Where is the piece on your parents?

Notes on Mother and Father. This post is subject to change as I will edit it as I add to it.


I was definitely a winner in the "Parents" lottery. Those who don't/didn't know my parents may think differently if they judge them by the superficial scandals such as their divorce (totally scandalous!)and their paths in life after the divorce...........

Both came from old monied, families and they actually grew up together - Their Grandparents were business partners.

Mother (Ma) came from a European background - based in Germany & England, (think Burke's Peerage, Burke's Landed Gentry, and Almanach de Gotha (pre-war edition) and the New York Social Register) with business interests in the USA, though a large part of their income was from land in England and factories in Germany. Her family were much more "intellectual" and social than Father's. No one ever had a "profession" in that family - just scholars, writers, and rich guys that threw money at investments in between safaris (Grandfather was a friend of Frank Buck's and Teddy Roosevelt's)and polo matches. Her grandmother (an American) kept a noted Salon in Paris before marrying and continued it in New York after she married. Ma's mother died when Ma was young and her step-mother, though the widow of a prominent Italian (and mother of three sons), was not very socially connected in the USA, her title not withstanding. But Great Grandma's salons kept us well supplied with every social ilk imaginable. Politicians, painters, sculptors, writers, "cafe society", actors and actresses, statesmen (there were few stateswomen at the time if you discount Eleanore Roosevelt), Governors, Presidents, demimondaines, racetrack touts (my step-grandmother married one after my grandfather died - her third husband) - in short, anyone who was INTERESTING passed through my life at an early age.

Ma was raised with literally buckets of money.......she had a lady's maid until my early childhood. She had all the advantages of money - education (USA and Europe), travel, social entree into just about any place, she was presented at the Court of St. James, had a huge coming out party, etc. All that was "expected" of a young lady of her background. Including getting engaged, than married to Pa when she was 19 and no longer a debutant..............


Pa's family on the other hand were stuffy, stodgy Knickerbockers who claimed (politely of course) that the only TRULY old American families have roots in the original Dutch settlers. They "channeled" Queen Victoria until the Diamond Jubilee - of her DEATH! Once again,Burke's Peerage, Burke's Landed Gentry,and the New York Social Register - but NEVER anything as vulgar as Almanach de Gotha. As a side note - my grandmother was a lady from the tips of her well jeweled fingers to the toes of her custom made shoes......would not say sh*t in public if stepped in it. A Grande Dame of the old school............who also had numerous affairs (so did Grandpa), secretly smoked Camel cigarets (NO lady smoked) and had a fondness for Irish whiskey......in her youth she was once arrested for driving a buggy filled with drunken German sailors into the front of a draper's shop in London. Grandpa was the heir to an abundance of real estate and the Funeral Home and Cemetery business .................. Starting in 1846 my family made a "killing" from death. They lived a very closed and almost incestuous social life (Gram wouldn't talk to the Vanderbilts or the Astors - they were the nouveau riche and she never forgave the Stuyvesants for marrying into "that" class). Every male in the line had a "Profession" - never anything as vulgar as "trade" (what the hell is selling coffins?), they ran toward diplomats, university deans, professors, curators, doctors, lawyers, and the clergy. Every female was a brood mare, chosen to have scions, bring money and more social connections to the family, and then just stand there in designer clothes (my great grand mother was one of Charles Worth's first American clients) and jewels and be decorative. So Pa was brought up with strict social mores and he did what was expected of a young man of his social position as well - boarding school, prep school,University in the US and England (preparing him to inherit the family businesses of real estate management and planting dead people in other plots of land) , military service, and of course, getting engaged to and marrying the Deb of the season, Ma.

Religion was a small sticking point. Ma's family was purely Church of England (Low Church), from the day Henry created it. Pa's family was strictly Roman Catholic until the break with Rome, then, as Royalists, they went with the Church of England (High Church), but with closet Catholics (which you didn't talk about). This was historically true in his family until his grandfather married his Scots grandmother. She was a Calvinist (acceptable!) until shortly after the first of her five children was born. Then her Stewart/Stuart blood took over and she became a "rabid" Roman Catholic - even had a chapel installed in the NY townhouse and in the house on the Island. And she made sure that her children all married "good Catholics". When my parents married, Ma agreed to become a Catholic (AFTER the wedding), and to raise her children as Catholics. But as she was NOT YET a Catholic, they had to be married at the altar rail, not at the altar............which prompted my Great Grandmother to spout dire warnings about the future of their marriage............some of which actually came true! When I was born and baptized a few years later, my father showed his first rebellious streak ............. I was baptized a Methodist. I never learned WHY he chose METHODIST, but it was an obvious slap in the R.C. faces! He was "forgiven" for it because his family thought it was my mother's doing. But when my brother was born and Pa had him baptized as a Lutheran, all hell broke loose. It was common consensus among the family and the Church that "I" was a "slip" but my brother was a "SIN", so Pa's family never really recognized him as morally "legitimate". My father was eventually ex-communicated from the Church for that, among other things. The one thing Pa DID do that I will NEVER forgive him for is my "legal", full name ......... almost 200 letters, complete with hyphens and umlauts (my brother's was just as bad)........thank God for pseudonyms!



But all told, Ma and Pa had a reasonably "happy" marriage for what it was - two people who were living out what was supposed to be their predestined positions in life. They had two children (my brother and me, Ma lost one before me, one after me and one after my brother), and lived a monied, very social life. We lived in my maternal grandfather's house n Manhattan, with a "cast of thousands" as Ma put it. Housekeepers, butlers, footman, parlor maids, kitchen maids, scullery girls, a tweeny, a boots, a driver, a nanny AND a nursery nurse, and Ma's lady's maid (I hated that old curmudgeon). Except there was not much money left after the war and the times, "they were a'changin"!

Hello Mansons! Have enjoyed your posts for years on the Antiquers boards and have now read your site here from end to end. Thanks for making me very unproductive !

You have a way of writing that makes the reader feel they are right next to you, having a chat. Please tell us more about your early American relatives (on your Father's side, right?). Were they inventors, did any run for public office? Have any old stories from those early years passed down to you by your relatives? Tell us more!