GLORIA SWANSON - THE PATRIOT and HUMANITARIAN

In the late 1930's and early 1940's, the World War II era, Gloria Swanson put at least $25,000 into establishing a company called "Multiprises," with the mission to help Jewish and anti-Nazi scientists and inventors to escape from Europe and set up in the United States. They were working to develop new technologies that would be useful to the United States military.

The actress would be considered a conservative today. She was a Republican who supported the presidential campaigns and of Wendell Willkie (1940, 1944), Thomas E. Dewey, and Barry Goldwater (1964). In 1964, she also spoke at a "Project Prayer" rally in Los Angeles, advocating for school prayer in public schools. In 1980 she activated for the Reagan-Bush presidential election. I speculate her attraction to the Republican party - as it was in those days - was because she was a self made business woman.

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This post is the result of Internet research. 

MARI CALLAS BECOMES FAMOUS - NAZI OCCUPIED GREECE and THE LIBERATION CHALLENGE HER PERSONALLY : HER ATTITUDE ABOUT LOVE

From Chapter 3 and 4 of Lyndsy Spence's audiobook... My notes!  (In this we learn about Maria's take on love and marriage.)

Maria Callas, living in Greece, was already considered an artist and local star in 1943 when she sang at a benefit concert. Recognize in the streets, there was constant speculation about what man would become hers. She dealt with a seriously dysfunctional family, the demands of her superiors and the jealousy and gossip of her rivals at the opera. It is known that she had a romance with a man who she had known for a year, the son of a multi-millionaire who wined and dined her. Maria, whose sister was a Mistress being Kept by a man who supported her and her mother as well, did not want to feel obligated to return the "favors" in a sexual way. Her career was the most important thing to her. Like all of us, Maria was living through history, and in the Spring of 1944 the Nazi occupiers of Greece owned the National Opera. As she succeeded there were rumors that she was involved with an officer or a collaborator. She was in a terrible position. Sleeping with the enemy could put any woman in danger. Any woman living in that time and place was in danger of rape. The Greeks thought the German women were whores and the Germans were thought by the Italians to be barbarians... In tears due to accusations, she threatened to resign from the National Opera. But in October of 1944, came Liberation when the British and American troops came into Greece and Greece-based groups like the National Liberation Front and National People's Liberation Army took part in getting rid of the Nazi Germans. Dating but nothing serious, Maria, her family - most people, faced one of the worst winters in history.

Despite her career, the budding star was in danger of starvation. Having money didn't help because it was worthless. She saw a man die of starvation in front of her. National Opera members who had been collaborators were executed. Women who were collaborators - or suspected to be - had their heads shaved and were raped as punishment... The National Opera was closed. Then the Communists came into the mix and threatened to kill Maria and her mother and sister.  At one point they were down to a box of beans.

So there was Maria, who had struggled with eating and her weight, starving and afraid. Her mother found a job working as a Greek-English translator. But they were living in the "red zone" a dangerous area, and it was easy to be accused of something and pay the price, fair or not.  They lived without heat or electricity, behind drawn curtains, and burning rags for some heat during that brutally cold winter.  Finally a boy disguised as a vendor came to the house to bring Maria out of the "red zone" and into the British white zone. She left and the boy returned for her mother.  In the "white zone" she was able to wash in hot water and eat.  Though in 1945 peace was somewhat restored half a million refugees came into Athens.

Because Maria Callas was raised without a father in her life, there is speculation that this lead to her looking for a father figure in her romances.  She did begin a romance with an opera star who was about fifteen years older than she but denied going to bed with him.  He was married and already had a mistress as well, with whom he had two children. She was on friendly terms with both his wife and his mistress!  Sexual freedom was not a problem for him but she said she was an old fashioned woman.  In an ethereal way, Maria thought love was a kind of purification of the soul.  When he asked her to be his mistress, Maria declined. As she saw it a man might have more than one woman but a woman only had one man... She said she was not about to take him from two women and that she had to have to love with head and heart and only then could have sex. Her mother had a far away husband and a lover.  Her sister was a mistress. What was to happen for Maria? Despite the limitations that this friendship-romance presented, it ended badly, suggesting that Maria and the man were emotionally passionate.

When Maria was demoted at the National Opera and took a pay cut, something jealous rivals at the opera wanted, she secretly plotted her way back to the city of her birth - New York - and sought to make her dream of performing at the Metropolitan Opera true.

She had been secretly writing with her father since 1942 and when he became an American citizen, so did Maria. So, while she accepted the National Opera of Athens and signed a year contract with them in May of 1946, in August she went to the American Embassy where she was recognized as an American.  Still, she had to fund her travel somehow. So she leased a theater and did a farewell concert to earn the money.  She left with a couple dresses and not a cent in her pocket.  A loan from the United States government paid for her travel.

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MARIA CALLAS : HER TEACHER-MENTOR NEGOTIATES FOR HER BUT INSISTS SHE IS TOO FAT : THE YOUNG MARIA LIVES THROUGH WARTORN GREECE

Chapter 3 of Lyndsy Spence's book, Cast a Diva, delves on the very beginnings of Maria Callas' professional career and with the demands of her teacher-mentor at the Athens Conservatory, where she was as a scholarship student of sorts. Because she still needed income, Maria later stated - though the teacher-mentor later denied this - that lodging with the woman meant paying for the roof over her head with housekeeping and dog walking duties. While the Diva-in-training dreamed of someday singing at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, where she had been born, her teacher threatened to dump her as a student if she did not improve her appearance. Loose weight, dress better, fix your hair; these were the expectations.  After all, she was being groomed to be a star.

This same teacher-mentor advocated for her to have income from the Greek National Opera, where she was signed for two years. Maria was to have a job - a steady income - and have her voice protected as she studied by not appearing in their productions. It was a way to get her in and expose the student to the behind-the-scene ways of the opera. Her contract was negotiated as she continued to study at the Athens Conservatory and live with her teacher-mentor. The teenager's career was being carefully managed or she was being controlled.

Her first advocate, her mother, Litsa, complained that Maria only spent her income on music, pastries, and ice cream and was out of control of her eating, just as her teacher-mentor arranged for her to have hairdressing, manicures, and dress making. 

Then war interfered in everyone's lives. In late October 1940, when Maria was about seventeen, the Italians invaded Greece and the Greco-Italian War began. Maria and her family thought to flee to Cairo, Egypt, but Maria was an American citizen and not allowed to leave Athens, which was relatively safe. She was called "That American Bitch" as she began to realize her own talent and fight for herself. She did get parts in the opera in Athens, despite her teacher-mentor's pleas that she be "protected." Then World War II began when in 1941 Germany invaded. When there was a bombing and air-raid sirens went off, the sensitive Maria would vomit. They stayed in Athens.

Still under the age of eighteen, having conspired with her mother to lie about her age, Maria did not report to the Conservatory when she was sexually assaulted and almost raped by a fellow student (never identified).  At home her mother was not sympathetic, only mentioning that if he had raped her then she would have had to marry him and end her career.

Such attitudes are crazy-making to us in Western culture in 2024, but are not unfamiliar to all of us who have experienced some form of sexual harassment during our careers. 

Her world was small. At the conservatory other students called Maria fat and ugly and boys teased her as unattractive. Her mother continued to sew Maria clothing. Maria might have been eating out of garbage cans. In the 1941-1942 era there were food shortages, rationing, hunger. The family ate bread. This too could put weight on and gave Maria the appearance she was not famished. Olive oil and potatoes were procured on the black market by the man who was Keeping her sister and the family. There was always rumor about who was a collaborator because someone had food. People began to die of starvation and eat horses and donkeys.

The Nazi's took control of the National Opera and then Maria lost her contract and income. She had borrowed money from them and then later that year she was reinstated and given the opportunity to be an understudy. Those who had been so mean to her were kept out of the loop.

It was snowing and cold and there was no heating fuel.  The Red Cross reported it. Jews were deported from Thessalonika. 

Yet, opera went on, three hundred miles from Athens, in Thessalonika, where there was begging and prostitution. Maria's virtue was suspect.  So was her sister's and mother's.  Were they involved with Italian officers? Maybe Maria fell in love with an officer? Or perhaps Maria simply was gifted and had not succeeded against all odds without being touched? It's believed that she came home with money for singing for the Italians, though her own mother assumed it was from prostitution.

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THE ARRANGEMENT : EZRA POUND and OLGA RUDGE : WORLD WAR II FORCED EZRA, DOROTHY, and OLGA to LIVE TOGETHER FOR A YEAR

Excerpt page 98:  (1931) It was Ezra's custom to spend late summer and early fall with Olga and Mary in Venice, while Dorothy was in England with her mother and Omar.* Mary recorded her first impressions of those visits in her autobiography, Discretions.....

***

Mary had memories of afternoon walks with her father or going for swimming with him and her mother practicing her violin in Rapallo, setting the table for lunches and collecting flowers, as a child. But when these weeks were over, she was sent back to her foster home.  Mary was raised in that German home.

As the Great Depression deepened Olga sought some other ways to earn income, taking a steno class and seeking work as a translator of written work in French.  Though many of their contemporaries thought this work was beneath her, they were pragmatic too.

George Antheil had work for her in New York - a tour that included travel expenses.  Ezra continued to work on his Canto's.  Eventually the economic conditions improved. In 1939 Ezra went back to the United States for the first time in twenty-eight years. Olga would also have cause to go back to the United States eventually, but they ended their lives in Italy, and together.

***

Page 137 Excerpt:  

While in the United States, he (Ezra) had consulted an attorney to explore the possibility of legally adopting Mary to legitimize her status and secure a U.S. Passport for her, in case they had to leave Italy suddenly. (because World War II was brewing.)  When Olga heard the news, for the first time in their fifteen year relationship she 'put her cards on the table' and stated her position in strong language that could not be misunderstood. "He has put her off every time she tries to get H to consider the subject of the present triangle, she wrote (The couple wrote to each other in third person as if this might keep their communications private.) There was no reason to maintain a "marital front" out of respect for Dorothy's parents, since both were gone. "He has told her He did not believe in marriage ... certainly no church would consider a marriage entered into as He did her. His was, as sacred or binding."  On the brink if war with its possible dislocations, it might be a good time to reconsider legitimize her own - as well as her child's status...

***

Olga was worried that if Ezra adopted Mary she might loose her  A the war began Mary was already in her mid-teens. When in 1944 Rapallo was bombed, deprivation and hunger set in.  Mary, at eighteen took a secretarial job and was on her own. When in May of that year, Dorothy and Ezra Pound were forced to move, along with all their furnishings and possessions, Olga invited them to live with her. The three of them lived together for a year. They attempted to be mature about the situation and Dorothy gave the impression she was not hurt by her husband's relationship with Olga.

***

During the war, Ezra went on Italian radio and made some pro-fascist remarks, which got him charged with treason by the United States.

***

Excerpt page 155: 

Later, after the triangular living arrangement had abruptly ended, Olga recorded her true feelings" "One solid year, Dorothy made use of me to the fullest, shared my house (while) I worked like a slave - cooking, cleaning, finding food - which I only undertook owing to her incapacity, so that E. should not suffer.  I cannot understand the incredible meanness of the way she was behaving... in terror lest I have some advantage over her, considering our respective positions: she, with the war year's income saved up, a family legal advisor to fall back on and right to appeal to any of E's friends for help, a child provided for with no trouble on her part.  I with no rights of any kind - income completely knocked out by war  - high and dry in a country I never would have lived in by choice except to be near E, having to improvise a living with Mary...:

***

Dorothy Pound would prevail as the wife of Ezra Pound for the rest of her life.  Ezra may have also withdrawn from Olga as he aged and their daughter, Mary, married and had children, making Olga a grandmother with a family of her own.  At one point the poet and the violinist did not see each other for seven years nor had Mary seen her father in as long.  As Ezra aged and his physical and mental health declined,  Olga wanted to be there for him.  In particular she wanted to get him out of St. Elizabeth's Hospital, in the United States near Washington, D.C., a mental hospital which she was shut out from, when he was there in the early 1950's.  Olga battled with depression again but managed to make it back to the United States where she got to visit with Ezra, where he was housed in the part of the hospital that housed those with senile dementia. She asked certain literary friends of his to lobby for his release from the hospital.  His legal problems did not make it any easier but his friend Ernest Hemingway suggested it was mental illness that had influenced his behavior and that was the legal path his lawyers took.

In these passages of Anne Conover Carson's book, we learn that Olga paid the price of not being married to the father of her child, a man she long loved, because he would not divorce.

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*Omar was the son of Dorothy and Ezra Pound, who Dorothy had as a first and only child not long after Olga had her daughter with Ezra, Mary.

THE PRINCESS SPY BY LARRY LOFTIS : MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

This book was just so exciting!  The author Larry Loftis did a find job of presenting the authenticity of Aline Griffith (also known as Aline Griffith Dexter) who spied for the OSS, a predecessor to the CIA, during World War II.  A college graduate from a small town in New York who was patriotic and wanted to contribute to the war effort, she became a spy in a coding office in Spain. She managed to do this while also able to hold down a full time job and do a lot of socializing, weaving her life with the upper class and high society of Spain at the time.  

Aline, mixed with the politicians, the bull fighters, the women who ordered luxury clothing from Balenciaga. In the process, she met the man who she eventually married, who came from one of the most prestigious and wealthy families of all in Spain. Though he was simply named Luis Figueroa, as time went on, and his grandfather and father died, he rose to the title of Romanones, as she did. Both Catholic, they married for better or worse and it seems it was mostly for the better. 

On the International Best Dressed list for years, a fashion icon, Aline Griffith, the girl who had graduated from college and become a Hattie Carnegie model in New York, also bore three sons, and did a lot to help the United States and its Allies to win the war in Europe. 

The trouble is that Aline wrote five books in her life, two non- fiction, two memoir, one a novel.  The memoirs and novel were about her days as a spy but she may have changed some things in them to, as they say, protect the innocent, enough so that there was a question about how much truth the books contained.

I confess that I read the all years ago and I loved them. The language was direct and beautifully unique to her and I got a fine feel for her personality and her daring

The author of The Princess Spy knew Aline Griffith had  been accused of making it all up and also questioned if she had ever spied. Before marriage she had told Luis the truth and he laughed it off, so perhaps her femininity and other aspects of her character and behavior threw people off. Perhaps that people could not possibly think she was capable of spying was an excellent cover!

Larry Loftis, the author, used NARA (National Archives) and other sources to verify that yes, Aline really was a spy. Loftis was able to discover the names of the various operatives (spies), and what their code names were, and what code names Aline had given them. He was also able to confirm some of her reportage. Overall, I was a bit disappointed to learn that he did think she had changed so much in her works that they were all fictive. I reason that some of this might have been because her need to protect others but also because what records were kept of the spies by the government was limited. I also know that no memoir or even autobiography is going to cover every moment of a person's life. It's always possible that there was much to be found that was not, maybe because it was destroyed.  And mostly, would any person who spied be willing to tell the whole truth and nothing but?

I want to respect this author, who also wrote another book about a woman who spied, respect for all this effort, but I have to tell you that I still think Aline, Countess of Romanones' books are worth the read. I think she did a fine job of writing them and I would not be surprised if because of those books more women applied to work for the secret services.

Below are just two of her books!

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PATTON BELIEVED HE WAS REINCARNATED

Westerners who were raised in Christianity are told that there is one chance for eternal life and it's this life.  Millions of Westerners, including some who consider themselves to be Christian, have decided that reincarnation  - many lives - makes more sense. Many religions in the past and present do believe in reincarnation and also Karma - the idea that you reap what you sow.  Many people believe that when they bring special talents, skills, or an expertise into this life it's because of their past life accomplishments.  It's not easy to reconcile a special talent for war with spirituality for me, but General George Smith Patton believed he himself was reincarnated as a military strategist ... a genius at war.

A scene from the well regarded 1970 film, Patton, in which Patton reveals he remembers a battlefield and a past life...

"GIRLS" IN THE RED CROSS DURING WORLD WAR II : ONE POINT SIX MILLION MOLASSES DONUTS and MORAL SUPPORT

AUBURN EDU - JULIA RAMSEY THESIS 

Auburn University in Alabama offers submitted graduate thesis's online. Julia Ramsey was in the History Department and this is her thesis from 2011. Her paper is called "Girl" in Name Only: A Study of American Red Cross Volunteers On the Frontline of World War II."  It's about a hundred pages and worth the read. It's about women using volunteer work as a way to expand out of the home.

I learned that Clubmobiles were vehicles driven by women who visited troops, bringing burgers, donuts, cigarettes, and other items to the men in a show of support. Because they were considered to be non-military, these women sometimes got closer to the action than women had in any capacity before. The volunteers were strong, independent, and capable, able to handle being surrounded by men who might flirt and wisecrack with them, but the Red Cross needed to portray them as Girls, nonthreatening, so that they themselves would not be attacked. (The Red Cross has managed to keep functioning due to its helpful, non-military reputation.) 

A "Clubmobile" was thought of as a service club on wheels. The original plan was to provide more - movies, stage performances; think Bob Hope's USO shows to entertain the troops.

Try this on. The troops were likely to see action. These visits were a brief escape from the knowing that they might die.

The first Clubmobile went around the London area in October of 1942. Soon they would go to the European continent.  They were jeeps, buses, and trucks. Some carried a movie theatre on wheels.  American military leaders such as Dwight Eisenhower saw the goodness in this work and wanted their men to have Clubmobile services.

Page 9 and 10 EXCERPT:  (There are photos too!)

The Clubmobile that would be predominantly used on the European continent consisted of a converted 6 X 6 GMC truck equipped in the front half with a doughnut frying machine, six coffee urns, a working sink, running water, a water heater, and a portable field cooking range.

The back half of the truck contained a clubroom with books, a phonograph and speaker, and folding bunks for the women to sleep on when unable to return to their base at night.  .... Each vehicle carried a fifteen day supply of doughnuts and coffee and was staffed y three ARC women, who were responsible for driving, preparing and serving the doughnuts and coffee... Before deployment on the continent, the women staffing Clubmobiles endured a rigorous training period in England where they received instruction in driving and repairing their vehicles.

REMEMBRANCE

 

PATRIOTISM and SENSE OF DUTY AND SERVICE : COLLEGE EDUCATED WOMEN WHO COULD WHISTLE RIGHT BACK AT THE MEN

College degree - one in six accepted - a knowledge of sports and cars. Could she make and take a wise crack and wolf whistle right back at the men?

In closer than army nurses - to the foxholes. Proof that there is good in the world.

THE STRANGE CASE OF "BLOOD AND GUTS" GENERAL GEORGE PATTON and MISTRESS JEAN GORDON : DID HIS WIFE'S CURSE PUSH HER TO SUICIDE?

JEAN GORDON

JEAN GORDON

 Group L Clubmobiler American Red Cross World War II

image from Pinterest

1915-1946

Jean Gordon was the daughter of Beatrice Ayers, Patton's half-sister - the sisters having different mothers. Family ties being what they were, Jean, whose father had died when she was only 8, spent vacations with Beatrice and George Patton and their family. The Patton's daughter Ruth Ellen, who was her same age, was a best friend. Jean was a bridesmaid in her wedding and that of her sister, so she was a close friend. General George Smith Patton was born in 1885 and thirty years older than Jean. You might think that maybe he was a father figure to her.  A father - be it biological or step - and a father figure are not the same and that's important to know. 

The question of whether or not Jean and the very high-profile General were involved is controversial as is for how long the relationship endured. Basically, the family said yes it happened, but some biographies about him by those who perhaps wished to keep him on his pedestal cast doubt, even say he was just bragging. It's my suspicion that the family would know more about his personal life than those outside the circle. Perhaps Jean Gordon's existence in the General's life was also kept secret because it's been said that the General claimed to have "had" her since she was seventeen, and so the relationship would have gone on and on and a seduction could possibly have happened when she was a bit under the age of consent. Years put in, it would no longer be "just a fling." 

Although some sources say this relationship Patton had with a much younger woman happened when he was about fifty and only went on for a year, other sources point to the evidence that it was more serious, more enduring, and more threatening to his wife personally and his marriage in general, than anyone let on.

Why is that so?

As a famous and important man, Patton's biographies were probably written to focus on his military prowess and positive masculine qualities. The soldiers, citizens of the United States and our Allies, looked up to him and maybe if the truth came out that he wasn't also a perfect husband or that another woman was responsible for supporting him emotionally and psychologically during the war, it would have hurt that reputation.

Born in Boston, Jean was called a "socialite." The Patton's were rich.  The Ayers - Patton's wife's family - were rich. Jean's mother's father was a rich industrialist. As such, Jean was a member of the Vincent Club and the Junior League, a volunteer organization comprised of elite women. She was expected to marry well and had many opportunities to meet men. They were upper class people who kept to their set.  After all this man was considered one of the toughest military men in history and his accomplishments in war were outstanding for the United States and her European allies.

Jean was a Red Cross volunteer, a "donut girl", one of hundreds of patriotic young women who wanted to give support for the troops. Though Donut Girls served refreshments to troops, officially a Donut Girl is an American Red Cross Clubmobile Staff Assistant. *** .The Donut Girls were recruited by the Red Cross and were usually college graduates, single, and with the type of personality that could withstand hardship as well as the deal with men. In other words Jean was not silly, delicate, or overly sensitive.

Jean had accomplished much before she began to do this volunteer work. Besides an education, her training included what we used to call Powder Puff Mechanics - checking oil, filling the gas, and changing a flat tire. The Donut Girls were not fluff.  Many who applied were rejected as not having the toughness to endure.

What is especially strange about this relationship is that Beatrice Patton, the General's wife, supposedly went to see Jean after his funeral, looked her in the eyes and pronounced a Hawaiian (Kahuna) curse that she learned while living in Hawaii. Very soon afterwards, Jean reportedly committed suicide in New York City, only 30 years old, and was found with photos of the General laying around her. The other story about her suicide was that she was indeed depressed over the end of an affair but it was some young officer who had jilted her and not the General.

The Patton's had long before World War II, been stationed in Hawaii, from 1925-1928 and then from 1935 - 1937.  Beatrice loved Hawaii.  But how did she learn a curse?

General George Patton was an American war hero, involved in World War I and credited with winning in the European theatre against the Nazi's in World War II. He was called "Old Blood and Guts" and he earned that accolade for his strategies and leadership but also the bloodshed it required to win. War is hell and many soldiers lost their lives fighting, not just the Americans, but Allies, and enemies. 

There was the Holocaust being played out in Europe in which millions of innocent people - Jewish and not - people who were not soldiers signed on to fight in an army - were murdered.  It had to be stopped. 

Although I don't think there will be peace on earth in my lifetime, I'm partial to peace. I feel as if when there is a war, nobody really wins. Humanity doesn't win. The polluted and destroyed earth doesn't win. I hope for a continual de-escalation of conflict, more communication and understanding. What I'm getting to here is, I suppose I don't understand men like General George Patton though I suppose they have proven themselves to be necessary. I also know I'm lucky to have lived without war on my turf.  I rely on our military to protect my nation. I wonder how George Patton kept going when many of us can be slayed by everyday stress - anxiety and depression. What contributed to his enduring ability to go on and on?  What kind of private life, if any, did the busy General who was so often out of town in the business of the military, have?  Was the presence of Jean Gordon in his life what made all the difference?

GENERAL GEORGE PATTON

Image from Wikimedia

Jean was only 30 when she committed suicide, reportedly by putting her head in the oven within weeks of being cursed by General Patton's wife. One report has two aunts of hers saying that when they claimed her body, they found a note that said something like "I will be with Uncle Georgie in heaven and have him all to myself before Beatrice arrives." That sounds like a rather childish statement for a 30-year-old of Jean's caliber, but maybe it's true. And I'm confused by reports of her suicide as a head in an oven and laying on a floor with photos all around you - two reports - seem rather incongruent.

For all that he survived as a military man, George Patton died a couple weeks after having been paralyzed in an auto accident and it seems he knew it was his end. Two women lost a man they loved when he died. This month we'll explore a bit more about the Patton's, their time in Hawaii, Jean Gordon, World War II, and the Donut Girls and their world.

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References for this month's posts come from multiple sources, some of which will be linked to, or excerpted.

If interested in other World War II references here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot, in the archives you'll find topics such as the Mistresses of Holocaust Hero Schindler, Eva Braun the Mistress of Adolf Hitler, Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy, who lost her husband and brother in World War II, and Pamela Digby Churchill Harriman, who during the war was something of a tourist guide to Americans in England. Bring up their names by using the search feature embedded in this blog!

If you're interested in Hawaii, JANE LAHILAHI YOUNG KA'EO : MISTRESS OF KING KAMEHAMEHA III of HAWAII and BEARER OF HIS SONS was our subject June 2021

THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO SAY IT : LADY IDINA SACKVILLE'S LAST YEARS WERE TRAGIC

She had been Mrs. Euan Wallace... and Mrs. Josslyn Hay (He'd since become the 22nd Earl of Erroll) ... She had married and married and married.

Idina Sackville had given birth to three children, two sons, and a daughter. True, people of her class were used to sending their children away to boarding school and having relationships with the children then was dependent on letter writing, if that. Idina had been kept from being involved in the raising of her sons though. She'd made an effort to get to know them as they neared adulthood that went not so well. World events affected her personal life as it did so many others.

World War I had affected her life when her first husband Euan Wallace, had joined up and came back uninterested in her or their marriage. He and his next wife, Barbie, had raised those sons as well as three sons of their own.  

Now World War II would further destroy lives.

In a series of tragic events, Euan Wallace and Barbie's three sons would also not live long enough to produce offspring.  

Lady Idna Sackville's daughter by Josslyn Hay would live to adulthood, did marry, have children, and continued on her matriarchal line.  When she married, the Queen and the Princesses Elizabeth (the future Queen Elizabeth II) and her sister attended the wedding. And so, despite all of Idina's scandal, her daughter did not suffer for her mother's reputation. Perhaps that is because relatives had raised the girl.

Idina's sons were killed during service in World War II. As had been the case in World War I, young men of the peerage did not normally avoid military service for their country. This left Euan, who had been so possessive of them without any male heirs.

Then her first two husbands, the fathers of her children died. Josslyn Hay was murdered and her once best friend, Alice De Janze was a suspect.

These deaths put Idina Sackville into a notable depression in which she did not eat or sleep properly and also developed a nerve disease called neuritis, which was said to be made worse because she lived at her house, Clouds, at high altitudes up the mountain. These high altitudes were also said to enhance the effects of alcohol. Idina Sackville was forced to go down the mountain to live in lesser circumstances.

Of great hope to Idina was that her daughter would come to visit her in Africa.  It was not to be. She died before that could happen!

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Excerpts are from The Bolter, a book by Frances Osborne, the main reference for this month's po

My readers, we are not yet done with the Happy Valley Set. Next month we will turn our attention to another book and another woman of that set and learn again how Idina Sackville's life and hers entwined.

MISSY LeHAND's HEALTH IS RUINED - SHE MAY HAVE TRIED SUICIDE

How serious was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt about Missy LeHand, his personal assistant who is said to have been on call 24/7 for years on end? Known to have a heart condition caused by rheumatic fever, this workaholic woman seemed to not have had a separate personal life due to her total dedication to Franklin, with the exception of Bill Bullit.

In 1941 it all caught up with her and Missy suffered a stroke. After a second serious stroke 17 days later, was no longer able to speak and was paralyzed in her right arm and leg. She had no choice but to step down from her important White House job and the travel it required. Her mental illness issues were considered secondary or caused by her physical ones. She remained in Washington a while and then was sent to Warm Springs to recover.

FDR called in the best specialists and paid all her hospital and nursing bills - eleven doctors - but he was busy with World War II as Hitler had invaded Poland. FDR kept Missy LeHand on the payroll and signed a new will that provided for her medical care, willing one half his income of his estate to his wife Eleanor and the other half to "my friend Marguerite."

He decided to give the building that he and Missy desired to be a Presidential Library at Hyde Park to hold all his papers and memorabilia someday to the National Archives. Giving up on their project together, he called Missy on her 45th birthday in September 13th, 1941. His final in person visit with Missy occurred just weeks later on October 29, 1941. 

He had been spending hours in the White House with Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd.

When Pearl Harbor occurred on December 7th, Missy, who seemed to be improving, with setbacks, called FDR. He didn't call her back.  

Missy may have become suicidal. This was a woman who was used to being in an important  and perhaps powerful position and where the action was.  She was now reduced to living incapacitated and retired. She'd lost 25 pounds, at five foot seven, down to 105, wasn't eating, was depressed and crying. She choked on a chicken bone. She started drinking heavily. She set fire to herself with a cigarette. 

It was decided it was time to send her home to her family. She was taken off the Federal government payroll. The Roosevelts continued to pay for her medical care.

She and Franklin had some brief communications; calls, letters, gifts came, but the the two never saw each other again.  Then the trickle of communications came to that she called and he didn't call back, not even at Christmas. Old beau Bill Bullitt came by to see Missy but FDR had moved on. The woman who had once had a "ringside seat to history" was no longer a player.  It took several women - all working at one time - to do the job she had done at the White House!

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PAMELA DIGBY CHURCHILL and WILLIAM AVERELL HARRIMAN - FIRST and LAST GREAT LOVE?!

William Averell Harriman, an American, grew up in privilege and had money. He was a man who married and married and married - but seemed never to have happiness.  His affair with the married Pamela Digby Churchill probably began at the Dorchester Hotel in London during a bombing raid by the Germans during World War II. Nothing like the fear of loosing your life to make you live life to the fullest.

He had a history of wrong marriages and affairs and mistresses. 

The man had a 2nd marriage with Kitty Lawrence who was ill with TB and not compatible.  He had mistresses and there were rumors of affairs.  Then in 1928 another woman, Marie Norton Whitney was his conquest.  She became his third wife in February of 1930.  She was 26 and he was 38.

Pamela was still married to Randolph unhappily.

Ave was much older than Pamela and not much to look at.  Like her husband Randolph he appeared older than his years.  But Harriman was worth multi millions and he was a courtly and debonair man if not in the best physical shape. Women liked him.

By 1941 he and his wife Marie were no longer intimate and so she didn't blame him for his affairs. 

In fact they were both having affairs.  Pamela even befriended his daughter Kathleen, who was about her age, while having an affair with him.

Pamela's reunion with Randolph, who asked for another chance, did not go well.  They both realized their marriage had been a mistake. She went over to tell her father in law, Winston, that she was getting a divorce.  He understood.

Pamela had volunteered with the Women's Voluntary Services (WVS) as many houswifed did and served as a guide to visiting American dignitaries.  (put in previous post)

page 103  "PAMELA WAS A DOER, NOT A THINKER OR A RECORDER."

Though the affair had to end between she and Harriman, there was Lord Beaverbrook as an intermediary who arranged financial support for Pamela.  Randolph was not much of a financial support for her and his son. He spent his money wildly leaving them in debt.  Harriman secretly picked up the costs of her apartment by depositing money in Beaverbrook's accounts which then made it to pay the rent. The man actually forgot he was doing so perhaps because he had too many millions to keep accounting of and did so for three decades (check fact.  Sometimes it went past due but the Lord would give him a nudge.  She was also given a nice  yearly allowance.  Harriman did well by her...  with a little nudging.

At 22, she had the name, the son - heir, and a good relationship with her father in law Winston Churchill.  She was done with the husband and was supported financially, even as Harriman left town and went back to his life in America.

Years would pass, the allowance and rent continuing, but later in life Pamela and Ave would marry. 

*****

As I read these passages of Sally Bedell Smith's book, I had to wonder.  I had learned that Lord Beaverbrook had many house parties that Pamela had attended.  Why was he so willing to be an intermediary?  Harriman was an American.  Did he need to be told how to treat this young British woman who he had an affair with?  Could there have been a hint of blackmail or pay back involved?

SWAGGER COATS KEEP YOU WARM

ALL SUITED UP IN 1942

RUTH IRENE KALDER : MISTRESS OF NAZI WAR CRIMINAL AMON GOTH

OSKAR SCHINDLER

The Untold Account of His Life, Wartime Activities,

and the True Story Behind the List

by David M. Crowe

Westview Press - A member of Perseus Books Group

(The primary reference for this month's subject)

RUTH IRENE KALDER

Ruth Kalder started out as a secretary to Oskar Schindler at a business he had in 1942.  He brought her along to one of Amon Goth's luxurious parties at the mansion in which he lived in above the death camp at Plaszow. Amon, married with two children, is said to have fallen in love with her at first sight but also told her he would never divorce.  His wife and the children remained in Vienna. She was an actress from Beslau (today Wroclaw, Poland).  Amon was from a well to do Viennese publishing family.  It's said that he had two personalities, one the Viennese gentleman.  His legendary temper could turn fast. 

Ruth loved her rich life at the mansion above the camp.  Her days were filled with horseback riding, tennis, and sunbathing on the balcony that had a view of the camp, a camp she claims to have never visited.  For two years she lived with Amon, and while she may have somehow been blissfully unaware of the killings and whippings that occurred at the camp, many of them carried out by the violent man who loved to kill that she slept beside, she was not innocent of the way he treated his two Jewish maid-slaves, one of whom is depicted in the film "Schindler's List."  She stopped him from raping one of them, Helen, when she came upon his tearing off the woman's clothes off.  It's unlikely this was the first time the woman was raped by him.  One witness depicted in the film, Itzhak Stern, said that the maid Helen was "the most unfortunate of all the inmates at the Plaszow Camp" and that she suffered under Amon Goth "more than ten lifetimes." (Page 261)

Ruth called Amon by his childhood nickname, "Mony,"and is said to have adored him.  She would tell the daughter they had together, Monica Christiane, that he was a ladies man with a beautiful singing voice.  He was hung when Monica was 10 months old, and the truth about her father was withheld from her in her childhood. It became a long painful struggle for Monica to come to terms with the monster her father really was, but since research was being done around Oskar Schindler, she did interviews in which she said that Schindler could never have saved Jews if it were not for the friendship and cooperation of her father.

Ruth told her daughter when she was about 12 that her father only killed Jews for "sanitation" reasons.

 * Along with his wife, this number goes to about 1300.

RIGHTEOUS GENTILE OSKAR SCHINDLER's MISTRESSES : AURELIE SCHLEGEL, EVA "MARTA" KISZA, and GISELLA SCHEIN

OSKAR SCHINDLER

The Untold Account of His Life, Wartime Activities,

and the True Story Behind the List

by David M. Crowe

Westview Press - A member of Perseus Books Group

(The primary reference for this month's subject)

 

That list of women's names up there on the title needs an explanation. 

 

OSKAR SCHINDLER, the man who is credited with saving about 1100* Jews from certain death during the Holocaust, by having them work for him at his factory and insisting they move with him to another, the subject of a film called "Schindler's List," often called director Steven Spielberg's Opus, was a womanizer.  He never took his marriage vows to Emilie Pelzl seriously.  (I don't think most men who have a Mistress are also having one-nighters, flings, quickies, affairs, or are as insensitive to their wives as this man!)  He had a whole lot going on at all times. Oskar Schindler was complicated.  He was possibly addicted to risk.  He somehow made the time for several Mistresses, women with whom he had long relationships with, and his wife, whose book I will include this month, knew it all along. 

 

EMELIE PELZL was 20 and Oskar was a little younger when they met and were married quickly, her farm family more prosperous than his, but both households effected by the terminal illnesses of a parent. Other than attraction and the innocence of youth, it's difficult to know what was behind the marriage really, perhaps pragmatism.  Oskar's father was alcoholic and so was he, a lifelong ailment. I have to wonder if he was self medicating a mental illness. As a new husband, Oskar used most of Emilie's dowry to buy an exotic car manufactured originally for the Shah of Iran, without consideration for her, a car that would be the one they escaped from their factory in when the War, World War II, was over.  

 

From the very beginning of their marriage, and for the rest of their lives, Oskar Schindler had the pattern of a charming sociopath, apparently sexually gifted and attractive, a "Whatever it takes," and "Where's the money?," kind of man who changed his side to the side that was winning more than once.  This is important because there is controversy over if he should have been judged to be a Righteous Gentile (1962 in Israel), ultimately selfless, or not.  Officially, he is, as there were many survivors who spoke up for him.  I do believe it's possible that the atrocities that he witnesses created a profound change in him.  Yet when it came to women, his was a never-ending series of adventures and misadventures.

 

These last few sentences are my opinion, my take, on this perplexing man, rooted in this book, and the author, David M. Crowe, researched extensively, and was eager to let us readers know how the truth and the film varied. In fact, the film did what it was meant to do, got much right, and took artistic license as screen writers and film directors and movie studios almost always do.  I've personally watched it a half a dozen times.  In fact, it was watching the film again, and seeing the scenes in which Oskar Schindler, and his associate, the certifiably evil Amon Goth, who headed the Plaszow Forced Labor Camp, where he indulged himself in daily indiscriminate killing, interplay and have their mistresses, that inspired this month's topic.

 

I wanted to know "Who were those Mistresses?  We're they all really spies? How involved in the murder of Jews and other people taken prisoner were they? Is this another story about powerless women who are trapped in the role society expects of them?"  And so I began to read around the subject, many articles on the internet, as well as some book recommendations.  I'll include the Mistress of Amon Goth, Ruth Irene Kalder, in this month's reading.  Additionally, there are a couple women whose names would not fit on the title bar above who Oskar Schindler is known to have had as girlfriends and Mistresses.. 

 

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In somewhat of a chronological order here are the MISTRESSES of Oskar Schindler that we know about and a little background for each:

 

Oskar and his wife Emilie met in the fall of 1927 and married March 6, 1928.  At the time he was a traveling salesman. They moved in with his parents and younger sister where Emilie was overburdened with family care while he was gone for business. In 1928 Oskar was racing motorcycles. Emilie would spend her life being the dependable, responsible, hard working, and stable one.

  

*************

 

AURELIE SCHLEGEL : After Oskar Schindler married, he went back with a teenage love, Aurelie, a local girl in Czechoslovakia, who he proceeded to have two children with, a boy and a girl.  The boy, named Oskar Junior, may have ended up a mentally ill street person.  It does not seem as if Schindler took any responsibility for the children. This second family and the use of her dowry to buy the expensive car was not enough for the young newly married Emilie to leave him.

Oskar's many jobs included running a driving school. Then spent 18 months in the Czechoslovak army, went back to the sales job he had when he first met his wife, and during 1931-1932 was arrested for public drunkenness, disorderly conduct, assault, and other misdemeanor charges several times. 

 

In 1938, now about 30 years old and just out of prison, Schindler applied to be a member of the Nazi Party. He was accepted as a provisional member February 2, 1939. They overlooked his character and arrests apparently, though he told the truth about having been. He had to prove he had no Jewish blood and that Emilie was not of Jewish blood. From this point his paid work and party affiliation seem to be intertwined. It is thought that Oskar Shindler's assignments lead to the Nazi invasion of Poland in September of 1939.

 

*************

 

1939 - Oskar and Emilie moved to Moravska Ostrava but he kept a separate apartment. Emilie lived in their house from 1939-1941 and then joined him in Krakow.

 

IRENA DVORZAKOWA lived in the separate apartment, which Oskar paid for, though she did work for a steel manufacturing company.  April 1945 was the last he came there, probably the end of their relationship, but she did not move out until late 1945 or early 1946.

 

During this period of time, it's possible that Oskar was a spy.  (In my opinion he could have been a double agent, maybe even a triple agent.) 

 

 **************

 

 

EWA "MARTA" KISZA  (aka EVA KISCH and later EVA KISCH SCHEUER)  Eva is the person depicted in the scene in Shindler's list in which she and Oscar are on horseback and from Lasota Hill and see the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto.  The scene is fiction, but the history happened and it's believed that it was about this time that Oskar realized that the Nazis were committing genocide, that this wasn't just a typical war.  It's possible he believed as most people did that the Jews were being taken to work camps, not systematically murdered.

 

Ewa , the Polish form of Eva, was a Czech from Silesia, an area that had been taken over by Poland in 1939 ( Pg 121)  She lost her job as a teacher and then made her living smuggling goods across the Polish - Czech border. Though she was engaged to be married, in about 1943, she became Oscar's Mistress.  The Polish authotires were suspicious of all the trips she and Oskar made.  She decided to flee to Czecholosvaliea with her fiancée, but the police shot him and killed him when they tried this escape.  She was put into prison in Lvov.  When she was released she went to live with Oskar.  Called "His Wartime Mistress," he set her up in a small shop selling the enamelware that he made such as kettles and bowls.

 

Called Marta, she was complicit in a maneuver in which Oskar took advantage of his Nazi Party affiliation and contacts and in October of 1939, he decided to take over the business of Shlomo Wiener, the owner of the largest kitchenware, ironware, and cutlery businesses in Poland, which he and his brother Julius ran. What Oskar did was premeditated.

 

He had the business signed over to him, returned the next day to tell them he was the Trustee of the business and Marta his representative.  He told Shlomo not to show his face, and had Julius teach him how to run the business.  He paid the two men a monthly salary a bit less than they had paid themselves, and showed up with Marta every day to talk the business with Julius.  (Julius would later call Marta "a soulless puppet, necessary only for official purposes" (Page 128)

Then, the day came in which the generally respectful Oskar, changed, and became verbally abusive and even physically abusive.  Julius was beaten severely by the Gestapo, and black and blue and bleeding, was afraid to leave his house. Soon Oskar cut the brothers off financially, and so they no longer had the means to live.  The Weiners later believed that Oskar helping Jews live in 1944 and 1945 was only to create an alibi for himself! (Page 126)

Marta went to parties with Oskar that Amon Goth threw, lavish parties where there was plenty of food and alcohol, with the death camp he ran down the hill.   (The scenes in the film "Schindler's List" don't begin to reveal his depravity, for which he was eventually tried as a war criminal and sentenced to hanging.


EVA "MARTA" and her brother, along with 7 Jewish workers hoping to find relatives in France or Switzerland, along with Oskar and his wife, escaped when the war ended from the factory, using the car he had bought from his wife's dowry years before, and a truck.  (Page 467)  On the road the women feared being raped by Russian soldiers.  Eventually the party separated.

 

 *********

GISELLA SCHEIN 

AKA GISA

Watch for the upcoming review of the book Where Light and Shadow Meet by Emilie Schindler, Oskar's wife, on the mistress- accommodating marriage.  Oskar took both his wife and Gisa out of the country. But did he take either of them back to Europe with him?







Overall, Oskar Schindler seems to have been out of control of his life in so many ways, I have to remind myself that it is possible that beneath all this personal chaos, he had a heart, and eventually a deeper understanding of his life and times.



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McCALLS RED CROSS UNIFORM PATTERN

MARILYN MAXWELL - FOUR YEAR RELATIONSHIP WITH BOB HOPE - CALLED "MRS. BOB HOPE"

MARILYN MAXWELL
(Marvel Marilyn Maxwell)

August 2 1921 - March 20, 1972

Marilyn Maxwell was a nightclub singer who jump started her career by performing with the OSO to entertain the troops during World War II, became a pin-up girl, and moved into acting in films. She was often the foil for the comedian, be it Bob Hope, Red Skelton, or Jerry Lewis, and deterred comparisons of herself with Marilyn Monroe by saying that she was the blonde with the clothes on.  She was thought of as a "B-picture" actress though her credits run from 1942 to 1971 and include television appearances. 

IMDB FULL MARILYN MAXWELL CREDITS

Called "Mrs. Bob Hope" on the movie lot because they were together so much, according to author Richard Zoglin, their affair lasted four years, and Marilyn may've wanted to marry Bob but you know, Bob never did get around to marrying any of his "Other" women. Marilyn was married three times, according to IMdb, the film database, to MGM actor John Conte, a marriage that lasted two years from 1944 to 1946, then to restaurateur Anders McIntyre, which lasted a bit more than one year from 1950 - 1951, and finally  to writer/producer Jerry Davis, with whom she had a son, Matthew, in 1956.  They were married from 1954 - 1960.

Marilyn and Bob made one film together "The Lemon Drop Kid" in which the now classic Christmas song, Silver Bells, was sung by Bob and Marilyn in 1951.  Seems to me that for some of their relationship they were both married.


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Video added June 2021  From Swing Fever, a film. song One Girl and Two Boys

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OBITUARY FOR MARILYN MAXWELL 

 

Marilyn Maxwell died fairly young of a heart attack. Honorary pallbearers at her funeral in Beverly Hills included Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Jack Benny. You could say that she was well appreciated, even well loved, by the entertainment community.

Was Marilyn Bob Hope's Mistress?

A long term affair with a married man helps qualify her for the title, even if she was married some of the time herself.  Even though it would seem that she had husbands and her own earned income and a career to keep up.  He was far richer than she, and it would seem far more married.