HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1962-10-18, Page 6• When. Ladies Spent
ortunes For Ferns
At the beginaling.cf the reign
the fan was a far less impor-
tant accessory than it had been
in the eighteenth century ax
even in the first quarter of the
ninetoee century. The fans of
,the early nineteenth century
were generally fairly small and
plain, with leaves of thin silk
spangled and lightly painted;
their sticks, also, compared with
those of earlier fans, were plain
and unornamented.
Fans in the eighteenth -century
style reappeared in the 1840's,
fans with sticks of ivory or
mother - of - pearl elaborately
carved and gilded, with leaves
of vellum, each a small-scale,
beautifully executed painting.
The paintings wore copies of
those on eighteenth -. century
fans, or scenes painted a le Wat-
teau, These elaborate fans were
imported from France into Eng-
land; but most of the fans used
in this country during the peri -
o. were imported, from France,
China or Japan.
The most costly and aristo-
cratic of nineteenth-century
fans were made in this eigh-
teenth -century style, batt not all
the surviving fans made in this
traditional style were of the first
quality, The cheaper .Pones had
leaves of painted p a p e r. The
treatment of the painted figures
and their dress will usually, if
compared with an eighteenth -
century fan, reveal the nine-
teenth-century origin, A new
nineteenth-century leaf may, of
course, replace an earlier dam-
aged ane, so that a fan may
have eighteenth -century sticks
and a nineteenth-century 'leaf.
By the 1860's the fans was
more generally fashionable and
popular, and there are fans of
gull kinds from this period, Many
of the cheaper fans are attrac-
tive and are more essentially of
their moment than the costly
fans executed in the grand man-
ner, Amongst them are fans of
crepe with spangled decoration,
which had reappeared in the
1850's ... The famous firms of
Duvellcroy and Rimmel sold
plain fans for this purpose of
Ivor y, or the cheaper, white -
enamelled wood. Small brise
Sans of sandalwood, which were
the fans of outdoor use, were
also painted. Flowers and birds
were the usual subjects for their
decoration.
Feather fans were popular in
the 1870's. Feathers of many
different kinds appear in fans
Orr this date — cock's, peacock's,
pheasant's and pigeon's. There
are examples oaf painted quill
Tans froth the 1840's, but fans
which make decorative tette of
contrasting kinds of feathers of
different natural shading and
patterns, a n d of natural and
dyed feathers, are likely to be
of the 1870's.
Fans with leaves entirely of
bobbin or needlepoint lace be-
came fashionable in the 1860's
and remained fashionable until
the end of the century. At the
Paris Exhibition of 1878. lace
fan were by far the most nu-
merous amongst the fans exhi-
bited, and fans with leaves of
finest needlepoint and bobbin
lace rivalled the ceremonial fans
of the eighteenth -century tradi-
tion in costliness during the last
quarter of the century — From
"Victorian Costume and Costume
Areetseries" he Anne Buck.
ISSUE 40 — 1962
TEXANS CHEER KENNEDY — President Kennedy, in Houston to inspect the Manned
Spacecraft Center, speakes to a crowd of 45,000 in the Rice University Stadium,
Yellow Attempts Fail
Just How Low Can
To Smear President
Journalism Get?
Ever since the heyday of eel:
low journalism, the sense of re-
sponsibility of the American
press has been more censured
than praised. For political profit
or for readers' pennies, sensation
has often triumphed over relia-
bility.
But for the last sixteen months,
virtually every major newspaper,
magazine, and wire service in the
U.S. has refused to publish a
sensational report — familiar to
hundreds of thousands of Amer-
icans and millions of Britons —
about the President of the United
States, They have spiked the
story despite what appears at
first glance to be "documentary
evidence" and despite scattered
publication of it—or hints at it
— by hate groups and gossip
columnists,
The "story" falsely alleges that
before he married Jacqueline
Bouvier in Newport, R.I., on
Sept. 12, 1953, John F. Kennedy
was secretly married to a two-
time divorcee.
The story first appeared in a
beatnik Greenwich Village mag-
azine of slight circulation, "The
Realist," dated March 1962, and
headlined "The Story Behind the
Rumor About President Ken-
nedy's First Marriage,"
It next turned up in an anti-
Semitic, anti -Negro Atlalbama
gate sheet called '"Phe Thunder-
bolt" Under a headline Ken-
nedy's divorce exposed! Is pre-
sent marriage valid? Exoom-
inunication possible, the "official
White Racial organ of the Na-
tional States Rights Party"
charged the President was "sec-
retly divorced" before he mar-
ried Jacqueline Bouvier.
In June it appeared in another
racist sheet, The Winrod Letter,
published in Little Rock, Ark.,
by the Rev. Gordon Winrod, son
of a Kansas Fascist, the Rev.
Gerald Winrod, indicted under
the Sedition Act during World
War II. The same month it ap-
peared in a Tennessee weekly,
and in July was broadcast over
radio station WAIL in Baton
Rouge, La.
A story on this broadcast was
moved by one wire service, Unit-
ed Press International, on July
24, 1962, and was promptly killed
three hours later. The UPI log of
July 28, 1962, said "a thorough
investigation by UPI .. eomple-
FIRST ESCORT -- New type Soviet armored car waits in rear
CIS a Soviet officer standing in a jeep focuses his camera at
Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, waiting clearance by an Allied
sentry The Soviets supplied their own escort for three armor-
ed cars for the first time as they made the daily trip to the
Sovic,t weir memorial.
tely disproved reports of a pre-
vious marriage by President
Kennedy," Last month United
Features columnist Henry Tay-
lor distributed a column on the
"marriage," branding it false.
The syndicate sent a "kill" order,
and only one paper ran the story.
No one of these stories, nor all
of them together, achieved any
national circulation, because the
same "evidence" had been found
wanting by a dozen national
news organizations — ranging
from The Chicago Tribune to The
New Republic, including News-
week, Time, The Washington
Post, The Washington Star, the
Cowles papers, The New York
Daily News, Scripps -Howard,
The New York Times, The New
York Herald Tribune, and U.S.
News and World Report.
The story first reached a na-
tional audience on September 2,
when the Sunday supplement
Parade, distributed in 70 news-
papers, published a letter from a
Palm Beach, Fla., reader asking
"once and for all, will someone
please tell me the truth" about
reports of a previous marriage
by the President.
Parade said the ruiners were
false, The British press then
front paged them.
Then the aging dean of key-
hole columnists, Walter Win-
chell, reprinted the Parade item
in his syndicated column and
asked: "Why hasn't the White
Hotete debunked it?"
What was the basis of the ru-
mors that so intrigued Winchell
and the hate sheets? The "evi-
dence" is contained in one parse
graphed on page 884 of an ob-
scure, privately printed family
history, "The Blauvelt Family
Genealogy," written by a mem-
ber of the tenth generation,
Louis L. Blauvelt, who died at
82 a year before the book was
published in 1957. Contrary to
published reports, the book is
readily available — and in unu-
sual demand—in the Library of
Congress, the New York City
Public Library, and elsewhere.
In tracing the history of the
Blauvelts, who migrated from
Holland in 1838, one entry under
the eleventh generation reads:
(12,427) DURIE (Kerr),
MALCOM, (Isabel 0, Coop-
er, 11,304). We have no birth
date. She was born Kerr, but
took the name of her step-
father, She first married
Firmin Desloge, IV. They
were divorced. Durie then
married le John Bersbach,
They were divorced, and she
married, third, John F. Ken-
nedy, son of Joseph P. Ken-
nedy, 'one time Ambassador
to England. There were no
children of the second or
third marriages.
, The third "marriage" never
took place.
The only mystery is why Louis
L. Blauvelt, in his confused
chronology, said that it did. The
answer may well lie in Blau-
velt's family records, now in the
custody of his daughter, Mrs.
William K, Smith of East Or-
ange, N.J. Blauvelt kept doc-
umentation for every entry in his
book, Under the entry for the al-
leged
marriage to "John I. Ken-
nedy," there is only a'n old Blip-
ping gram a Miami gust ;p "oI-
umn, reporting Miss Malcolm
and ,young Jaelc Kennedy had
been seen in a restaurant richt
after World War 11.
One Blauvelt in-law described
r ibert
the [miry to Newsweek as "just
I one colostal ! I ake." He said:
"It wart likely that the old man
Inc ne rl the idea in his head taw.
ing
re-
ing th ct clipping, and the ttnnily
hadn't had anyone lamous far a
long mala."
President Kennedy and !Misr;
Malcolm (now, and since July
1947, married to socialite 'l'hrnn-
as Shevliu of Palm Beach and
Newport) have denied the etcr;y
privately. They have been reluc-
tant to issue a public denial for
fearof giving a further circula-
tion
Je addition, scorers of reporters.
working tncierwndclltly before
the story was ever publicly
printed, have found no evidence
to support Blauvelt's statement.
In fact, they found this addition-
al evidence proving him Mac -
curate:
Miss Malcolnm's maiden name
was Malcolm, not Malcom,
She first married Bersbach,
then Desloge, not vice versa.
She married Shevlin before a
Justice of the Peace in Fort
Lee, N.J., in July 1947 — five
months after divorcing Desloge,
ten years before the Blauvelt
Genealogy was published — and
yet this marriage was not even
noted in the genealogy,
This evidence 'kept the story
out of the responsible American
press. But irresponsible groups
keep printing it to this day, thus
putting the President into a pos-
ition where he is damned if he
denies the story and damned if
he doesn't,
His dilemma is even more
acute since information in files of
the FBI and Secret Service indi-
catee other organizations have
been distributing hundreds of
thousands of specially photostat -
ed, 4 -page folders entitled "The
Blauvelt Family Genealogy."
A major distributor is the
Christian Educational' Associa-
tion, headed by Conde McGinley,
publisher of what the FBI calls
"the vitriolic hate sheet, Com •
-
mon Sense." Others include
Right Brigade, described by the
Cleveland police department as a
"crackpot" organization a n d
headed by Allen Paul Steiger, an
early organizer of the John
Birch Society in Cleveland, and
the Valley Paper Co„ of Holyoke,
Mass., whose mailings are han-
dled by Hubert W. Kregeloh, an
associate editor of "American
Opinion," the magazine publish-
ed by Robert Welch Jr„ founder
of the John Birch Society.
In Washington, many congress-
men—and such organizations as
bhe American Gold Star Mothers
—have received folders mailed
anonymously from Wilmington,
Del., and hand -stamped "Why
the furor to confiscate all re-
pords on President John F.: Ken-
nedy's first marriage?" The
same mailings contained a type-
written note: "We feel this in-
formation is too important to be
suppressed. Have your own nega-
tives made, and distribute copies
to your entire membership,"
One woman wrote the White
House to report that she found
copies of "The Thunderbolt"
where she worked—at Republi-
can Party headquarters in Salt
Lake City, Utah.
"What is the law that allows
these people to disgrace the
country?" she asked.
Like many another confused
citizen who has written the
White House, she received a
simple reply: "The President has
been married only once—to his
wife, Jacqueline Kennedy."
The President and Mrs. Ken-
nedy—who celebrated their
ninth wedding anniversary last
month— are philosophical about
the "Blauvelt campaign." They
recognize that it is motivated by
extremist groups and circulated
for political purpose,
from NEWSW1iEK
No Wondieir The Cost
Of Living Goes Up
Some things lust shouldn't oc-
cur. Not long ago I broke a piece
on my spring -tined cultivator,
and this turned out to be a major
problem, It's more than frustrat-
ing to get involved in some of
these things, but I had some corn
still to do, so I went at it. This
cultivator was manufactured
away back in the forgotten past
of 1939, and is today what the
trade calls an orphan.
The maker amalgamated with a
competitor, then sold out to a
subsidiary, which merged with
the main company, and they
changed the name and went to
making storm windows, On the
part I broke is a magic number,
A0-207. The original purchase
was predicated, of course, an the
implied warranty that if I ever
broke my A0-207 1 could go
right to the nearest dealer and
get another A0-207 and install
it quickly by taking up three
bolts.
What 1 had to do, instead, was
forget all about A0-207 and go
find a structural steel plant and
beg the man to cut me out a piece
that would be shaped like AO -
207, He was working on a bridge
for a state highway bond issue
and reluctantly turned to oblige
me. It cost him money he said,
to pause and accommodate these
charities. I felt badly, because the
original parts list that came with
my cultivator showed that A0--
207 cost only 65 cents in 1939,
It made me feel a good deal
better about my bothering the
steel man, 'though, when he
charged me $3.85 for a rough, ap-
proximate copy of A0-207, I did
not feel he was wasting his time
as much as he said he was. But
the piece had rough edges from
his torch, and I had to hold it
against my emery wheel at home
and smooth it up so it was safe
to handle. I then took it to a
blacksmith shop and asked him
to drill three holes in it. I could
have taken it to a machine shop
I tangled with once, but I hesi-
tated to undertake this with the
corn growing.
Well, first a man comes out
and introduces himself and asks
if he may be of service. He
doubles as personnel director. He
wears a neat frock with his
name on the pocket, and he has
a clip -board. He takes down your
name and address, color of your
eyes, and your preference in
politics. He writes these things
all down and inserts the slip
into a clock which punches on
the phases of the moon and the
closing Dow -Jones average. Then
he gives you a number which will
be called out over a loud speaker
when your job is ready, or which
may be turned in on a later day
to reclaim it. It took three days
there one time to get a grease
fitting screwed into a hole in the
bearing on my cement mixer, and
then I had to supply them a fi-
nancial statements from the bank.
So I went to a blacksmith this
time, instead. Heretofore, all the
blacksmiths I have known were
people, but this has changed, too.
The blacksmith w es sitting at
little bench with a loupe screwed
in his eye, filing on a thin eistmas-
nthorseshce wheel ire said was.
for a pacer at the fairgrcunds,
and he couldn't help me a bit
until after the fifth race. During
the season he said, he was in
great demand, 1 noticed he had
a station wagon to pull the little
trailer in which he carried hie
portable forge for paddock calls,
and his assistant was weighing
nails on a goldsmith's balance.
The racehorse, I gathered, was
heavy on the left side and would
need considerable careful qor-
rection.
I left my piece of metal, with
a template to show hint where to
bore the holes, saying I would
return on the Friday. I hoed a
few rows of corn in the mean-
time with abated enthasiasci,, but
weeds won't wait.
The blacksmith said on F_iday
that he was terribly sorry, but
the press of important things had
kept him from his shop work.
Things were piling up on him,
and if he could just nave a rainy •
day, , , . Why didn't 1' step in
again on Tuesday? I hoed some
more and went back Tuesday,
And he had done a beautiful job
— he had successfully bored three
holes of the precise diameter
needed, in exactly the right
places, They were nice end round,
and they went, ell the way
through, If I had owned a drill -
press, I couldn't have made them
any better myself, although it
would have taken' me all of five
minutes, and I would have saved
myself $3,00, That's what he
charged me, A dollar a hole. i
admit they were nice holes, but
when you 'have seen one hole
you have seen them all, pretty
much, and 1 couldn't see that his
were any better than some ethers
I've looked at. I told hint he
ought to get a clean frock with
his name on the pocket aid a
time clock, but he smiled,
There are things in this world
which do not reasonably lend
themselves to the great forward
thrust of affairs, When I bought
my cultivator in 1939, with its
A0-207 I did not intend tc in-
volve myself in such expensive
and time-consuming intricacies as
progress has developed. I hoped
to remain a simple country boy
to whom a cultivator is a basic,
uncomplicated implement, de-
signed for a plain, rudimentary-
task.
udimertar -task. It had been my belief that
I could get a new A0-207 any
time, speedily, for 65 cents. If you
can't trust an A0-207, where are
you? — by John Gould in the
Christian Science Monitor.
WHAT A MAN!!!
When Columbus started out,
he didn't know where he ware
going. When he got there, he
didn't know where he was. When
he got back, he dietiet know
where he had been. And he diad
it all on other people's money.
What a politician Columbus
would have made today!
Obey the traffic signs — tu:,v
are placed there :or Y C et le
SAFETY,
EVER HAPPEN TO YOU?
By Bloke
`CNE CRICKET !AUNT Bur JUST. W-IE141
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