AS THE MONEY BURNS

Podcast by Nicki Woodard

Episode 135 – Birthday Wish, Part 2 of 2

Outline

Birthday party dinner

Kidnapping threats

Series Tag

00:00

[Music – My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands]

AS THE MONEY BURNS is an original podcast by Nicki Woodard.  Based on historical research, this is a deep exploration into what happened to a set of actual heirs and heiresses to some of America’s most famous fortunes when the Great Depression hits.

Each episode has three primary sections.  Section 1 is a narrative story.  Section 2 goes deeper into the historical facts.  Section 3 focuses on contemporary, emotional, and personal connections.   

00:29

Story Recap

Doris Duke has finally come into the first part of her fortune, but the only things she really wants are her father and an accordion?

Now back to AS THE MONEY BURNS

Title

00:51

Birthday Wish – Part 2 of 2

[Music Fade Out]

Episode Tag

A big birthday with a big inheritance comes with more attention and trouble.  So would a birthday party even be worth the risk?

01:03

[Music – Top Hat, White Tie and Tails by Carroll Gibbons & Boy Friends, Album Sophistication – Songs of the Thirties]

Section 1 – Story

[Music Fade Out]

01:23

Part 2 of 2

The richest girl in the world, the tall no longer awkward heiress Doris Duke has finally come into the first part of her fortune.  Now everyone is trying to find out what she will do next.

No big celebration was held the day of, but a formal party might be forthcoming.  That is unless other matters don’t interfere beforehand.

01:48

Saturday, November 25^th, 1933

Over in Philadelphia, crowds gather to watch the Army – Navy football game at Franklin Field.  From their box, heir and industrialist “Atty” Atwater Kent, Jr. watches the game with President Franklin Roosevelt’s daughter Mrs. Curtis Dall (maiden name Anna Roosevelt).  Within the 80,000 gathered, the Secretary of War, the superintendent of Annapolis, a different West Point graduate, and America Cup winner Harold “Mike” Vanderbilt with his new wife are among the notables spotted in town.  Army wins. 

02:27

For one after party, heir to two fortunes “Jimmy” James H.R. Cromwell hosts a dinner at the recently reopened Whitemarsh Hall.  His mother Eva Stotesbury and stepfather E.T. Stotesbury will entertain there for another round of holiday traditions before heading down to Palm Beach for the winter. 

Jimmy’s ardent plans to seduce and marry Doris seem to be on pause as he is nowhere near the heiress for any celebration.  Her socially ambitious mother Nanaline Holt Inman Duke suspects that Jimmy and the Stotesburys are no longer as wealthy as they present, so she can relax only a little bit.  One must always be suspicious whether any declaration of love is from the heart or to replenish a flat pocketbook.

03:13

In the meantime, the sheriff delivers another present for Doris at Duke Farms in New Jersey.

Court papers are served seeking damages relating to dog bites.  Mrs. Cinina Rafaela (alternates Cimina or Fafeala) claims she was attacked by 4 Great Danes at a water fountain near the front of the Duke Farms estate.  After several vicious bites, she now suffers paralysis in her arm.  The lawsuit also sues both Doris’s older half-brother Walker Inman and estate superintendent J. Irving Shaffer.  The total amount requested $30k includes $25k for damages and for Rafaela’s husband $5k to reimburse medical expenses (today a total of $749.5k for $624.6k in damages, with an extra $124.9k for medical expenses).  The attack happened on September 17^th, 1932 – the incident or attack is not alleged, but the nature and extent of damage and the amount of expenses are questionable.

04:14

More not so pleasant reminders, other news articles point out again the recent kidnapping threats this last summer against Doris and a much lesser heiress Janet Snowden, after the latter’s brief 5 day marriage to an Italian prince.  For Nanaline, the only fate worse than a kidnapping is a poorly conceived marriage with a broke suitor, royal or not.

Someone is always scheming to get money, whether injured parties, romance scams, and of course kidnapping,… 

Which goes back to the most famous unsolved kidnapping of the era.

04:53

Sunday, November 26^th, 1933

After some work with the League of Nations in London and Paris, Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh hop back into their plane.  They zigzag from place to place as they inspect potential aviation routes to aide in developing a transatlantic American – European air mail service.  This current journey ends upon their safe arrival in Cape Verde, Africa

Despite their focus on the future, the unsolved kidnapping and murder case of their firstborn son remains high in public interest.  Back in October 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt announces the FBI will take over the investigation into the Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping Case.

05:37

Meanwhile another kidnapping case has a very different outcome in San Jose, California.

Only hours earlier, the mutilated body of recently kidnap and murder victim 22 year old Brooke Hart is recovered near the San Francisco Bay.  Son and heir of a local department store owner, the popular Hart had gone missing weeks ago. 

Hart was kidnapped on November 9^th with a ransom demanded despite he was already dead hours into the crime.  On November 16^th, the kidnapper-murderers are arrested and quickly confess.  Fearing potential vigilante justice they are moved to a safer location.  They are indicted on November 22^nd.

06:17

Then this morning 4 days later, Hart’s body is found by duck hunters along the Alameda County shore.

Now a crowd gathers around the Santa Clara County Jail.  After 9pm a mob breaks out led by a boy in his teens.  Tear gas does not detour the anger.  Rocks are thrown back in retaliation.  Water hoses by the mob are used on the jail.  For two hours, the sheriff and 50 officers withstand the siege, barricade the inside, but are eventually breached.

By 11 o’ clock, the crowd reaches the second floor.  Police try to hold them off behind the heavy steel door.  However the angry and determined mob use a heavy steel battering ram which breaches a brick wall.  Within minutes, they are at the third floor jail cells. 

07:05

The vigilante mob of 5,000 drag confessed slayers Thomas H. Thurmond and Jack Holmes from their jail cells.  In the street, the two men are stripped and beaten.  The prisoners are forced on a death march down alleyways to St. James Square where ropes are thrown over the sycamore trees.  Lynched on opposite north and south sides of the public park.

Over 10,000 watch the bodies hang.  Several women faint at the spectacle.  The crowd waits good and long to make sure both are dead. 

An hour later, the fervor finally dies down, and the crowd dissipates allowing the authorities to reclaim the bodies.  Some take bits of tree branches as souvenirs.

Shortly afterwards, California Governor James Rolph, Jr. announces there will be no prosecutions for the participants as justice has been served.

The madness of crowds can never be guaranteed.

08:04

Monday, November 27^th, 1933, New York

Outside the Duke mansion, a somber aspect greets passerbys whose bent heads fight the frigid gales of wind rushing down Fifth Avenue.  Little can be seen from the streets, yet a small crowd still gathers in anticipation of getting a peek at those crossing through the double glass doors.

Inside bright lights blaze for the energy heiress.  Fairly modest decorations include flowers in the reception hall and high on the dining room walls.  Dressed in livery uniforms with buttons embossed with a large “D,” footmen greet the thirty-one guests.  The very select and prestigious group includes the now glamorous no longer chubby fashionista Princess Barbara Hutton Mdivani, her new husband ruggedly handsome Prince Alexis Mdivani, the ever charming Prince Serge Obolensky, Grand Duke Dmitri, along with the previous birthday companion Mrs. Shonnard.

09:09

First arrival, Mrs. Allan A. Ryan Jr. wears a tiara and a black velvet wrap over a metallic gown.  Second arrival, Wall Street wizard Harrison Williams and his wife Mrs. Harrison Williams, who stays warm in a hip length luscious sable over a trailing brown chiffon dress.  Mrs. Allen Gouveneur Wellman wears a long ruby velvet coat with sable trim, a white frock, and white tulle over her graying tresses.  Lady Mendl in long sable cape and tulle headdress to protect her hair.  Famed society hostess Elsa Maxwell in black chiffon dress and black velvet coat.  Chic and pretty Mrs. Robert McAdoo protects her hair with circular veil while exiting her limousine.  Other guests are in glittering tiaras and sables.  Doris again wears traditional white, but the question remains did the often unadorned richest girl wear her new tiara?

10:07

As for the description of the evening activities, only soft music and a cake with candles are mentioned.  In fact, Barbara’s attendance seems to be the most exciting part of the birthday soiree.

What is noticed by everyone though rarely stated out loud, that Doris has no designated male companion.  Even one astrologer predicts Doris might not have much luck in that area unlike her fellow Scorpio Barbara.  Though barely a week apart, much is made of the variation of Barbara’s moon in Capricorn and five planets to Doris’s moon in Aries and three planets with a bigger year predicted for both from 1934 to 1935.

Somewhat mischievously, some newspapers hint that Doris herself might eventually marry a newly available Mdivani prince.  Both Prince Serge Mdivani and Prince David Mdivani are newly divorced and in need of new fortunes.  Could the heiresses be destined as sisters-in-laws?

11:09

Beyond the birthday activities, other more romantic news features Barbara’s cousin Woolworth Donahue and his fiancée Dorothy “Dottie” Fell will postpone their wedding until Dottie’s aunt arrives from London after Christmas.

Days after the birthday party, Cholly Knickerbocker rehashes over several different news articles the accordion gift and how that has thrilled Doris most as she throws herself into having music lessons.  Noting Doris cannot yet play “Lost Chord” or “Stormy Weather,” Cholly playfully dubs her “society’s richest accordion player.”

Probably the only thing worse for Nanaline than the accordion would be the bagpipes.  But just give Doris a little more time.