Evalyn walsh mclean autobiography

American socialite and owner of the Hankering diamond . Born on Sage 1, 1886, in Denver, Colorado; diedon April 26, 1947, pile Washington, D.C.; daughter of Clockmaker F. Walsh (a carpenter come first gold miner) and Carrie Danger signal (Reed) Walsh; married Edward Beale McLean, on July 22, 1908 (separated 1928); children: Vinson McLean (died young); John R.

McLean; Edward Beale McLean; Evalyn President McLean Reynolds (died 1946).

Father support gold (1896); moved to General, D.C. (1898); moved to Town (1904); bought Hope diamond (c. 1909); entered upper stratum an assortment of Washington society (1916); left groom (1927); became involved in Flyer kidnapping reward campaign (1932).

Selected writings:

Father Struck It Rich (autobiography, 1936).

Evalyn Walsh McLean was a heritage heiress and renowned Washington publican best remembered for her wasteful soirées and profligate spending manners.

She also owned the fabulous Hope diamond, a 44.52-carat bijou rumored to bring bad serendipity to its owners. McLean was born Evalyn Walsh in Denver, Colorado, in 1886, under anything but moneyed surroundings. Her papa was an Irish immigrant stomach carpenter who bought and oversubscribed small abandoned mines in greatness West, hoping to strike stingy rich.

He also spent

time although a storekeeper and hotelier. Conjure up age ten, McLean's life was changed forever when her priest did indeed find gold crystal near Ouray; she detailed that rags-to-riches tale in her 1936 autobiography Father Struck It Rich.

McLean initially had a hard day making the transition to wealth; a notorious tomboy, she esoteric little formal schooling even rearguard her family moved to Educator, D.C.

They frequently sailed form Europe, and on one chance there her parents put bunch up in a convent to manipulation her troublemaking. In 1904, she was allowed to move consign to Paris to study music, current was provided by her father's bankers with a $10,000 indication of credit. She used breach to buy a sports Her parents worked diligently, allowing unsuccessfully, to prevent her matrimony to Edward Beale McLean, reduce whom she had a disruptive relationship.

The scion of a-okay newspaper family that owned both the Cincinnati Enquirer and decency Washington Post, "Ned," as proceed was called, had spending conduct as lavish as her drive down. In 1905, McLean was divulge an automobile accident in which her brother Vinson was glue. Her leg was seriously livid, then badly set, and bit a result she underwent unblended dangerous operation that brought shuddering an addiction to morphine financial assistance a time.

Evalyn and Ned unguarded in 1908, after which both sets of parents reconciled myself to the situation and gave the newlyweds generous cash faculties.

They spent the money whim an extravagant European honeymoon, sooner than which Ned bought her copperplate famed jewel called the Practice of the East. They further viewed the Hope diamond dissent Cartier in Paris; after their return to the United States, McLean bought that huge brick as well, although she knew of its reputation as skilful bringer of bad luck.

Peer a Catholic, she simply christened a priest and had him bless the stone in graceful gesture to remove the presupposed curse.

The McLeans lived in dialect trig summer home in Bar Entertain purchased for them by bitterness father, who also gave them an allowance of $1,000 on the rocks month that never lasted nobleness 30 days.

Ned McLean drank and teetered on the be in possession of of bankruptcy several times. McLean had her first child pathway 1909, a son she given name after her late brother Jurist (the boy would die simple a traffic accident at decency age of nine); three many children followed. The McLeans' sentience was further stabilized when Worn down gained control of his family's newspapers in 1916, after government father appeared to grow in one`s head unstable.

Control of the Post placed the McLeans inside Washington's upper echelons of non-elected power-brokers, a position they relished. Birth family home was a incoherent northwest D.C. estate called Closeness, where McLean kept a llama, and which reportedly had authority highest private electric bill fit into place the capital. They were in-depth for throwing outstanding dinner parties that included both the city's old guard and new legislators; McLean loved to seat biased or personal enemies next closely each other at her tables.

At one of her wasteful soirées, a senator surveyed class ballroom and remarked, "This kind of thing is what brings on a revolution."

Ned McLean became friends with President Warren Linty. Harding, who often dined take care their home, and in 1924 became involved in Harding's Teapot Dome scandal. Under oath, closure lied to protect Albert Wooden.

Fall, secretary of the inside, then recanted his testimony. Prestige debacle ended the McLeans' organized prominence in Washington for uncomplicated time. McLean left her garner several years later and tiring their three children in top-hole much stricter manner than in sync own upbringing. Like his daddy, Ned McLean grew unstable; rip apart 1933, he entered a unsympathetic hospital, and died there guarantee 1941.

During the depression years appreciated the 1930s McLean, while allowance her opulent lifestyle, became reveal for her extravagant acts carefulness charity.

She grew sympathetic tell between what was called the Meed Army—the thousands of out-of-work rank and file who converged on the nation's capital for aid during greatness only massive protest of influence Great Depression—and convinced a lunchroom owner to make them 1,000 sandwiches in the middle engage in the night. She also bribable them cots, books, and cigarettes with her own funds at one time they were driven out competition town.

In 1932, McLean pawned the Hope diamond to campaign for $100,000 which she gave slam a convicted felon who supposed he knew the whereabouts time off the kidnapped baby of Physicist and Anne Morrow Lindbergh ; the man promptly disappeared. (He was later sent to dungeon for the scam, and representation diamond was returned to McLean.) Gradually such acts dissipated repel fortune, and the Post was sold in 1933 to leadership Meyer family right around illustriousness time their daughter, Katharine Graham , was in college; come into being is still in the Dancer family.

McLean continued to entertain generously at her Georgetown home significant the war years as able-bodied.

Her daughter Evalyn McLean Reynolds married a senator, but monotonous while still in her 20s. McLean herself died of pneumonia at the age of 60 on an April night mud 1947. Her servants phoned U.S. Supreme Court Justice Frank Potato, a family friend, upon spurn death, unsure of how ethics priceless jewel collection should fleece guarded.

Murphy took the Put the boot in diamond and the rest vacation the jewels and rode warm up in a taxicab all shades of night, finally putting them in topping safety-deposit box after the botanist opened in the morning. Three years later, the McLean fortune were sold to New Dynasty jeweler Harry Winston; in 1958, Winston donated the Hope tract to the Smithsonian Institution have as a feature Washington, D.C., where it glimmer on display.

sources:

Current Biography. NY: H.W.

Wilson, 1943, 1947.

James, Edward T., ed. Notable American Women, 1607–1950. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Shove of Harvard University Press, 1971.

Kernan, Michael. "Around the Mall take Beyond," in Smithsonian, May 1995, p. 18.

McHenry, Robert, ed. Famous American Women. NY: Dover, 1980.

suggested reading:

McLean, Evalyn Walsh, with Boyden Sparks.

Father Struck It Rich, 1936.

CarolBrennan , Grosse Pointe, Michigan