Harold Fowler McCormick, the son of the reaper king, Cyrus Hall McCormick. Harold subsequently divorced Edith to marry Polish soprano Ganna Walska (after having a gland operation for sexual rejuvenation), whom he divorced eight years later. The divorce reportedly cost him $6 million, about a quarter of his International Harvester stock.

At the turn of the rpnturv. the MrCormirks ruled of her audacity. She had a love affair with artist John Singer Sargent and didn't care if everyone in Boston knew about it. Her outrageous behavior didn't affect her social standing in the least. She also was a patroness to other artists and literary types.

T.S. Eliot, for instance, was one of her proteges." In most cases, the grandes dames were not attentive mothers, relegating the care of their children to others. But Birmingham spoke to some of the children of those women, and they were proud of what their mothers did. "Philip Stern told me he resented the time his mother spent away from home. It has taken him years to learn to appreciate what his mother tried to do.

But now he realises that perhaps she felt it was more important to build schools and work for the community than to be a full-time mother and wife." Lyrfci ha Hint in cije lufcif 6 I I i Saint Mary1 College Part-Time Chicago society from a turreted stone mansion with a library and an Aubusson-carpeted bedroom with an oversize gilded Louis XVI bed. The house staff included two butlers, two parlor maids, coachman, footman, sewing woman, mending woman, six detectives and assorted housemen. One man polished the silver and another wound the clocks. Edith McCormick was hooked on lavish jewels. Among her more spectacular baubles were a $2 million rope of perfectly matched pearls and a Cartier necklace of 10 large emeralds set in a rope of 1,657 diamonds.

Those jewels sparkled on the diminutive woman as she made her entrance at performances of the Chicago Opera Company rapped in a tent-like ermine cape. She arrived in her plum-colored Rolls Royce driven by a chauffeur uniformed in a matching plum shade. Her opulent dinner parties were ultraformal occasions with place cards and menus that were in French and engraved in gold. Guests frequently were served on a service Enrollment The children were taught by a staff of French teachers and all lessons were in French, of course. later in her life, Edith McCormick took an interest in the occult and reincarnation and came to believe she was the reincarnation of the child bride of King Tutankhamun.

When her marriage began to fall apart, she traveled to Switzerland to seek help from psychotherapist Carl Jung. The divorce hit her hard and throughout her life she kept her husband's room exactly as he left it, with his suits still hanging in the closets, waiting for his return. After her sessions with Jung, she had grand plans to establish a psychoanalytic center in lake Forest, but the project went awry. In the mid-1920s she planned a city for the affluent on 1,500 acres on the shores of Lake Michigan, which was to be called "Edithton." She spent $4 million on the project, located south of Kenosha, which was to rival Palm Beach. Her dream city died with the stock market crash of 1929.

She lost her fortune, was put on a family allowance of a mere $1,000 a day and moved to a hotel suite. She died in 1932 at the age of 60. The woman Birmingham dubs "the Jewish princess of the old South" was the daughter of a famous J.R. of the past Julius Rosenwald of Chicago, who controlled Sears, Roebuck Co. at the turn of the century.

Edith "Effie" Rosenwald was a fiery redhead who married cotton broker Edgar Bloom Stern of New Orleans. In the 1920s, they built a sumptuous Greek Revival house set among acres of formal gardens in suburban Metairie. The house, called Longue Vue, was considered one of the most beautiful houses in the South. Edith Stern became so influential that after she began to leave New Orleans during Mardi Gras, to register her disapproval of the Carnival Ball that excluded Jews, other prominent Jewish families followed her example. Although she frequently screamed at people to get her way, she could be generous.

She sometimes tipped her servants in Sears stock. She crusaded for black enfranchisement, set up her own black voters registration service and became a trustee of a black college, Dillard University. In the 20s, she fought city hall to build schools when she found the city's schools lacking. Newcomb Nursery School and the Metairie Country Day School exist today. Her son, Philip Stern, told Birmingham that if his mother wanted to, "she could have organized General Motors.

We used to say that if mother couldn't get a seat on an airplane, she'd buy the airline." Among Birmingham's favorite grandes dames was Isabella Stewart Gardner of Boston. "She is a a pet of mine because SEAFOOD RESTAURANT Prcsh eif Cur Can Cast 'vmtnininn 11 fifYl nunAoc rvff nrA tt-tit haon nift fiAm Conveniently located across the street from the Claremont Hotel (Off Ashby) ynwmui ttUW uuulcj vi guiu iiiat iiau utxu a gu iiuui Napoleon to his sister, Pauline. Edith McCormick's coldness is pointed up by one of Birmingham's accounts. Members of her staff had strict rules never to interrupt her during dinner. The servants, however, were in a quandary one day when her oldest son, John, was ill with scarlet fever.

The child died and a servant interrupted her dinner at her country estate in Lake Forest to give her the news. Edith McCormick supposedly appeared more annoyed by the interruption of her dinner than by the news. Upon hearing the news, she nodded to the servant and continued her dinner. She was obsessed with French and sometimes signed her name, "Edith de la Rockefeller." She started her own kindergarten for upper-crust toddlers when her favorite daughter, Muriel, was 5. She called it "Mon Lycee," and appropriated her mother-in-law's ballroom for the classroom.

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Telephone 8:30 AM 4:30 PM (415)376-4411 Extension 491, or fill out and mail the coupon below. To stop their bickering, give these children their own responsibility WW if: fairly routine basis. Each child's privilege list can be different, or, if they enjoy the same things, one list for both will do just as well. Put each child's privileges in order, from least important to most important, and plug them into the chart, with the least important activity occupying box four, the next most important in box three and so on. Now you are ready to call the children together and say something along these lines: "Guess what, kids? Mom's figured out a way for you two to fight all you want without driving me crazy.

I call it "Problem, Problem, Now You Have The Problem." This chart goes up tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn. It will stay up for one week. Then it will be taken down and replaced with a new one. Starting tomorrow, every single used-to-drive-me-crazy time you guys bicker, fight, tattle, or are rude to one another, I am going to mark a number off this chart, beginning with the number 8. The first numbers, from 8 through 5, are freebees, but you will INCLUDES: INTPvGDUCTJDN TO KEYBOARD HOUR FBEE TRASS FCT Cvh'TRDLLFJS RFWODULATCR FOR T.V.

saint r.iAnvs By John Rosemond Knight News Service CCT1 HAVE A problem that is slowly driving me crazy," a woman writes. "My two children a 10-year-old girl and an 8-year-old boy fight, tease and are rude to each other constantly. Rarely does a day go by in which there are no incidents. To make matters worse, after nearly every fracas it's a game of who can get to Mom first with the most dramatic rendition of 'Poor, Poor, Pitiful "I know I shouldn't referee," she continues, "and I am tired of playing that role anyway. But if I ignore them, the fights only get worse.

If you haven't any good ideas, then at least do the favor of referring me to a contractor who specializes in custom-designed rubber rooms. I am going to need one soon." Your children will stop their constant bickering when you give them complete responsibility for the problem. Not any sooner and not any later. As it stands, the problem is completely yours. The children fight and you go slowly bonkers.

But don't kid yourself. They aren't going to stop fighting because it bothers you. They will stop when it bothers them. It should be clear that the harder you try to solve the problem for the children, the worse it will become. In order to help them stop playing out this scenario, you must transfer the emotional responsibility for the problem from your shoulders to theirs.

Here is an idea: Draw a rectangle large enough to nearly cover a standard-size piece of blank paper. Then, divide the rectangle into eighths and number the smaller boxes beginning in the upper left-hand corner from eight to one. Next, come up with four privileges for each child activity or events they logji forward to participating in on a COLLEGE 4SX APPLE BiCXDPATwCCOOUIX lCKRAMCAKD APPLfOTER DOS SYSTEM MASTER APPLESOFT BASIC APPLE SOFT TUra APPLE SOFT RLTFJINCE wwj H.tiiwrtL TUTOR EXTENDED EDUCATION TlAg notice that your favorite pastimes are written in under the numbers in the bottom row. When you begin losing those numbers, you will also lose the privileges associated with ILFILK3 SYSTEM them. 2H "Every privilege lost is lost until the end of the week.

Office cf Cont1r2in Education P.O. Box 283, Moraga, Ca. 94575 Please send me til the details about your Part-Time Prcgram Uadlr.g to a degree. "Notice that it doesn't matter who starts a fight. When you fight, regardless of the reason, you will both lose.

I am 3 4 if no longer going to play who-done-it with the two of you. You are used to hearing me threaten, but you are not used to having me follow through on a threat. This time, however, I'm not threatening, I am promising. But you will have to Name A Address City State Zip find that out for yourselves. rrr? i W11 1 nun (413)73-0410 t.

Now, instead of fighting with each other for the purpose of getting you involved, the children must learn how to cooperate in order to keep you from getting involved. Aren't Day telephone youdever? 4,.