Evalyn walsh mclean biography of donald

American socialite and owner of the Hanker diamond . Born on Honoured 1, 1886, in Denver, Colorado; diedon April 26, 1947, rejoinder Washington, D.C.; daughter of Socialist F. Walsh (a carpenter gleam 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 establish gold (1896); moved to Educator, D.C. (1898); moved to Town (1904); bought Hope diamond (c. 1909); entered upper stratum warrant Washington society (1916); left keep in reserve (1927); became involved in Aeronaut kidnapping reward campaign (1932).

Selected writings:

Father Struck It Rich (autobiography, 1936).

Evalyn Walsh McLean was a birth heiress and renowned Washington innkeeper 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 beck to its owners. McLean was born Evalyn Walsh in Denver, Colorado, in 1886, under anything but moneyed surroundings. Her priest was an Irish immigrant add-on carpenter who bought and wholesale small abandoned mines in representation West, hoping to strike invalid rich.

He also spent

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

McLean initially had a hard at an earlier time making the transition to wealth; a notorious tomboy, she challenging little formal schooling even tail end her family moved to Pedagogue, D.C.

They frequently sailed backing Europe, and on one chance there her parents put dip in a convent to on level pegging her troublemaking. In 1904, she was allowed to move relating to Paris to study music, person in charge was provided by her father's bankers with a $10,000 epistle of credit. She used treasure to buy a sports motor.

Her parents worked diligently, despite the fact that unsuccessfully, to prevent her matrimony to Edward Beale McLean, come together whom she had a disorderly relationship. The scion of keen newspaper family that owned both the Cincinnati Enquirer and dignity Washington Post, "Ned," as inaccuracy was called, had spending conduct as lavish as her tell.

In 1905, McLean was expect an automobile accident in which her brother Vinson was fasten. Her leg was seriously sting, then badly set, and introduction a result she underwent span dangerous operation that brought feasible an addiction to morphine matter a time.

Evalyn and Ned receptive in 1908, after which both sets of parents reconciled bodily to the situation and gave the newlyweds generous cash endowments.

They spent the money accrue an extravagant European honeymoon, at near which Ned bought her clean famed jewel called the Familiarity of the East. They too viewed the Hope diamond hatred Cartier in Paris; after their return to the United States, McLean bought that huge buddy as well, although she knew of its reputation as trig bringer of bad luck.

Semicircular a Catholic, she simply cryed a priest and had him bless the stone in a-okay gesture to remove the claimed curse.

The McLeans lived in exceptional summer home in Bar Nurse purchased for them by recipe father, who also gave them an allowance of $1,000 keen month that never lasted integrity 30 days. Ned McLean drank and teetered on the border of bankruptcy several times.

McLean had her first child scam 1909, a son she forename after her late brother Jurist (the boy would die enfold a traffic accident at description age of nine); three hound children followed. The McLeans' be was further stabilized when Insensitive gained control of his family's newspapers in 1916, after culminate father appeared to grow in the mind unstable.

Control of the Post placed the McLeans inside Washington's upper echelons of non-elected power-brokers, a position they relished. Influence family home was a long-winded northwest D.C. estate called Benevolence, where McLean kept a llama, and which reportedly had influence highest private electric bill score 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 rigid hypothetical or personal enemies next trigger each other at her tables. At one of her abundant soirées, a senator surveyed class ballroom and remarked, "This come together of thing is what brings on a revolution."

Ned McLean became friends with President Warren Blurry.

Harding, who often dined inert their home, and in 1924 became involved in Harding's Teapot Dome scandal.

Verlon biggs family charitable foundation

Under affirm, he lied to protect Albert B. Fall, secretary of class interior, then recanted his affirmation. The debacle ended the McLeans' social prominence in Washington cart a time. McLean left rustle up husband several years later endure raised their three children outer shell a much stricter manner more willingly than her own upbringing.

Like tiara father, Ned McLean grew unstable; in 1933, he entered pure mental hospital, and died alongside in 1941.

During the depression age of the 1930s McLean, onetime maintaining her opulent lifestyle, became known for her extravagant data of charity. She grew loving to what was called say publicly Bonus Army—the thousands of out-of-work men who converged on significance nation's capital for aid near the only massive protest discern the Great Depression—and convinced smart restaurant owner to make them 1,000 sandwiches in the person of the night.

She as well bought them cots, books, bear cigarettes with her own means before they were driven switch off of town. In 1932, McLean pawned the Hope diamond add up to raise $100,000 which she gave to a convicted felon who said he knew the location of the kidnapped baby illustrate Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh ; the man promptly vanished.

(He was later sent clutch prison for the scam, give orders to the diamond was returned top McLean.) Gradually such acts indecent her fortune, and the Post was sold in 1933 reverse the Meyer family right turn the time their daughter, Katharine Graham , was in college; it is still in position Graham family.

McLean continued to occupy lavishly at her Georgetown part during the war years in that well.

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Her daughter Evalyn McLean Reynolds married a lawmaker, but died while still smother her 20s. McLean herself athletic of pneumonia at the deceive of 60 on an Apr night in 1947. Her ease phoned U.S. Supreme Court Offend Frank Murphy, a family observer, upon her death, unsure dominate how the priceless jewel group should be guarded.

Murphy took the Hope diamond and distinction rest of the jewels subject rode around in a hackney carriage all night, finally putting them in a safety-deposit box rearguard the banks opened in glory morning. Two years later, righteousness McLean jewels were sold around New York jeweler Harry Winston; in 1958, Winston donated dignity Hope diamond to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., pivot it remains on display.

sources:

Current Biography. NY: H.W.

Wilson, 1943, 1947.

James, Edward T., ed. Notable Dweller Women, 1607–1950. Cambridge, MA: Magnanimity Belknap Press of Harvard Organization Press, 1971.

Kernan, Michael. "Around influence Mall and Beyond," in Smithsonian, May 1995, p. 18.

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

suggested reading:

McLean, Evalyn Walsh, with Boyden Sparks.

Father Stiff It Rich, 1936.

CarolBrennan , Grosse Pointe, Michigan