Episode 25: Unlucky Stars
Their fates have changed, but somethings will always remain the same. Every year birthdays come and go. Will our heiresses celebrate and make a wish for a better tomorrow?
Away at their boarding schools, Barbara Hutton and Doris Duke are ignored and forgotten on their birthdays. Eventually, Barbara celebrates with her loyal servants, while Doris gets a visit with her brother Walker Inman. Meanwhile both girls are unaware that several classmates won’t be returning after the holidays.
Archival music provided by Past Perfect Vintage Music, www.pastperfect.com
Publish Date: March 04, 2021
Length: 20:03
Opening Music: My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands
Section 1 Music: Sweet Sixteen And Never Been Kissed by Blue Mountaineers, Albums The Great Dance Bands & Play Hits of the 30s
Section 2 Music: You Started Something by Billy Ternent & Sam Browne, Album Elegance 2
Section 3 Music: The Very Thought of You by Al Bowlly, Album More Sophistication
End Music: My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands
AS THE MONEY BURNS
Podcast by Nicki Woodard
Episode 025 – Unlucky Stars
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.
00:27
Story Recap
The good times of the Roaring Twenties abruptly end with the Wall Street Crash. While Cobina Wright struggles to understand her loss, teen heiresses Barbara Hutton and Doris Duke face the ongoing complexities of school.
Now back to AS THE MONEY BURNS
Title
00:46
Unlucky Stars
[Music fade out]
Episode Tag
00:50
Their fates have changed, but somethings will always remain the same. Every year birthdays come and go. Will our heiresses celebrate and make a wish for a better tomorrow?
01:00
[Music – Sweet Sixteen And Never Been Kissed by Blue Mountaineers, Albums The Great Dance Bands & Play Hits of the 30s]
Section 1 – Story
[Music fade out]
01:13
Thursday, November 14th, 1929, within the dorms of Miss Porter’s school in Farmington, Connecticut, a fuss is made by giggling girls preparing for a celebration. They sneak around getting a card signed. They pause as they cross Barbara’s room, then move onward.
The chubby budding fashionista teen heiress Barbara Hutton tries to ignore the commotion as she scribbles into her poetry book.
She can hear the singing from the common room – the birthday song. The birthday girl exclaims surprise.
Compounding her loneliness, Barbara heads out for her daily walk. It’s her birthday too, but no one seems to note it. No one ever seems to note it.
01:54
When Barbara returns to her dormitory, she passes through the mail section and spots her empty box. That might be preferrable. If she ever gets a nice dress or bauble, there’s far too much scrutiny. Envious and hungry eyes want to take her things. Only she gets accused of showing off.
Besides, Barbara doesn’t understand the criticism. She thinks its fabulous when her Aunts Jessie and Marjorie wear their furs and jewelry. Pretty, sparkly, shiny things make her happy. Why should anyone else care? No one ever sees her for her.
Friday rolls around, and the other birthday girl gets a visit from her family. All sweet and loving, the picturesque perfect family. That girl leaves for the weekend, as plenty do. When Barbara takes another walk, she passes the other girl’s room with an open door revealing it’s half empty inside. Oddly strange,…
02:50
Over a week later Friday, November 22nd, in Aiken, South Carolina, the tall and awkward teen Doris Duke suffers alone in the dorms of Fermata, a female boarding school that does not boast the same academic challenges of Manhattan’s Brearley, her previous school.
Furious over Doris’s perpetual faux pas and blunders, her socially ambitious mother Nanaline has banished Doris to this desolate place where the seemingly high achievement is that a girl makes her own bed. The illustrious classwork also covers the important topics of pouring tea, table setting, household management, and horseback riding. Even the unfashionable Doris who prefers dungarees detests the hideous uniform of green tunic, bloomers, and gray socks.
03:34
Supposed to rival Farmington and another prestigious school Foxcroft, in contrast, Fermata was an unpleasant mix of the nouveau riche and the far passe granddaughters of the former Southern slaveowners of yore. The latter whose social graces and snobbery Nanaline wants Doris to acquire.
03:52
Like most boarding schools, Fermata is full of other girls who come from money, though none are near the astronomical sum surrounding Doris. The other families’ past might have been a more illustrious sort as Nanaline favors. Despite the Duke family roots in nearby Durham, North Carolina, and her mother being from Georgia, Doris is considered a Northerner and is not allowed to forget it. Despite its relatively recent founding in 1919, Fermata is the supreme remnant of the old segregationist South. A far more dark and dim school that further isolates Doris from classmates. She inherited her father’s more open attitude to colorblind interactions, thus Doris is continually at odds with her fellow students.
04:34
Previously, Doris and her two other friends Dorothy and Roseanna would sneak out the windows with forbidden bottles of wine. The silly antics of teen girls. However neither friend returned for the fall 1929 session.
Miserable Doris stares out the window watching the odd gardeners, none as cute as the one at Rough Point. No, these gardeners hardly do any gardening – as they are actually Doris’s security guards and private detectives.
05:01
When cars drive up the tree-lined entrance of Whiskey Road, the other classmates rush to see who might be arriving, but Doris has long learned it will never be for her. It is a dreadful existence. Nanaline never visits her daughter.
When she hears a squeal, Doris casually glances outside and sees to her surprise – none other than her half-brother Walker Inman. She rushes out to greet him.
Walker has arrived to escort her for a small birthday celebration before heading off for the holidays together. She sees the other girls staring out at the window – a cute male on campus is always desirable. The one thing enviable no matter the social or economic status.
05:41
Doris ignores the other girls also packing up and leaving for the holidays, only those girls seem to be taking everything they own.
Happily, Doris returns to the nearly empty Duke Farms in Somerville, New Jersey. She immediately heads to the hothouse to check on the various plants. The dull Fermata curriculum leaves much to be desired. Doris loves horticulture and botany and finds pleasure in seeing the plants go through their various stages, even the now dormant one for winter.
06:12
Back in New York, Barbara returns to her Manhattan apartment on 1020th Fifth Avenue so that she can attend her aunt’s planned Thanksgiving dinner. The place is quiet, as her father Franklyn and his wife Irene have their own equally separate apartment. Yet that hardly matters as they are travelling abroad with no immediate plans to return.
For this evening’s dinner, Barbara sits alone at the long table. Eventually, she moves to kitchen’s adjacent servant quarters. There the staff throws her a mini-birthday celebration with a cake.
With her big blue eyes, Barbara stares at the candles and blows hard. Making a wish. She refuses to tell her companions, but they already know what she wants.
06:52
It’s a fairly small affair. The ever faithful, utterly devoted, and surrogate mother – the matronly French governess Ticki pulls a letter out of her pocket and gives it to Barbara.
Immediately, the young heiress recognizes the distinct stationary. It’s a letter from Russian Prince Alexis Mdivani. Did he remember her birthday? Even if he didn’t, the timing was perfect. She hopes he has reunited with her beautiful friend Silvia. Wouldn’t that be the perfect wish come true?
Barbara hurriedly runs off to her bedroom to read with Ticki in tow.
07:26
While Barbara and Doris remain in their isolated bubbles, they are unaware that over these same holidays several classmates are being pulled permanently out of school by their families as they are no longer able to afford the tuition after the Crash.
Did the birthday girls’ wishes come true? Or do they envy the relative freedom and escape those girls now have despite the circumstances?
07:49
[Music – You Started Something by Billy Ternent & Sam Browne, Album Elegance 2]
Section 2 – History & Historiography
[Music fade out]
08:02
There was a saying the only time a lady gets her name in the paper should be – her birth, her coming out, her wedding, and her death.
Barbara Hutton didn’t get the dignity of the first but after her coming out at the end of 1930 she would be far too much the subject in the papers for multiple reasons and mostly not too flattering. She would later remark her birth was the only time the newspapers left her alone.
08:26
Barbara was born on November 14th, 1912. The only child of Franklyn Hutton and Edna Woolworth. Edna was the middle child of five and dime store magnate Frank Woolworth. Edna would pre-decease her parents due to her suicide which would eventually leave Barbara as the sole recipient of Edna’s portion of the Woolworth estate. It seems Barbara’s first press mention might have only been found as a comment within another nearby birth announcement – Doris Duke.
08:52
Little over a week later, Doris Duke would be born on November 22nd, 1912 much to the delight of her father Buck Duke, as the papers readily announced. Buck was described as the happiest and smilingest man as a first time father at age 57. Further delighting Buck, Doris was designated the richest baby born in 1912, the same year the Titanic sank.
09:17
In one newspaper column, Doris was listed above the other notable young heirs. In utero Titanic survivor John Jacob Astor VI, aka Jakey, inherited $3 million also born in August 1912. Birdie and William Kissam Vanderbilt II’s son the William the Third, or WK III, at $60 million in 1907, Edward Eddy Vinson McLean at $50 million in 1909 but his young death in 1919 would add to the mystique surrounding his mother Evalyn Walsh McLean’s Hope Diamond, John Nicholas Brown of the Newport Browns at $10 million but anticipated to eventually gain $50 million. William Randolph Hearst’s 3 children would likely divide the fortune to roughly $25 million each. However Buck’s sole child Doris would be worth nearly $100 million from the beginning.
10:08
Due to the immense wealth attached to her name, Doris would endlessly be reported in the papers. As a little flower girl in her cousin’s wedding, little events she attended, and several puff pieces alluding to her extravagant life, which read like fantasies because they sometimes were.
10:24
Barbara would finally appear in the papers as a little girl in relation to her future fortune being invested in some common stocks. Seriously, a five year old’s stock investments mentioned after her mother’s suicide. Barbara’s name would pop up more because of its association with the Woolworth fortune and the speculation of her investments. Almost sounds like an advertisement for her uncle and father’s stockbroker firm EF Hutton.
10:48
Born so close together and with massive fortunes attached to their names, Barbara and Doris spent their lives being compared to each other. In some ways, they might be the only other person to truly understand their situations. Both struggled in school especially in socialization with their peers. They transferred to multiple schools. As young girls, they went together to Miss Spence in Manhattan along with our Reigning It Girl, socialite, and debutante Louise Van Alen. But that was only a short stint.
11:15
Doris attended both Brearley and Fermata. The concrete dates are hard to pin down. They indicate she left Fermata in 1929 or graduated in 1930. Another source references an event in 1925. I’m bound by lack of money and recently pandemic immobility to get more detailed validation. In Doris’s biographies, Brearley gets more specific references and other student accounts, and later Doris would donate to the school, hence it was the chosen school in the Episode 23 Lessons Not Learned. As for Fermata, she spent her last 2 academic years there, completely miserable. When the school burned down in 1940s, Doris threw a party celebrating its demise.
11:59
Barbara similarly remarked on the awful ostracizing behavior of her classmates and misery at school. Neither girl was good at making friends, preferring solitary isolation and only 1 or 2 close friends and confidantes.
12:14
It seems Barbara and Doris also shared the same unlucky stars. Now if you are into astrology, then you would notice that both Barbara Hutton and Doris Duke would be considered Scorpios. Their astrological charts can be found online. When reviewing a few of them, they are more the typical description of how their sun, moon, and planetary alignments will influence personality and experiences. I didn’t see the direct correlation or tie into their actual lives. Sort of understandable as that would be a bit more applying or forcing the connections of known events, when astrology is meant to help navigate the present and future. People want a guide and explanation to life.
12:52
Since before history, people have been staring at the stars, leading to the development of calendars as well as divining signs. Ancient Egypt followed the stars to predict the flooding of the Nile, while Ancient China followed the stars to see portents and omens in eclipses, solstices, and other celestial events. The Ancient Babylonians by 1500 BC had 12 signs, which were later incorporated into the better known Greek horoscope system which begins the year in Spring with the sign Aries.
13:23
There are past rulers who heavily believed in astrology and consulted mystics. French Queen Catherine de Medici was patroness of Nostradamus, who didn’t divine prophecies on stars but rather other intuitions and observations of human nature. Doris would later become very interested in various mystical religions and practices.
13:42
On a lighter note, the known birthday traditions developed over the millenia. Ancient Egypt had birthday like celebrations for the pharaoh, more in relation to his coronation and metaphorical birth as a god than actual physical birth. Later, Romans would celebrate the birthdays of males and who at age 50 get a special cake, while females would not be celebrated until around the twelfth century AD / CE, Common Era. Christians first opposed birthday celebrations due to their pagan affiliations but eventually adopted.
14:13
18th Century Germany would start the tradition of the birthday cake along with candles for each year alive plus one. (Yes, remember the Christmas tree originally had candles for lights.) The birthday cake tradition became more popular with the affordability of flour and sugar due to the Industrial Revolution.
14:30
The first known version of the birthday song was written in 1893 by two teachers and later published by Robert Coleman in 1924. It has only recently entered the public domain – a long history of copyright infringements and issues surrounded it for decades, including ownership by Michael Jackson.
In general, birthdays were rather small events except for certain notable figures. Until the more recent massive party explosion that has taken over the last 2 decades especially in the time of social media.
14:59
However in the past there would be certain birthdays with more significant purposes. Sweet 16’s, quinceaneras, bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs, debutante balls… Mostly signifying a young person’s entrance into adulthood and especially marital eligibility.
For 1929 and at age 17, Barbara and Doris’s birthdays are nothing of special note. And being so close after the Crash, focus would definitely be elsewhere.
15:25
However this next year will be the most important year of their lives – the one that sets the path to adulthood. For females, that primarily meant marriage. The debutante ball and coming out activities are all about showcasing the eligibility of a young lady and establish her social rank all in order to make a match.
Only now the rules have changed, and our heiresses and their world haven’t quite caught on. Their current relative anonymity and invisibility will soon be lost in far too much attention.
15:57
[Music – The Very Thought of You by Al Bowlly, Album More Sophistication]
Section 3 – Contemporary & Personal Relevance
[Music fade out]
16:07
There’s so many things that could be covered in this section that it gets a bit hard too choose. Do I go more personal or broader in perspective? With recent circumstances, it feels more relevant to consider the larger context of their and our situations.
Whether we could predict or not the circumstances we now face through an ongoing lockdown, economic crises, political and social disruption, and the never ending power of Mother Nature, it’s hard not to get swept into desperation and confusion. If lucky, it’s a small pity party over trivial things.
16:40
But honestly, it has been no small feat. The loss of loved ones, growing financial debts, mental and physical issues, and whatever else… Compound that with a culture screaming to cancel any form of alternative viewpoints, with the personal shame which consumes so many as eloquently described by Brene Brown’s research, and the compulsion of toxic positivity always trying to force someone to find and identify the bright side of things far too soon.
17:07
We are all experiencing the aftermath of trauma whether primary and directly or secondary and vicariously.
Sometimes, we just need a moment to breathe and say yes I need to wallow, I need to vent, and I need to process my emotions just as they are. Connect with the humanity and vulnerability in us. Instead of turning against each other, let’s remember to turn towards the humanity deep within us all.
17:34
If any of you remember, I’m a multi-generational Texas girl living in Los Angeles. I recorded my last narration the night the cold storm hit impacting family and friends. I finished the episode while checking from afar on all that was happening.
By Thursday, the worst was over even though some damages still needed further assessment. My mom called me that morning, and her first question out of her mouth after she spent days being Goldilocks in search of heat and a shower, “Is it out yet, did you finish your podcast episode?”
She and her friends wanted the distraction.
18:09
I hope in anything that might be troubling you, you find your way through it. I know dark times take us all. My true goal behind this podcast is to give a brief respite from or validation for whatever you are going through. I know in my darkest times, I needed that too.
18:26
We are all in a lull, waiting for the next drop of bad news, the need for sunshine and something positive, and yet forever in limbo until the more concrete changes begin and restrictions lift. When the time comes, we will have to find our strength to face our next brave new world.
18:45
This week The Eff Your Fears podcast features an interview with me discussing the situations behind creating As The Money Burns. Hostess Ashley Monique Menard covers subjects related to fears, creativity, and becoming your best self. Check out in your podcast directory and at her website effyourfears.com. Links also provided via asthemoneyburns.com website.
Hook
19:14
[Music – My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands]
Next when we return to AS THE MONEY BURNS…
The Crash has come, and the doom it brings will consume many. As the holidays approach, many wrestle with their new circumstances. For some, their despair will become far too much.
Until then…
Credits
19:33
AS THE MONEY BURNS is an original podcast written, produced, and voiced by Nicki Woodard, based on historical research. Archival music has been provided by Past Perfect Vintage Music, check out their website at www.pastperfect.com.
Please come visit us at As The Money Burns via Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Transcripts, timeline, episode guide, and character bios are available at asthemoneyburns.com.
20:03
THE END