By
John A. Dalles
I. Once Upon a Time in
The sunbeams streamed through the windows early that March morning. They stretched across the floor, and brightened the rumpled sheets of the bed. March mornings are almost always sunny in South Florida. Cross the ceiling, reflections from the rippled waters danced. Glittery white diamonds of light. Outside, everything was peaceful. The quiet that comes with a new day.
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| Hunt Estate - Sunset Island I - Miami Beach, Florida |
Inside, it was quiet, too. The figure of the woman lying in the bed did not move. Did not stir with the morning light. In fact, it would never move again. Never stir.
The woman was dead. Lying on her stomach, her face buried in the crook of her arm.
It wasn’t until the maid arrived with her breakfast tray that she was found. And then, the commotion ensued. By that time, the sun was high in the sky, because she did not like to breakfast early.
The household was summoned. The woman’s husband, from his own bedroom down the hall. The woman’s brother-in-law, from the guest-room, where he stayed so frequently it was considered his own. Phone calls were made. Officials arrived. The scene was examined. And then, the body was taken away.
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| Hunt Estate - Gateposts |
It was a rare occurrence for that neighborhood. A gated enclave of fabulous homes. Nestled beneath towering palms. Perched alongside the sapphire waterways. Sunset Island I, they called it. One of the more spectacular settings in spectacular Miami Beach, then and now.
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| Hunt Estate - Courtyard and Front Facade - Miami Beach |
It was unusual for there to be an ambulance and police car in the courtyard driveway of such a home. Neighbors watched, discreetly. They did not wish to be thought of as gawking bystanders. But they all wondered what might have happened.
Before long, the news began to spread. The woman was Mrs. Edmonds Ethan Hunt. Well known in social circles. Stylish. Young. Beautiful. The wife of the owner of the Miami Chris Craft Corporation, whose headquarters on Alton Road were less than two miles away, either by car or by speedboat.
Word trickled out that she had died during the night. Rumors spread about the cluster of official cars. One word kept being repeated. "Suffocation". A word at once ominous, frightening, and perplexing.
What did it mean?
Of course, the news made the papers. And not just the local papers. The story was picked up and printed all over the USA. Because Mrs. Hunt was not just the wife of a successful yacht dealer. She was also an heiress to a fabulous fortune.
Her grandfather had been one of the leading industrialists of Pittsburgh, a friend and business associate and neighbor of people like Andrew Mellon, Henry Clay Frick, and even more so, a lifelong friend of Andrew Carnegie. Her grandfather's name was Robert Pitcairn.
The Carnegie family and the Pitcairn family had emigrated from Scotland to the United States on the same ship, the former whaler, “Wiscasset”.
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| The "Wiscasset" former whaler that brought the Pitcarin and Carnegie families to the United States from Scotland - scrimshaw drawing |
On the long, uncomfortable 50-day voyage from Glasgow to New York, the crew attempted to mutiny. Grandfather Pitcairn helped to restore order. They landed on April 14, 1848. Andrew and Robert were both boys at the time. They had known each other in Scotland, beforehand. The desire to find a better life for their families was a shared goal of the Carnegies and the Pitcairns.
Both of these men succeeded well beyond their wildest expectations, in making the American dream their own. From humble beginnings, by means of a combination of hard work, good luck, applied energies, and engaging personalities, both men had risen to the pinnacle of their chosen fields of endeavor. Theirs were real-life Horatio Alger stories.
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| Andrew Carnegie |
They each married and had families. At the outset, Robert Pitcairn’s was quite a bit larger than Andrew Carnegie‘s. Both saw their families grow, in the same social circles in Pittsburgh. Both had done everything that they could to provide for them during their lifetimes, and in the years thereafter.
In that regard, they had done quite well. But in the end, everything that Robert Pitcairn had been able to do for his family died on that sunny Saturday March morning, once upon a time, in Miami Beach.
II. Family Roots
Susan Lee Crabbe Hunt died in her bed, in her home, in Miami Beach, on March 2, 1940 (per the death certificate; her gravestone says it was March 3). She was still young, only 36 years old. Susan’s maternal grandparents were Robert Pitcairn and Elizabeth Erb Riggs. Robert Pitcairn had been born on May 6, 1836, in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland. His wife Elizabeth Erb Riggs was born on December 30, 1841, in Lewistown, Pennsylvania.
Through a series of fortunate events, and a friendship with Andrew Carnegie, Robert found a pathway in life that yielded tremendous success.
As a boy, Robert Pitcairn was taught frugality, honesty, and self-reliance. Like Andrew Carnegie, young Robert Pitcairn held jobs as messenger, telegraph operator, and employee of the Pennsylvania Railroad. He went to night school to further his education, and was quick to lean the telegraph alphabet, and “to read by sound.” In describing the young Pitcairn, one author wrote, “He wore his character in his face; focused, determined, steady, just, true.” There are no accounts of his life that vary from this glowing assessment.
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| Robert Pitcairn |
In 1849, Robert Pitcairn became a telegraph operator for the Atlantic and Ohio Telegraph Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The job came about at the recommendation of Andrew Carnegie, who had held the position before him. Robert was 13 when he began this job.
In 1853 at the age of 17, Robert Pitcairn entered the employ of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the company for which he would work for the remainder of his life. At first, he was stationed in Duncansville, Pennsylvania. There, he was both telegraph operator and agent of the railroad.
Duncansville is a community older than Altoona, situated eight miles south of that city. Samuel Duncan was the first person to sense that there might be potential to develop a town at the site. In 1830 he bought property on the west bank of Blair Gap Run, where he platted lots. He named the place for himself: Duncansville. Meanwhile, Jacob Walters came to the area and settled on the east bank of Blair Gap Run, where in 1820, he built his log homestead which, two hundred years later, is the oldest known structure still standing in the borough. Walters also platted lots, calling his budding town Walterstown.
Before long, a rivalry and no little confusion developed between the two places. In order to simplify the matter, both men agreed that the town should go by only one name. So in 1836, they decided to flip a coin to determine what name would be chosen. The local populace turned out en masse, on the wooden bridge connecting the two towns. A coin was flipped. Tradition has it that the Duncans had heads and the Walters had tails. The coin came up heads. Duncansville was the winning name.
Pitcairn’s career advanced rapidly. He worked for a time stationed at the old Mountain House hotel, in the vicinity of Hollidaysburg. The Mountain House was a thriving and bustling establishment, due to its fortunate situation near the terminus of the portion of the Pennsylvania Canal from Philadelphia to Hollidaysburg, and the fledgling railroad which succeeded it.
"In the olden times, when the Portage Railroad crossed the mountains, and Hollidaysburg was in its glory, its Mountain House was the terminus of canal and afterwards railway travel at the eastern base of the Alleghenies."
Many 19th century travelers have described the unique process of mastering Pennsylvania's mountains via the Portage Railroad. One account says:
"...we are tugged, two or three miles, over a steep ascending grade, the foot of the first inclined-plane. Here the cars are attached to endless wire-rope, winding round large iron wheels, placed horizontally, at each end of the plane. When all is ready, a signal is given to the engineer at the head of the plane, who immediately sets stationary steam engines in motion, and the rope begins its accustomed travel. It is prevented from touching the ground by numerous little wooden wheels, which revolve rapidly whenever the rope falls low enough to touch them. The ascent is soon made, and the same process is repeated at each of the other planes At first, the novelty of the operation excites some interest, but this gradually wears off, and the slow progress in traveling produces a feeling of impatience."
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| The Portage Railroad |
From its inception in 1834 until its demise twenty years later, the Portage Railroad made Hollidaysburg an important community, and the Mountain House its only hotel worth mentioning. So, there the Mountain House stood, as passengers paused in their journey in order to prepare to be hoisted up and over the Allegheny Mountains via the technologically ingenious Portage Railroad.
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| The Mountain House - Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania |
A sprawling building right alongside the railroad tracks, designed in a decidedly Greek Revival style, the Mountain House welcomed travelers going east, as well as west, in about as grand a style as could be mustered in the early 1800s. It also stood in a position of importance as the rapidly expanding Pennsylvania Railroad focused on the rail route over the mountains, which required the building of the new marvels of the Gallitzin Tunnel (begun in 1851, completed in 1854) and the Horseshoe Curve (begun in 1850, completed in 1854). Both continue in use, today. The completion of these marvels led to the Portage Railroad being abandoned as obsolete. The new Logan House hotel at Altoona took away the traffic at Hollidaysburg. And the Mountain House thus lost its clientele so rapidly it became practically useless.
Yet, the building still had a sturdy structure, and held mostly fond memories of the many who had once stayed there. In a masterstroke of adaptive reuse, therefore, the Mountain House hotel was dismantled piece by piece, to be rebuilt and continue as a hotel with the same name, now twelve miles away, perched high in the Allegheny Mountains, at Cresson, Pennsylvania. Pitcairn held responsibilities for guiding many of these rapid advances, while stationed at Hollidaysburg.
After these early successes, he was promoted and transferred to the brand-new Pennsylvania Railroad company town of Altoona, as train dispatcher, and devoted his energies to learning the details of railroading.
It was in Altoona that Pitcairn made the acquaintance of the Riggs family Quite possibly through work or church-related connections. How exactly it happened is not clear. But at that time, Altoona was very small in size and population, everyone would have known everyone. What is known is that Robert fell in love with the daughter of Susan and John Riggs, Elizabeth by name. On July 26,1856 Pitcairn married Elizabeth Erb Riggs. Elizabeth was 16 years old, and Robert was 20.
They were married at the First Methodist Episcopal Church, which at that time was located at 1208 13th Street in Altoona; the building is long gone. The Riggs family had been Methodists in Lewistown, before a relocating to Altoona just when the city was first laid out. Indeed, John Riggs held a lifelong connection to the Methodist Church, and as a young man had been a founding member of the Methodist church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. John Riggs had died before Elizabeth and Robert Pitcairn were married.
The newlyweds were deeply in love and delighted to be setting out together in life. Prospects looked very bright. When the mood struck him, Robert would find his way to the piano and hold forth with favorite hymns or popular music of the day, including Stephen Foster's "Gentle Annie" and Benjamin Hanby's "Darling Nellie Gray". As Robert sang in his full rich baritone, Elizabeth would look round the room in the glow of lamplight, and in their own green valley and little cottage, bask in her happiness:
In 1849, the Pennsylvania Railroad yards and shop sites, and the residential lots of Altoona, had been laid out. The Pennsylvania Railroad shops began construction in 1850; these would serve as the main railroad shops for the company for the next hundred years. The first house to be built in Altoona was in 1851, on 10th Avenue, between 13th and 14th Street. The site is now part of the 10th Avenue railroad yards. Altoona was formally organized as a borough in the year 1854.
III. The Maternal Riggs Great-Grandparents
Elizabeth Erb Riggs was the daughter of John Riggs and Susan Manning Riggs, (sometimes known as Susanna). John had been born at the very end of the 18th century, that is in 1797. And his wife Susan, for whom the main subject of this narrative was named, was born 1808 in Lewistown, Mifflin County, Pennsylvania.
John Riggs had been involved in business in Lewistown. Along with a partner named McConahy, he was in the tinning business, that is, in the tin-plating of metal. No record remains of when their business partnership began, but it is known to have been dissolved in 1852. Presumably because John Riggs was relocating to Altoona. John Riggs also owned residential property in Lewistown, where he ran a boarding house, advertised in the Lewistown newspaper.
John Riggs was highly thought of in his day. His move from Lewistown to Altoona was entirely due to the Pennsylvania Railroad’s founding of the new city. Later reports and put the initials “Esq.” after his name. Modern readers might leap to the conclusion that it meant that Riggs was a lawyer; however no evidence of that has been found. A better surmise is that he served in some sort of local governmental role such as justice of the peace or magistrate, both vocations in those days using the honorific title “Esq.”
Anyone who lived in Altoona and its earliest days had a direct connection with the Pennsylvania Railroad. The Pennsylvania Railroad had been chartered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1846. In 1849 the Pennsylvania Railroad began developing the community that became Altoona. It was to be a staging area for the construction of the entire rail line across the state. By 1850, the section of the railroad had been constructed from Harrisburg west to Altoona. The Allegheny Ridge served as a major barrier to the completion of the east-west railroad across Pennsylvania. By innovative engineering, the Horseshoe Curve was completed in 1854. Located west of Altoona, it provided a westward passage on a grade that was gradual enough for heavy trains to navigate.
It might be worth noting that in those days, spelling was more fluid than fixed. This is indicated by John and Susan Riggs’ name as it appeared in print. It’s sometimes spelled Rigg without the s, while in other places, it is spelled Riggs with the s. It’s quite probable that both spellings were acceptable to the family themselves; since, in several places, it seems as if the only person that could have initiated the particular spelling was John Riggs himself. Debate will probably continue for some time as to how the surname should appear. But suffice to say that there’s a large family memorial gravestone in the Methodist Cemetery in Lewistown, where both John and Susan, as well as other members of the family, are buried, emblazoned with the family surname, spelled “Riggs”. The name appears there, in big bold raised carved letters, and it also appears as “Riggs” in each of the individual names inscribed beneath, on the memorial stone.
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| Riggs Family Gravestone - Lewistown, Pennsylvania |
It seems that John Riggs' early life included living in Harrisburg. He’s listed as one of the founding members of the Methodist society in Harrisburg, Dolphin County Pennsylvania, in 1818. John Riggs was a member of the Odd Fellows, who, on March 14, 1851 were incorporated by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as the Odd Fellows Hall Company of Lewistown.
Records suggest that John Riggs served in the Mexican War in the years 1846 to 1848. He was a bit old to have served, but rolls show that John Riggs served in the 109th Field Artillery of Pennsylvania, under General Winfield Scott. That unit fought at Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo.
John and Susan Riggs had several other children. One of Elizabeth’s brothers, James Riggs, was killed while serving during the Civil War. She also had a brother who died at age seven months (sources say on March 15, 1843, but 1848 is more likely) since he was named Winfield Scott Riggs, for the general under whom John Riggs served. We also know of one sister, Evaline Blanche Riggs who was married April 15, 1865, to Joseph K. Ankrom, and settled in Tyler County, West Virginia.
The surname Riggs comes from northern England and Scotland, it is a name of Anglo-Saxon origin, indicating a person who has lived on or by a ridge. The name derives from an old Norse word, that by the time of middle English was spelled Rigge. The family origins trace back to Lancashire and Cumberland. In Lancashire, the Riggs held a family seat, as recorded in rolls taken by the ancient kings of Britain, to determine the rate of taxation upon their subjects.
The surname Manning, Mrs. Riggs' maiden name, is one of the old family names to come from the Anglo-Saxon tribes of Britain. It’s believed to have been derived from the old Norse word meaning a valiant man. As far back as the 13th century, Mannings were represented in Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Lincolnshire, and elsewhere; the oldest record of the family name occurs in the Doomsday Book as the Manning of Suffolk.
Elizabeth was not given her mother’s maiden name as her middle name, but rather the name Erb (sometimes spelled Erbe). This is a German surname, meaning descendent or heir, tracing back to the Rhineland. The earliest record of the name is from 1282 in Strasburg. Many Pennsylvania German people with the surname Erb settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and nearby. It is surmised that Erb may have been the maiden name of John Riggs’ mother.
The Pitcairn family came from Johnstone, Paisley, Scotland. The name traces back to early times, and is found on census rolls taken by the ancient kings of Scotland. So when Elizabeth Riggs married Robert Pitcairn, It was a blending of northern English, Scottish, and Rhineland roots.
IV. Robert and Elizabeth Pitcairn
For a short time, the newly-married couple lived in Altoona. Then in the year 1859, Robert Pitcairn was sent first to Steubenville, Ohio, and then to Fort Wayne, Indiana, to oversee completion of the lines there.
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| The Pennsylvania Railroad Bridge over the Ohio River at Steubenville, Ohio |
These were temporary postings. By means of extending the lines to Ohio and then to Indiana, the Pennsylvania Railroad was thus the first eastern railroad to provide service to Chicago.
When the year was up, the Pitcairns returned to Altoona in 1860.
When the Civil War began, Robert Pitcairn was named Superintendent of Transportation of the Pennsylvania Railroad. He was just 24 years old. It was Pitcairn’s ingenuity that inaugurated dispatching trains by telegraph and establishing schedules and the need to honor them. Troops and munitions were moved promptly, and emergencies managed by the adroit boyish-looking Robert Pitcairn. He had an amazing ability to deal successfully with one crisis after another. At the war’s end he was transferred to Pittsburgh as Superintendent of the Pittsburgh Division, and (later) General Agent. He would serve there with great success. It was Mr. Pitcairn who was instrumental in establishing a pension system, at the Pennsylvania Railroad, a new concept at that time for rewarding loyal employees after their retirement. If you have a pension, you owe it to the genius of Robert Pitcairn.
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| Pennsylvania Railroad logo |
Robert and Elizabeth Pitcairn settled in Pittsburgh, which would remain their hometown for the remainder of their lives. As their fortunes rose, they chose to locate in the Pittsburgh suburb of Shadyside, which was situated east of the city on what had been the Thomas Aiken farm of the same name. This was an early railroad commuting suburb, offering a direct line to Downtown Pittsburgh via the Shadyside Station at the foot of Amberson Avenue, a mere two blocks from the Pitcairn property.
The Pitcairns built a very large and imposing house at the corner of Ellsworth Avenue and Amberson Avenue, which they named “Cairncarque”.
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| Vintage Map of the 20th Ward showing the sites of the Pitcairn and Knox Estates Ellsworth Avenue is to the top and Amberson Avenue runs down the middle Note the alternative spelling of the estate: "Cairncague" |
Surviving photographs of Cairncarque (AKA Cairncague) show that it was a circa 1870 four story brick home with a many-gabled exterior and towering chimneys. The property stretched for some distance along both Ellsworth Avenue and Amberson Avenue, in a highly desirable situation. The extensive grounds could rightly be described as park-like.
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| "Cairncarque" - Amberson Avenue at Ellsworth Avenue - Shadyside View from the Amberson Avenue Driveway |
Just a block or so from Cairncarque, the Pitcairns also helped to establish and were charter members of the Shadyside Presbyterian Church, which – then and now – was situated at the corner of Amberson Avenue and Westminster Place. Early records of the church list their names often, both as charter members and in the case of Robert Pitcairn, serving on the first Session (governing board) of the church.
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| Roll of Charter Members - Shadyside Presbyterian Church - Pittsburgh Both Robert and Elizabeth Pitcairn were Charter Members as pictured here Photo by the author. |
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| Roster Showing the first Elders of Shadyside Presbyterian Church Serving on the Session, or governing board, of the congregation Photo by the author. |
Pitcairn was deeply religious, and had a strong sense of responsibly and fatherly care for this congregation; a fact that has come to be legendary among its members and leaders. Indicating his lifelong love of sacred music, in the early days of the church, Robert Pitcairn also served as the volunteer choir director.
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| Shadyside Presbyterian Church - Pittsburgh, photo by the author. |
The four Pitcairn children grew up at Cairncarque. Agnes (known throughout her life as Dollie), Lillian, Susan (called Susie), and Robert, Jr. It was a solidly comfortable existence for the family. As time and circumstances permitted, their lifestyle became more and more privileged. And yet there always remained a measure of restraint influenced by Robert Pitcairn's thrifty Scottish character. Elizabeth was more aware of the wonders of tremendous wealth, and dressed and lived accordingly. The children learned to approach life with a combination of their father's common touch and their mother's social successes.
The size of Cairncarque would place it in the category of a mansion by any standards, even those of Shadyside, where there were many grand industrialists’ mansions sprinkled along Fifth Avenue and Woodland Road and similar residential enclaves nearby. Coke king Henry Clay Frick owned property on Amberson Avenue before relocating a few miles eastward to “Clayton” in Point Breeze.
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| Henry Clay Frick - Friend and Neighbor of the Pitcairns |
Philander Chase Knox, a leading attorney of Pittsburgh and later USA Attorney General and Secretary of State, lived just west of the Pitcairns, in grounds of commodious size, upon which stood a grand mansion that rivaled the Pitcairns’ in square footage and splendor. Both homes are long gone, and what was the main driveway of the Pitcairn property is now a lovely street of a dozen or so million dollar plus homes, called Pitcairn Place. Some of the gateposts from the Cairncarque of those long ago days remain, standing guard aesthetically along Ellsworth Avenue. Similarly, the Knox estate was later subdivided, and what was once their driveway is now called Shadyside Lane.
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| Friend and Neighbor of the Pitcairns |
James Hay Reed, Knox's law partner, also lived a few steps away along Amberson Avenue.
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| James Hay Reed - Friend and Neighbor of the Pitcairns |
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| The James Hay Reed House - Amberson Avenue - Shadyside |
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| Map of the Shadyside neighborhood Showing many of the places mentioned in this narrative Including Cairncarque and Shadyside Presbyterian Church |
1877 and 1878 were the years that two of the Pitcairn daughters, Dollie and Lillian respectively, graduated from the still-new Pennsylvania College for Women, now known as Chatham University (founded December 11, 1869). The Rev. William Trimble Beatty, then-pastor of the Shadyside Presbyterian Church, spearheaded the group of Pittsburghers who founded the college in order to provide higher education for women that would equal that available to men at that time. The college came about as a result of a little informal agitation on the subject instituted by a few members of the Shadyside Presbyterian Church, chief among them, the Pitcairns. Now, less than a decade later, the Pitcairn sisters were graduating from this same college.
The Pitcairn family had been closely associated with the college's founding and funding. With this family as with so many other Pittsburgh families, it was the obvious choice for higher education for their young ladies.
In 1879, Elizabeth's mother Susan Manning Riggs died, as noted in her death notice: "DEATH OF MRS. SUSAN RIGG (sic). Mrs. Susan Rigg, widow of the late John Rigg, Esq., of Lewistown, died at her residence in Brushton, Allegheny County, at 4 o'clock, on Sunday afternoon, in the 77th year of her age. She was the mother of James Rigg, formerly of this city, and of Mrs. Robert Pitcairn, and will be remembered by many of our older citizens. Her remains will be taken to Lewistown, where thy will be inferred at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning." (Altoona Morning Tribune, Tuesday, December 23, 1879)
It is quite likely that it was at this time that the prominent gravestone for the Riggs family was erected in the United Methodist Cemetery in Lewistown, under the guiding hand of Mrs. Robert Pitcairn.
The family grew, their interactions with friends in business, their church, and their clubs, provided many opportunities for relaxation and enjoyment apart from the busy duties of running the railroad.
V. The Next Generation - The Pitcairn Children and Their Families
To Robert and Elizabeth Pitcairn, four children were born: Agnes Laurine Pitcairn, born June 21, 1857. Lillian Manning Pitcairn, born December 19, 1858. Susan Blanche Pitcairn, born March 19, 1868. And Robert Pitcairn, Jr, born October 2, 1874.
While each of these will be revisited later in this narrative, it may be helpful to say more about them and their descendants here.
Agnes Laurene (Pitcairn) Decker (June 21, 1857 in Altoona – September 17, 1941) known as "Dollie" married Omar Scott Decker (November 22, 1856 – November 17, 1945) on 19 October 1891. Both are buried in Homewood Cemetery, Pittsburgh.
Lillian M (Pitcairn) Taylor (December 19, 1858 – December 13, 1941); married Charles Lewis Taylor (April 3, 1857 – 3 February 1922) on October 31, 1883. Both are buried in Homewood Cemetery, Pittsburgh. They had one daughter, Lillian Taylor (September 12, 1884, Swissvale PA – October 1, 1960) Lillian married (1) Russell L. McIntosh of Westfield NJ in 1909. Russell was a leading citizen of Westfield. He served as Westfield's vice-chairman of the Liberty Loan program doing WWI. In 1918, the couple adopted two children (Lachlan Bruce McIntosh born on May 5, 1914, died 1978, and Martha Jean McIntosh, born on September 25, 1916). Lillian and Russell separated in 1925 and were divorced on September 22, 1926. Lillian married (2) Albert Edward Savage (1902-1967), in November, 1926. Lillian and Albert Savage are buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Brielle, NJ. Albert and Lillian had a daughter who died in infancy: Lillian Taylor Savage (September 9, 1926). She is also buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Brielle, NJ
Susan Blanche Pitcairn (March 19, 1868 - August 12, 1937) married Victor Lee Crabbe (October 1872 - May 11, 1905) on December 2, 1897. Both are buried in Homewood Cemetery. They had two daughters:
Elizabeth Pitcairn Crabbe (April 5, 1900 – March 8, 1930, Pasadena, California) married Thomas Joseph Ward (December 31, 1895 - February 20, 1966) on November 14, 1926, in New York City. Her burial place is in New York City but not specified otherwise in her death notice. Apparently, they had no issue. Susan Lee Crabbe (October 3, 1903 Pittsburgh – March 3, 1940, Miami Beach) married Edmunds Ethan Hunt (August 1, 1897 Oakmont, PA - September 1, 1948, Rising Sun, Indiana) on Saturday April 30, 1921. They had a son Edmunds Ethan Hunt Jr who died at age of two, and is buried in Memphis, as is Susan. Edmonds is buried in Rising Sun, Indiana.
Robert Pitcairn Jr., (October 2, 1874, Pittsburgh - March 12, 1946) married Marion McLean Sellers (September 26, 1881 – March 18, 1945) on November 4, 1903. Both are buried in Mountain View Cemetery, Altadena, California. No issue.
As might be expected, the Pitcairn children grew up in a close knit social circle of similar families. These prominent Pittsburghers not only lived in the same cluster of neighborhoods of Shadyside, Squirrel Hill, Point Breeze, and Sewickley; and attended the same smattering of churches, chiefly protestant and primarily Presbyterian; they belonged to the same clubs, and participated in the same activities. Chief among the clubs where they would have been members was the Duquesne Club, in downtown Pittsburgh, still a prestigious private club, where Robert Pitcairn’s portrait is displayed in the Founders Room. In the press and to his contemporaries, he was known as "Mr. Railroad".
In 1888, "The Social Mirror" a rather remarkable book about the women of Pittsburgh was published. In it, every woman of note was given a brief biographical sketch, which leaned heavily on the women's wealth and beauty. Elizabeth Riggs Pitcairn was featured in its pages. "The Social Mirror" has this to say about her:
"Cairncarque, the lovely place on the corner of Amberson and Ellsworth Avenues, which it is Mrs. Robert Pitcairn's good fortune to call home, ought to satisfy any woman's ambition, at least as far as houses go. Mrs. Pitcairn married young. She dresses elegantly and wears magnificent diamonds, is a splendid housekeeper, and though the mother of two young lady daughters, Misses Dollie and Susie, and a small son -- not to speak of a married daughter and a grandchild - is so pretty and young looking she might easily be mistaken for her daughters sister."
VI. The Members of the Club
An event that would color the lives of the Pitcairns and their close friends and associates took place in 1889, not far from Pittsburgh. They and roughly sixty other leading citizens of Pittsburgh and Greensburg, Pennsylvania, had been invited by Henry Clay Frick to establish a private club on a three mile long man-made lake in Cambria County. The ultra-private South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club was a convenient train ride from Pittsburgh and offered healthful outdoor activities including boating and fishing, hunting and picnicking, in the mountains. Charter members included Frick, Pitcairn, Andrew Mellon and Andrew Carnegie, as well as Philander Chase Knox.
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| The Clubhouse of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club |
For a full list of the Club members and their families, see the blog called: “Profiles in Time” (upon which later historical research, including that of the Johnstown Flood National Memorial, rests). It is worth mentioning that two prominent Pittsburghers were not members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club: Robert Pitcairn's dear friend George Westinghouse, and H. J. Heinz.
The earthen dam that created the mountain lake belonging to the Club sat about 18 miles upstream from Johnstown, Pennsylvania. On May 31, 1889, this dam – which was poorly maintained by the Club – failed, and caused the disaster known as the Johnstown Flood. The story of the flood has been painstakingly recounted in David McCullough’s masterful book, called The Johnstown Flood. About 2,209 perished as the result of the Flood and the subsequent terrible fire at the Stone Arch Bridge which followed. No Pittsburgh or Greensburg Club members died in the Flood. The only Club membership fatalities were the daughter and wife of Cyrus Elder, the only Club member from Johnstown, who disappeared when their four story house in Johnstown was swept away.
Several aspects of the Flood and its aftermath are of particular interest to the story of the Pitcairn family.
First, the Pitcarins had enjoyed vacationing at Lake Conemaugh. The rural mountain setting appealed to the entire family, who set aside time each summer to be at the mountaintop lake.
Second, Pitcairn had deep concerns about the condition of the dam, which he knew well since in earlier iteration it had belonged to the Pennsylvania railroad. To help address these concerns, he asked his friend Joseph Wilson who was manager of the Argyle / Cambria Mine Company to alert him should he learn of any changes at the dam. Indeed, Wilson telegraphed Pitcairn that the dam was about to fail, but word reached Pitcairn too late. By the time he received the telegram, and boarded a special train for Johnstown, the Flood had already happened.
Third, Robert Pitcairn was instrumental in forming what became known as the Pittsburgh Relief Society, made up of Club members who met together as soon as word of the Flood reached them in Pittsburgh (the summer season was not yet underway and few Club members were at the lake when the dam failed).
Fourth, at the same meeting, the Club members, aware of the failed dam’s role in creating what remains to this day the worst natural disaster in United States history, vowed to never speak of the Club or the Flood. They were so successful in this pledge of silence, that the Club membership, represented by Knox and Reed, (the law firm of two Club members and Pitcairn neighbors, Philander Knox and James Hay Reed), fended off all litigation placing blame on the Club. And even more telling, many of the third and fourth generations of Club member families grew up under this veil of silence with absolutely no idea that their forebears had been members.
The events of the Flood cast a long shadow over the Club member families. Two responses were typical. One was that many of the Club members became notable donors to or creators of charitable institutions and museums. Carnegie is famous for his many libraries established across the country, and the hero’s’ fund honoring those who risked and gave their lives so save others. Phipps, Phillips, Mellon, and so many more chose to dedicate some portion of their wealth and energies to provide for the common good. It seemed as if it was one way that they could do penance for the tragedy. The other response is also perhaps to be expected. Many of the Club members soon abandoned Pittsburgh altogether for New York City, Long Island, Eastern Pennsylvania, or Washington DC.
The Pitcairns, however, remained Pittsburgh people.
The Methodist Church in Lewistown, where Elizabeth had worshipped as a girl decided to build a new building. Constructed in 1899, it was dedicated in 1900, and continues in use today. One account stated:
"Sunday was a great day for Methodism in Lewistown. The hard labor, patience, perseverance, sacrifice, and enthusiasm of the earnest workers of the Lewistown church had a culminating triumph. Their magnificent new church edifice, the finest in Mifflin County, was solely set apart for the worship of the Triune God, and it stands today as an imposing monument to the sacrifices and devotion of this faithful flock."
A stone structure with a gothic inspired design, the church was completely paid for at the time that it was built, with no mortgage required; certainly, a great tribute to the fundraising efforts of the congregation.
It was a fine design of the era, and one of the best features was the gigantic stained glass window in the Sanctuary designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany's Tiffany Studios. The window alone cost $5000; the entire cost was funded by Elizabeth Erb Riggs (Mrs. Robert) Pitcairn, and dedicated to the memory of her parents John and Susan Manning Riggs. This is just one indicator that Mrs. Pitcairn had a great deal of the family funds at her immediate disposal. In those days, the newspapers of Pittsburgh reported that her cheque was good for "upwards of $500,000", or approximately $17,000,000 in 2021 dollars.
The memorial inscription of the window reads:
TO THE GLORY OF GOD
AND IN LOVING MEMORY OF
JOHN RIGGS
BORN MAY 31, 1797 - DIED FEBRUARY 25, 1855
AND HIS WIFE SUSAN
BORN FEBRUARY 11, 1802 - DIED DECEMBER 21, 1879
ERECTED BY THEIR DAUGHTER
MRS. ROBERT PITCAIRN
1900
"HE LIFTED UP HIS HANDS AND BLESSED THEM." LUKE 24.50
As one of the foremost Pittsburgh homes of the era, Cairncarque was the setting where the Pitcairns twice entertained U.S. President and Mrs. William McKinley on their visits to the city. On November 13, 1897, while the President and his Pittsburgh gentlemen hosts were otherwise engaged, an afternoon reception for First Lady Ida McKinley was hosted by Elizabeth Pitcairn in her home. The victoria and pair of champion horses named "Hobart" and "M'Kinley" belonging to Mrs. Pitcairn carried Mrs. McKinley to Cairncarque in regal style. Many notable Pittsburgh ladies were invited to be received by Mrs. McKinley, who sat in a throne-like chair as the women stood taking turns greeting her. While the musical strains of Nevin's "Narcissus" and Liszt's "Liebestraum No. 3" could be heard from the grand piano tucked away in a bay window of the parlor.
Willa Cather, the famous novelist, was among those who were presented to Mrs. McKinley on this occasion. She reported extensively on the festive gathering, noting that it was all that could be hoped for and more in the way of decorations. The grand stairway of the house was transformed into a dramatic floral display that featured multitudes of splendid pink chrysanthemums, hybridized and named, not incidentally, in honor of Elizabeth Riggs Pitcairn.
Later that same day, an intimate group of guest were entertained at dinner, also at Cairncarque. The ultra-select guest list was a who's who of the most elite Pittsburghers of the day:
President William and Mrs. Ida McKinley, Pennsylvania Governor Daniel Hartman and Mrs. Jane Armstrong Rankin Hastings, Mr. John and Mrs Mary Louise Duff Dalzell, Mr and Mrs Frew, Mr Henry Clay and Mrs Adelaide Childs Frick, Mr William and Mrs Mary Sibbet Thaw (the parents of the infamous Harry K. Thaw), Mr Christopher Lyman and Mrs Eleanor Louise Gillespie Magee, Mrs Henrietta Burrell Huff (wife of US Congressman George Franklin Huff), Mr and Mrs Woodwell, Mr and Mrs Caldwell, Mr Philander Chase and Mrs Lillie Smith Knox, the Rev. Dr. William Jacob and Mrs. Carrie T. Moorhead Holland (Dr Holland being a Presbyterian minister and, at the time, the Chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh), Mr. Porter, Mr and Mrs McConway, Mr. George and Mrs Marguerite Erskine Walker Westinghouse, and the hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Pitcairn.
Even the menu for the dinner was glamorous. It included Huitres, Sauce Mignonette, Consomme de Tortue Verte aux Quenelles, Bouchees aux Champignons Frais, Maquereau Espagnol, Sauce Mousseline aux Crabbes D'Huitres, Pommes Parisiennes, Noix de Filled de Boef aux Morilles, Pate de Fois-Gras en Croute, Salade Turquoise, and Glace Fantasie. Evidently, the Pitcairns employed a gifted French chef.
In addition to his tireless and creative devotion to Shadyside Presbyterian Church, and his ceaseless regard for the wellbeing of the Pittsburgh Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Robert Pitcairn was actively engaged in the directorship or board of a number of companies. Robert Pitcairn's many interests included serving as shareholder and sometimes officer of the Fidelity & Trust Company, the Citizen's National Bank of Pittsburgh, the First National Bank of Greensburg, and the American Surety Company. He was also a founding investor in the 1904 Nicaraguan Electric-Railroad, along with many recognizable Pittsburgh capitalists, such as: M. K. Salsbury, William L. Abbot, William M. Rees, Alexander R. Peacock, and Thomas B. Ritter.
VII. Mr. and Mrs. Victor Lee Crabbe
Susan Blanche Pitcairn had been born in March 19, 1868, in Altoona. She grew up in Cairncarque, and some of her summers pre-1889 were spent at the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club on Lake Conemaugh. Along with many other young ladies of her social set, she was introduced as a debutant to Pittsburgh society, and soon was in demand as an eligible and promising catch. Even so, Susan did not select a future husband until her late twenties. On December 2, 1897, at the age of 29, she married Victor Lee Crabbe in the Sanctuary of Shadyside Presbyterian Church.
Before long, Susan and Victor Crabbe became the parents of two daughters, Elizabeth Pitcairn Crabbe (born on April 5, 1900), and Susan Lee Crabbe (born on October 3, 1903). The girls were doted upon by their parents as well as by their grandparents Robert and Elizabeth. The Crabbes made their home with the senior Pitcarins, in a family compound there in Shadyside. Young ladies of that time did not often find their names mentioned nor their pictures in the newspapers. One issue of the society publication "The Index" has a photo portrait of Susan at age three. Their names are, of course, included with their parents in the annual Pittsburgh Blue Books.
The young girls' happy existence was to change suddenly and dramatically on May 11, 1905.
Victor Lee Crabbe was returning home to Pittsburgh from Philadelphia on the Pennsylvania Railroad's “Cleveland and Cincinnati Express” which consisted of eight Pullman sleeping cars, and a day coach. A total of 168 passengers were aboard, headed west near Harrisburg, at a speed of 60 mph. Most were asleep in their berths.
At the same time, in the Lochiel area, near the plant of the Paxtang Light, Heat and Power Company, an eastbound freight train had buckled – its cars were strewn across the westbound tracks – the mishap occurred because an air hose broke. The derailed freight train cars sat immovable in the immediate path of the Cleveland and Cincinnati Express. Even more frightening, the derailed freight cars included several that were filled with a total of 50,000 pounds of blasting powder.
When the passenger train hit the derailed freight cars, at 1:38 a.m. on May 11, 1905, the blasting powder was ignited by the crash. Three terrific explosions that broke windows all over the city, followed, and the two trains were completely wrecked and took fire. The horrific explosions shattered the darkness, lighting up the sky like daylight. When the first explosion occurred, bodies were thrown clear out of the berths in the sleeping cars and landing down the railroad embankment; some even having been hurled Into the Susquehanna River which parallels the railroad in that locality. Others died horribly in the burning wreckage.
Nearly all of the windows in the nearby Elliott and Hatch Typewriter Company at 1612-20 South Cameron Street, were shattered to pieces. Glass shards from broken windows covered the downtown Harrisburg sidewalks. Sleepers in homes from miles around were startled awake by the sound of the crash.
A special train was made up and brought the injured and dying to the Union Station. Many of the injured were taken into private houses. Immediately after the wreck, all the passengers who could do so ran away from the scenes of horror to seek safety from the incessant aftershock explosions. The agonizing cries of the unfortunate were heartrending. The office of the Paxtang Light Company looked like a hospital. With practically no clothing, many women and children from the train were compelled to wander about the fields; there were few houses in the immediate vicinity of the wreck.
Among the passengers was Victor Lee Crabbe, aboard the Pullman car “Socrates”. Badly injured, but still alive, he was taken to the Harrisburg Hospital. News of the crash went out almost immediately and reached the boss, Robert Pitcairn, General Manager of the Pittsburgh Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. At once, he summoned a special train to make his way to Harrisburg. Pitcairn reached Crabbe’s side in the Harrisburg Hospital, just before he died from his injuries, at noon. Amid the family sorrow, the terrible irony that the son-in-law of the General Manager of the Pittsburgh Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad should have been killed while he was a passenger on a PRR train was not lost on anyone.
Among those who got out without injury were Mrs. Albert J. Barr, wife of the editor of the Pittsburgh Post, and her two daughters, who were on their way to Pittsburgh. Mr. James Robert Tindle, and his wife Mrs. Rebekah Page Knox Tindle, of Pittsburgh, (the latter the daughter of United States Senator Philander Chase Knox), were slightly injured by flying glass. They walked to Steelton, where they telephoned Governor Pennypacker and explained their condition. The governor immediately had them taken to the executive mansion, where they were furnished with clothing and medical attention. The Pitcairn Crabbes and the Knox Tindles were next-door neighbors in Shadyside. The Tindles had been asleep in their berths, when ejected from the train. James was “scantily clad” per newspaper reports.
Victor Lee Crabbe was a very successful industrialist and a caring and prudent husband and father, who made thoughtful provisions for Susie and the girls. This was apparent when his will was read, and thereafter, when certain elements of it were the cause of some legal discussion and opinion.
As reported in the "York Legal Record", Volume 20, p. 173:
A gift of "everything I own to my beloved wife" to be used by her for the joint interest of herself and two children, Elizabeth and Susan," vests in the children a joint beneficial interest with their mother and makes her testamentary trustee during their minority... The question involved in this case is what interest the widow takes under the first clause of this decedent's will, viz:
"I give and bequeath everything I own to my beloved wife, Susie P. Crabbe, to be used by her for the joint interest of herself and two children, Elizabeth and Susan."
These children are in their minority. The will seems to be holographic.
Bruce Millard for accountants.
James E. Hindman for guardian.
Feb. 18, 1907. HAWKINS, P. J. - While the gift of this estate was in the first instance to the widow, it is immediately followed by a provision which shows that the children of the testator were intended a share, at least during their minority, in the beneficial enjoyment of the estate. "Everything" was to be used for the joint interest of the widow and children. The legal title was vested in the widow, and the estate was no doubt to be handled by her; but we must look to the imperative terms of the added clause for a definition of her beneficial interest. She was there given no power of use or consumption other than for the "joint interest" of herself and children. No doubt, Mr. Crabbe had often hearth expression "for their joint interest" in business ventures and probably used it here in the ordinary sense implying common ownership. It is much broader in scope than that which was the subject of controversy in Paisley's Appeal, 70 Pa. and its class. The fact that "everything" was to be used for the "joint interest" or advantage of themselves as well as their mother, necessarily implied and intent to vest in them a property right in the estate itself; whereas in Paisley's case, there was simply a gift of maintenance.
The construction conforms with the disposition which would have been expected in the circumstances. The law presumes that a man will make provision for his own offspring, and an intent to the contrary must clearly appear: Brunchman's Estate, 195 Pa. 363. What will be the status of these children on leaving home, it is not necessary to decide; but certainly denial of the "interest" of these children in the estate during their helpless infancy is not entitled to favorable consideration.
It follows the estate must be awarded in the terms of the will to Mrs. Crabbe to be used for the joint interest of herself and children during the latter's minority--final disposition to be made at majority."
One wonders just how many lawyers and their staff it took to come up with this logical conclusion, which seems abundant clear in the wording Victor Lee Crabbe chose for his last will and testament. It is also unclear just why there was such a to-do about it.
But there is one important element of this opinion that the reader will wish to bear in mind. Keep note of the attorney who was assigned the role of guardian for daughters Elizabeth and Susan. He will make future appearances in this narrative.
VIII. Susan's Girlhood
With the death of Victor Lee Crabbe, his widow and two young daughters were suddenly completely dependent upon Robert and Elizabeth Pitcairn. The girls grew up at “Cairncarque” under their grandparents' watchful care. All material resources that could be wished for were provided to them, as well.
New family upheavals came close on the heels of their father's early death. In 1906, Uncle Robert and Aunt Marion made the decision to relocate to Pasadena, California. Members of the family had been wintering there for a number of seasons. Elizabeth Riggs Pitcairn had become a fixture of the place - as news reports confirm. One such report from the January 19, 1904 "Los Angeles Times", gushed as follows:
"Mrs. Robert Pitcairn, wife of the assistant to the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad system, arrived yesterday in her private car from Pittsburgh. She is accompanied by her son, Robert Pitcairn Jr., and his bride who is a stunning young woman of the Gibson type. Mrs. Pitcairn has spent many winters in Pasadena and has taken her former apartments at Hotel Green. She is noted as being one of the most magnificently gowned women of the many extravagant dressers who come to Pasadena during the winter. Each new costume - and she dons one usually twice and sometimes three times each day, is awaited with breathless interest by the feminine world and pronounced invariably a marvelous and exquisite work of art."
Apparently, these winter sojourns were pleasing enough for the Robert Pitcairns, Jr., to commission a home in Pasadena. They selected as their architects the brothers Greene and Greene The resultant Pitcairn Residence was a showplace of the Greenes' elegantly unique Arts and Crafts style, and remains a Pasadena landmark today. However, moving to California meant that the daily presence of these other family members in the young Crabbe sisters' lives was further diminished.
Aunt Dolly and Uncle Omar lived close at hand, but they were thought to be hopelessly out of touch, at least in Susan's estimation. Fine to have around the table at a family Sunday dinner, but not the people one would turn to for guidance or advice. Aunt Lillian and Uncle Charles were much the same. None of them were young anymore. All these members of the older generation were fixtures as familiar as the carved wooden columns in Cairncarque, and about as likely to play any significant role in their nieces' lives.
Even more importantly, their beloved grandfather was getting older.
Indeed, he was old enough to retire, as was stipulated by the rules of the Pennsylvania Railroad that he had instituted himself. That any employee of 25 years, upon reaching the age of 70, would automatically be required to retire.
Robert Pitcairn was the first employee of the Pennsylvania Railroad to reach that conjunction of age and years of employment, and was therefore informed by the seventh President of the Railroad, Alexander Cassatt (brother of the Impressionist artist Mary Cassatt) that it was time to retire. Pitcairn protested that the rule had not been intended for himself. Nonetheless, Cassatt, perhaps jealous of the high regard in which Robert Pitcairn was held by Pittsburgh Division employees, insisted that he abide by it.
Being left with no choice in the matter, Pitcairn acquiesced and retired on June 1, 1906. Ironically, six months later, on December 28, 1906, Alexander Cassatt would be dead. But by that time, the damage was done. Pitcairn's working days which stretched back to his young adolescence, were over.
 |
| Robert Pitcairn - May 6, 1836 - June 1, 1906 |
All reports of Robert Pitcairn's life thereafter describe it as a rapid downhill descent into inactivity and despair. Certainly, he had other choices which he might have made, including finding abiding joy in his home life and social connections, or a deeper involvement in the church he had nurtured so generously and the clubs he had helped to found. He could, had he wished, traveled anywhere on the globe many times over without making even a dent in his vast fortune. He could have taken up any hobby or pastime, collecting art like his friend Andrew Mellon, or endowing libraries like his friend Andrew Carnegie. Even building some new home that could eventually be turned into a well-endowed museum, like Frick. Yet, none of these held enough appeal to combat his sense that his useful life was as good as over.
Historians are clear about the great cloud of disappointment that forced retirement brought to Pitcairn. While these accounts are quite accurate, this story is incomplete. It glosses over two other contributing factors to his clinical depression and rapidly failing health. One of these factors was the tragic death of his son-in-law, and having experienced in person its grim realities at his Harrisburg Hospital bedside. In an era in which strong men were taught to show no strong emotions; Robert's own grief, and grief for his daughter's and granddaughters' loss, was kept inward, private. Indeed, except for a passing comment to his minister, Pitcairn could not bring himself to speak further of the death of Victor Lee Crabbe.
Another incident, widely reported at the time but quickly forgotten by the public, was a freak accident that injured Pitcairn more than people realized. It happened on June 22, 1907. While Pitcairn was out walking, he was run down by a bicycle rider. His injuries were more extensive and healed less completely than they would have, had he been a younger man.
Pitcairn was never the same. And so, on July 25, 1909, he was dead.
At the behest of his widow, an elaborate mausoleum was constructed in fashionable Homewood Cemetery, a beautifully gleaming white Greek temple, handsome and classic in proportion and finish. A miniature version of the Parthenon, there it stands today, for any who wish to gaze upon it.
This left Cairncarque a purely feminine establishment, with grandmother Elizabeth, mother Susie, and the two Crabbe daughters, Elizabeth and Susan, who were at the time of Robert Pitcairn's death, nine and six, respectively. The steady hand that had guided the Western Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad with as much authority as the President of the United States, and who had served as paterfamilias to three generations, was gone from their midst. It was up to the women and girls to fend for themselves. Of material resources, they had more than enough and to spare. But their grief and loss, symbolized by the empty place at the end of the long dining room table, and the study whose doors were to remain firmly closed due to the absence of its owner, left its indellible marks.
In the time period after Robert's retirement but prior to his death, Mrs. Pitcairn had, in 1907, taken time to visit in New York City, as one society note has it: "Mrs. Robert Pitcairn and her niece, Mrs. William Morris Rees, have returned from a two week's visit in New York at the Waldorf." (The Index, 1907).
Family members nearby included the Susie Pitcairn Crabbes' siblings, Dollie (Mrs. Omar) Decker, and the Lillian (Mrs. Charles) Taylor). The brothers-in-law were good upstanding men of business:
Omar Scott Decker, son of Solomon and Francis (Hull) Decker, was born in Pittsburgh on November 22, 1856. He was educated in the Pittsburgh public schools and early in life entered into the iron and steel business, in which he served in various executive positions throughout his career. He married Agnes Laurene Pitcairn on October 19, 1891. A member of the Sons of the American Revolution, by 1909 Decker was engaged in the iron commission business. He served as deacon, elder, and treasurer of the Shadyside Presbyterian Church, the Pitcairn family's congregation. Mrs. Decker was engaged in various good causes in the city, and served as a commissioner and chairman of the East End Flower Committee for the Pittsburgh Parks and Playgrounds, and was a member of the Pittsburgh Chapter of the American Red Cross. Upon his death in 1945, Mr. Decker left a sizable gift to the Western Pennsylvania Historical Society. The Deckers made their home in St. James Street, Pittsburgh, about a block from Cairncarque; they were known to vacation in Spring Lake, New Jersey. Both of the Deckers are buried in Homewood Cemetery.
Charles Lewis Taylor was one of Andrew Carnegie' "boys", as Carnegie liked to call them. Somewhat younger men, who had cut their teeth with success as part of Carnegie's far-ranging business interests in Western Pennsylvania, and who remained loyal to Carnegie throughout their lives. Born in Philadelphia on April 3, 1857, Taylor had entered into Carnegie service on October 1, 1880 as a chemist at the Homestead Steel Works, where, by 1882, he was General Superintendent. When the first furnace was being blown in the Bessemer Converter, a chain broke, injuring Mr. Taylor so badly that the surgeons initially advised amputation of his leg, which subsequently was found to be unnecessary. On October 1, 1883, he married Lillian Pitcairn. Initially they made their home on a bluff high above the Monongahela River, overlooking the steel works. Lillian later said,
"In spite of this accident, I always loved the sound of the converter, and the only time I would waken at night was when something broke and the old thing would stop. It's noise was a lullaby to me. Even yet, I can tell when it is time to turn the converter over. As I passed Edgar Thompson Works at Bessemer in the train, I would say to myself: 'better turn it over' - and over it would go.'"
In 1890, Taylor became Assistant Secretary of Carnegie, Phipps & Company, and in 1893, Assistant to the President of Carnegie Steel Co, Limited; retaining that position until his retirement in 1901. He served as the head of the Carnegie Hero Pension Fund. His interests included the serving as the President of the Kingsley Association, a Trustee of Lehigh University, and a Director of the West Penn Institute for the Blind, as well as many private clubs including the three elite clubs: Duquesne Club, the Pittsburgh Golf Club, and the Pittsburgh Athletic Association. The Taylors had two children, Robert Pitcairn Taylor who died in infancy, and Lillian Taylor who eventually married Albert Edward Savage after a failed first marriage. Charles Lewis Taylor would die at his winter home in Santa Barbara, California, on February 3, 1922 and be laid to rest in Homewood Cemetery, Pittsburgh.
Throughout the 1910s the Crabbe girls were increasingly part of the expected social scene, as they attended one of Pittsburgh's private girls' schools. In time, there were parties and dances to attend.
Travel was also a prat of their upbringing. For example, US Immigration records that on October 22, 1913, both girls, along with their grandmother Elizabeth, and their mother Susie, returned from Europe on the Titanic's sister ship, the Olympic. They were in good company. The passenger list also records Charles W. Schwab, the head of United States Steel and a Pittsburgh friend, as well as opera singer Mary Garden, linguist Maximillian Berlitz, plutocrat Thomas F. Ryan, and Philadelphia banker, A. Mercer Biddle, among others. It was an era when travel was expensive and glamours, and one was seldom surprised to find longtime friends on the same ship's passenger list.
Both girls learned to drive a car, which was unusual for young ladies of the time period except, of course, young ladies of means. And less so because their mother was an early adopter of motorized transportation.
From time to time, Cairncarque served as the setting for gatherings of their friends. Reciprocal events occurred in the homes of those friends. During the long grey Pittsburgh winters, such parties added scenes of warmth and helped to dispel the gloom, somewhat.
Time was passing. The girls were turning into young ladies. Their grandmother, Elizabeth Erb Riggs Pitcairn, passed away a week after Good Friday, on April 13, 1917. As reported in the newspapers:
MRS. ELIZABETH R. PITCAIRN - Mrs. Elizabeth R. Pitcairn, widow of Robert Pitcairn, former assistant to the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad company at Pittsburgh and well known in this city, died at Los Angeles, Cal. on Friday of pneumonia. She resided at 5200 Ellsworth Avenue, Pittsburgh, and was touring California with her niece, Mrs. William Morris Rees, of Pittsburgh. Mrs. Pitcairn before her marriage was Miss Elizabeth Erb Rigg. She was a member of the Shadyside Presbyterian Church and was widely known in the Pittsburgh district for her philanthropic work. She is survived by three daughters, Mrs. Omar S. Decker, Mrs. Charles L. Taylor, and Mrs. Victor Lee [Crabbe], of Pittsburgh, and a son, Mr. Robert Pitcairn, Jr., of Pasadena, Cal.
With Robert Pitcairn's widow's death, the financial picture for the family shifted, as was reported in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on July 20, 1917:
"PITCAIRN WILL LEAVES ESTATE IN TRUST Daughters and Granddaughters Bequeathed $5000 Each in Cash DOCUMENT FILED
"An estate, the value of which is unestimated, is disposed of in the will of the late Elizabeth E. Pitcairn, widow of Robert Pitcairn, who at the time of his death was assistant to the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The will has been filed for probate in the registrar's office. She made a bequest of $5,000 each to her three daughters, Agnes Pitcairn Decker, Susan Pitcairn Crabbe, and Lillian Pitcairn Taylor, her granddaughters, Lillian Taylor McIntosh, Blanche S. Rees and grandson William M. Rees. [JAD Note: The author of the article gets this wrong. The Rees children were NOT grandchildren, they were great-niece and great-nephew, per reports in the society pages]. Her books and jewelry are left to the granddaughters Elizabeth P. Crabbe and Susan Lee Crabbe, the furniture, silverware and other personal property to her daughter Susan Pitcairn Crabbe and the two granddaughters, Elizabeth Pitcairn Crabbe and Susan Lee Crabbe.
"The remainder of the estate is to be placed in the Fidelity Title and Trust Company [predecessor of PNC the Pittsburgh National Bank] where it is to be held in trust, the income of which is to be paid the children of the deceased and the children of her daughter, Mrs. Crabbe. One-fourth is to go to Agnes Pitcairn Decker, a like share to Susan Pitcairn Crabbe, one-eighth to her daughter Lillian Taylor, and one-eighth to her son, Robert Pitcairn, Jr., which is to be paid them during their lifetime. The remaining one-fourth is to be divided among the two granddaughters, Elizabeth Pitcairn Crabbe and Susan Lee Crabbe.
"It is directed by the deceased that none of the property is to be sold except at the death of one of the children, after which that share of the property is to go to the granddaughters until finally they will receive all of the residuary estate. The two granddaughters' maintenance and education is to be paid out of their share of the estate until they reach the age of 21, after which they are to receive the income of their share. When they reach the age of 30 they are to receive one-half of the principal of their share, and the remaining one-half is to be held in trust, the income derived from the trust fee to be paid them. In the event of either of the granddaughters dying, and be without issue, then her share is to be given to the surviving granddaughter, her sister. The granddaughters in the will are also invested with bequeathing powers, empowering them to bequeath to their children should they die leaving lawful heirs.
"The deceased also states that her daughter, Agnes Pitcairn Decker, shall have free use of the house she now occupies on Amberson Avenue, while Mrs. Crabbe and her daughters will have the free use of the family homestead "Cairncarque", they to pay the taxes and insurance on the property during the period they occupy the same."
The granddaughters, at the time of Elizabeth Riggs Pitcairn's death, were 17 (Elizabeth) and 14 (Susan) years old. In addition to their immediate cash gifts of $5,000 each, their 1/8th share in an estate that has been reported as $20,000,000 would mean that from their grandmother they would have received $2,500,000, with more to be anticipated based upon what their mother might leave to them eventually in her will, of the $5,000,000 now given to her. Their mother Susan Pitcairn Crabbe, was only 49 years old. These figures may be off somewhat, since as the news article states, the value of the estate was "un-estimated". Having said that, and still working with the assumption of a total value of $20,000,000 in 1917 dollars, that would translate to something like $449,000,000 in 2021 dollars. The initial cash bequests of $5,000 would equal $112,000 today. They now had a dizzying measure of wealth at their immediate disposal, and more to come with the unfolding years.
Life at home for the granddaughters now consisted mainly of their mother and themselves. Regarding their personalities, the sisters were quite distinct from one another. Elizabeth, being the older by two and a half years, was more reserved, and cultivated a sense of dutiful responsibility. She tried to be the model daughter and granddaughter that her family expected, and often succeeded, but at some cost. She was thought to be, by her peers, somewhat aloof, somewhat plain, somewhat stern. They were correct. These were most certainly not the personality traits that cause one to be an ornament to social gatherings.
On the other hand, Susan was all that her sister was not. Bright and vivacious, she threw herself into every endeavor that appealed to her. These were not necessarily the endeavors that her mother would have wished. There was a sense of joy mixed with recklessness about Susan that made them wonder "what next?" What would Susan do, or say, or - even more concerning, think without mentioning it - that might go against the norms of her family's starched, straight-laced, upper crust, Presbyterian expectations. To say that Susan was a bit of a wild child would have been accurate.
if some new adventure was proposed, Susan was all for it, while Elizabeth fretted that it might not be quite the thing to do. While both girls attended the Shadyside Presbyterian Church regularly, Elizabeth sat in her pew with a composed and pious reserve, while Susan's eyes flashed here and there to see who was present, and had a special interest in knowing which boys were present. While Elizabeth dressed in colors and fabrics that, though costly, made her look more of her mother's generation than her own, Susan always wore the latest this or the newest that, with a dramatic flair that was always noticed. Elizabeth could be depended upon to blend in. Susan could do nothing less than stand out.
Naturally, the family's hopes were hinged upon the goal that Elizabeth would find a suitable beau and marry well, in good time, and well before her younger sister gave any thought to matrimony. At the cotillions, Elizabeth's dance card was always full, but the young men who danced with her, although from the best of families and with outstanding prospects, were more often than not boring beyond belief. At least to Susan's assessment of them. She on the other hand had trouble fending off the handsomest and most noticeable young men in the room, even though they were not necessarily of quite the same social standing as her own family.
This alarmed Susan's mother, especially. She knew her daughters all too well. To Susie's way of thinking, Elizabeth might have benefitted from the interest of one or two of the dashing type who were drawn to Susan, if only to draw her out of her shell. Susan, on the other hand, seemed to flirt with potential disaster at every turn.
IX. Portents of Things to Come
At age 17, Susan Lee Crabbe was eager for adventure and excitement, and looked for opportunities to expand her horizons beyond home, church, and the social whirl in which she was a junior member, her sister Elizabeth having first place in proffered social engagements and potential suitors. A romantic streak filled her, one in which she imagined various scenarios that brought unexpected thrills to her otherwise predictable young East End life.
As has been mentioned, by 1920, Susan had her own car. In some news reports, the car was described as a "limousine". Evidence suggests that it was a large luxury car, but one that did not feature a front compartment that was divided from the rear compartment by a window; in other words, a large comfortable enclosed car that was owner-driven, if one preferred, even though the Crabbe household employed a chauffeur.
Like a charming new toy, the car served to give Susan something she had been longing for but not had heretofore: freedom of movement around the city and environs. Should she wish to visit friends, attend a luncheon, patronize various dress shops, and the like, the car was at the ready and entirely at her disposal. Down the long driveway and out onto Ellsworth Avenue she would go, and soon be lost to sight.
The car was about the best that money could buy among the somewhat conservative upper crust of Pittsburgh families. Pittsburgh's Royston Cadillac was an established dealer in fine motorcars, and the Roystons were accepted members of Pittsburgh high society; so the likelihood is that the car was a Cadillac. It would have been bought new. The model was probably the Cadillac Type 59 Suburban model. It was a two-tone, seven passenger car, built on Cadillac's longer 132 inch wheelbase, and considering its description as a "limousine", would have had a formal enclosed body. The car was solid and spacious, accommodating the driver and one passenger in the front seat, three passengers in the rear seat, and an additional two passengers in the jump seats that folded cunningly out of the floor.
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| Susan Lee Hunt's Automobile would have been similar to this one |
Before long, Susan was taking leislurly drives around the city, hither and yon, and well beyond, for her own enjoyment. Rambling over the countryside without a clearly announced destination. "I think I will go for a drive today," she would tell her mother, and no objections were made. After all, it seemed a safer option for Susan's adventurous spirit than many of the alternatives.
Things are seldom what they seem.
Then as now, Pittsburgh is a city that lives like a small town. If you do not know your neighbors well, you know them well enough that their names and their usual daily patterns are often familiar to you. You run into friends and acquaintances all over town, and while you may think it somewhat remarkable, it is nonetheless commonplace. The same is true of the passing vehicles of your neighborhoods, where before long you know that is Mr. A or Mrs. B driving down Allegheny River Boulevard or up Fifth Avenue, by the color and cut of the car itself.
The same was true of Susan Crabbe and her automobile. It was a recognizable feature. Girlfriends from school, friends of her mother from church, the denizens of this or that club, even proprietors of the tony dress boutiques, recognized the car as Susan's as it ranged here and there around the city.
They also noticed one thing more. More often than not, Susan was not alone in the car. The big windows of the car were as easy to see into as out of. And wherever it was spotted, the car had Susan and a dapper looking young man inside.
Curiosity prompted questions. Susan was glad to be forthcoming, except to her unsuspecting family members. The man at her side on this jaunts was in fact the scion of a minor Pittsburgh industrialist: Edmonds Hunt, by name. Edmonds was in all respects Susan's alter ego, and more. If she was attractive, he was appealing in a kind of Wallace Reid or F. Scot Fitzgerald way. If she was stylish, he was even more so. If she was adventurous, he was reckless in the extreme. Edmonds Hunt answered every one of Susan's fantasies and daydreams about getting beyond the stuffy confines of Cairncarque and Amberson Avenue, and "living".
Who was this young swain? Edmonds Ethan Hunt was the son of Clinton and Flora Hunt. Clinton being the president of the Memphis Steel Construction Company, which as the name suggests, had its origins in Memphis, Tennessee, but was by now headquartered in Western Pennsylvania.
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| Clinton Allen Hunt - Father of Edmonds Ethan Hunt |
Clinton Allen Hunt was engaged in various branches of construction in Pennsylvania and in Tennessee. Clinton was the son of Ethan Allen and Sarah J (Meeker) Hunt, his father was a well-known farmer of Ohio County, Indiana. Clinton had been born on the family farm, "Island Farm", on December 14, 1870. By his later youth, he had relocated to Pittsburgh, and had graduated from the Pittsburgh High School in 1889. He rose in his professional life to be associated with the American Bridge Company. Later, he became the president of the Memphis Steel Construction Company and in 1915 moved its headquarters from Memphis to Pittsburgh, with its plant in Greensburg. A member of the Greensburg Country Club, the Union Club of Pittsburgh, the Rotary Club of Greensburg, and the Old Colony Club of New York City, Clinton Hunt was also a Mason and a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Greensburg. He and Flora Sugden (daughter of Edmonds J. and Catherine Sugden) were married in Pittsburgh in 1896, and their son Edmonds Ethan Hunt was born there in August 1, 1897, followed by Edmonds' younger brother Stanley Allen Hunt, born July 17, 1906.
Edmonds Ethan Hunt had been raised in Memphis, and was a graduate of the Memphis High School. Thereafter, he attended Georgia Tech, in Atlanta, and there he was a member of the Iota Chapter of Phi Beta Phi Fraternity. HIs parents had relocated from Memphis to Greensburg during that time, and following graduation from Georgia Tech, Edmonds followed them to Western Pennsylvania and was given a position with his father's business, Memphis Steel Construction Company.
How had Susan and Edmonds met? Rubbing elbows at some social event or other, to which Edmonds would have had easy access as the eldest son of one of the city's lesser glitterati. Not from the rarified circles of the Pitcairn Crabbes, nor the Mellons, Thaws, Carnegies, or Scaifes, the Hunts still held a spot in the acceptable range of their acquaintances. If the Hunts were not exactly of the same kind, they were not beyond the pale, either. If their fortunes were several steps below the breathtaking means of the great industrialists, they nonetheless dressed correctly, had good table manners, and managed to fit in to most social settings. Some of the aspects that set them apart as somewhat different could be traced, no doubt, to the Hunt family's Ohio County farm origins. But then again, most of the leaders of Pittsburgh society could trace their lineage not more than a generation or two from impoverished circumstances in the city or countryside.
It was not so much Edmonds' heritage that made him less than an ideal prospect for Susan. It was more a matter of his approach to life. Susan needed someone solid and dependable to serve as an anchor for her sails. In Edmonds, she would not find it. He was as breezy and untethered as she. Besides, Susan was very young. Susan would have been keenly aware of why her family might object to him. Therefore, Edmonds was her thrilling secret. For the moment.
X. Momentous News
On May 4, 1921, the nation's fair citizens from Boston to San Diego opened their newspapers, and read some startling news:
"MISS SUSAN CRABBE, PITTSBURGH HEIRESS, 17, ELOPES TO WED. Married to Edmond Hunt - Uses Own Automobile for Honeymoon Trip. Special Dispatch to the New York Herald.
"PITTSBURGH, PA. May 4 - "Somewhere in the South". Miss Susan Crabbe, granddaughter of the late Robert Pitcairn, former resident assistant to the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, is enjoying her honeymoon with her young husband Edmond Hunt of Greensburg. They eloped to Cambridge, Ohio last Saturday and were married. The affair was kept secret until today.
"The flight from this city was made in the bride's automobile after she had escaped from the parental home, Cairncarque, Ellsworth Avenue, of this city. Mr Hunt is 24 years old and is the son of Clinton Hunt of this city, who is the president of the Memphis Steel Construction Company. He was educated in Memphis, Tennessee, and Atlanta, Ga. The bride is 17 years old and heir to an estate valued at $20,000,000.
"We do not know where Edmond and his bride are," said the mother of the bridegroom today. "They are somewhere in the South and we presume they are enjoying their honeymoon. The last word we had from our son was a telegram announcing their marriage."
"In direct contrast to the pleasure of the bridegroom's parents over his marriage is the attitude of Mrs. Victor Lee Crabbe, mother of the bride, who is reported to be preparing to seek an annulment of the marriage. When asked if this report was true, Mrs. Crabbe refused to discuss the elopement. The mother of the bride had no information of the clandestine courtship which is said to have been carried on while the coupe were enjoying long rides in Miss Crabbe's automobile.
"Investigation disclosed that Miss Crabbe had fortified herself for her wedding trip with extensive purchases of wearing apparel at local shops, which were charged to her mother's account. The only word received from her by her mother was a telegram saying she had been married to young Hunt."
This news fell like a bombshell. Susan Lee Crabbe was a known entity, as the granddaughter of Robert Pitcairn. Millionaires and their doing were followed eagerly, from coast to coast. The nation knew who she was. No one knew who her new husband was. Few had heard even a whisper of their plans.
And so it was in Ohio, where liberal laws and proximity to stricter states like Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia, and Kentucky meant that lots of young lovers rushed to Ohio to avoid dealing with objections from their families. Susan and Edmonds drove to Cambridge, Ohio, to avoid any objections from Mrs. Crabbe.
They went in style. In late April of 1921, it is probable that the groom wore a brown flannel or gray flannel suit, dress shirt and tie, and probably Pittsburgh's own spade-soled Stoebener shoes. A hat, as well. Such a wardrobe would have fit the occasion, their social status, and the season. It was too early in the year for white flannel and white ducks.
Miss Crabbe would have worn a smart travelling suit. Bought for the occasion, considering that she was spending up a storm in the weeks leading up to the elopement and charging it all to her mother’s account. Orange was a popular color that season. Also beige, and dark blue. The hemline was just a few inches below the knees. As for hats, this was still a modified toque or broad brimmed hat moment, as well as what we would call a Dutch cap inspired hat with brim emphasis on the sides, an extremely popular look that year. No cloche hats had captured the fashion scene, just yet. It was a pre-flapper look. Gloves, of course, both for style and for driving. Presumably, Susan drove, as she did when they were surreptitiously courting. Hair was bobbed but full. Spring coats were grey, taupe, and plaid, either dress length or car-coat length.
It was their wedding day after all. They put forth a good effort at looking their best. The details of notable weddings were customarily reported at length in the society columns of the daily papers. As in: "The bride wore organdy and old lace...(etc.)...The mother of the bride wore a dove grey ensemble with hand embroidery...(and the like)". A list of wedding guests would have been included in the report. The elopement meant that such details went unchronicled.
Similar reports to the one quoted above appeared in other newspapers on the same day. Some of the information in these reports was identical to the first. Other information varied in the details. For example:
"PITTSBURGH HEIRESS TO MILLIONS ELOPES. Granddaughter of Robert Pitcairn is Secretly Wed in the South.
"Special to the Inquirer. PITTSBURGH PA, MAY 4 - "Somewhere in the South" Miss Susan Crabbe, a young millionairess, grandchild of the late Robert Pitcairn, former resident assistant to the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, is enjoying her honeymoon with her young husband, Edmond Hunt of Greensburg. The couple eloped to Cambridge, Ohio, last Saturday and were married. The trip from this city was made in the bride's limousine, after she had escaped from her parental home at "Cairncarque", Ellsworth Avenue, this city. Hunt, the bridegroom, is 24 years old, and is the son of Clinton Hunt of the Memphis Steel Construction Company, of this city. He is a graduate of the Memphis, Tenn. High School, and of Georgia Tech, in Atlanta.
"The bride is 17 years old, and heir to an estate valued at several millions. The late Robert Pitcairn left an estate valued at about $12,000,000. One eighth of this sum was bequeathed to the young woman. Mrs. Crabbe, daughter of the late railroad magnate, was the principal beneficiary of her father's estate. In his will, it is stipulated that at the death of Mrs. Crabbe, one half of her estate is to go to the daughter. 'We do not know where Edmond and his bride are,' stated the mother of the bridegroom yesterday. 'They are somewhere in the South, and we presume they are enjoying their honeymoon.'
"In direct contrast to the pleasure of the bridegroom's parents over his marriage, is the attitude of Mrs. Victor Lee Crabbe, mother of the bride, who is reported to be preparing to seek annulment of the marriage.
"Friends of the bride today stated that the latter planed her elopement carefully and several days in advance of her marriage. Becoming suspicious when her daughter failed to return for lunch last Saturday, the mother made an investigation and discovered that she had removed her clothing and personal effects secretly from the house."
Meanwhile, by this time, the newlyweds had made a comfortable driving journey southward, exactly as stated in the papers. They had decided that Pittsburgh was a bit too insular for them to return there, to deal with the inevitable pressures that would be imposed upon them by Susan's family and likeminded friends. Knowing her mother's intentions as stated in the news reports, Susan did not want to risk a forced annulment. She was off on an exciting new adventure. Her daring young man flying at her side, the wide open road before them. Plenty of wherewithal to get them wherever they wished, and to set up housekeeping when and where they chose.
Back in Pittsburgh, there was very little that Susie Pitcairn Crabbe could do about the matter. She considered employing a private detective to track down the couple. She consulted her lawyer, her siblings, and their spouses. The conclusion that she came to was that the deed was done, Susan had taken this dramatic leap into adulthood, unadvised as it might have been. Her mother knew that Susan would only become less communicative and more stubborn if she applied pressure to the situation. And the eyes of Pittsburgh society were upon her, watching to see what her next move might be.
Eventually, yielding to inevitability and the clamor of the public, the Pitcairn Crabbe family placed this terse notice in the papers, recognizing the marriage:
“Announcement is made of the wedding of Miss Susan Lee Crabbe of Pittsburgh and Edmond P. (sic) Hunt of Greensburg. The wedding took place Saturday, April 30, at Cambridge, Ohio.” Clipped from The Pittsburgh Press, May 8, 1921.
That was all.
However, these notices may be inaccurate in one respect. The marriage records of Ohio County, West Virginia, record the marriage of Susan and Edmonds. Who gave the location as otherwise (Cambridge, Ohio) remains unknown.
XI. In Memphis
After their sudden, mysterious and unchronicled honeymoon, during which time one family fumed and the other beamed, Susan and Edmonds needed to find a place to begin married life together. One can envision the conversation in the car, as they tooled about here and there, or nosed the big sedan southward, as to where they might settle. Perhaps they weighed many options, but the likelihood is that they discussed only two: Pittsburgh or Memphis. Edmonds was famillar with both; Susan, with one. For a number of reasons, it made sense for Edmonds and Susan Hunt to settle in Memphis, Tennessee.
First of all, the decision made sense because it was a place that was already familiar to Edmonds. He had gone to high school there, when his parents had lived there, before relocating to Greensburg. He had connections in Memphis that could be revitalized with some success, as far as his business pursuits were concerned.
Second, it was a logical decision to be in Memphis because Edmonds had retained his position with his father's company, the Memphis Steel Construction Company. He could serve the business on the spot, as the company's representative, and become the face of the company in Memphis.
Third, being in Memphis meant that Susan and Edmonds were able to put physical distance between themselves and the disapproval of the grandees of Pittsburgh that their elopement had caused. Was mother still displeased? Well she could fume from afar. Letters and phone calls did not need to be answered, unless Susan was so inclined.
Fourth, it was possible to begin anew in a new city. A fresh start sounded exciting and adventurous. No more the same dull routine, the same gatherings of the same familiar faces, the same round of parties and engagements. The newness of Memphis beckoned like a lighthouse lantern.
All of these reasons made sense. However, logic and reality are sometimes a bit distant from each other.
Certainly, Memphis was quite familiar to Edmonds, but it was completely unfamiliar to Susan. And while the lofty Pitcairn and Crabbe names were immediately identifiable and spoken in reverent tones in Western Pennsylvania, as someone who is Somebody with a capital S; in Tennessee, neither name would carry any weight or offer any sort of entree into Memphis high society. In fact, Susan had, by her actions, become downwardly mobile. Of money, there was enough, but of social cachet, not enough.
Their personal characters were a concern. It is clear that Susan and Edmonds were fun loving, thrill-seeking. It might be fair to say that they were the glamorous and wealthy "F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayer of Memphis"; that is, if you leave out Scott's literary verve, and Zelda's southern belle ways. Indeed, Susan was a Yankee; and the word 'damned' was usually put before that word, south of the Mason Dixon Line. That she was young and stylish would not have warmed the hearts of society women who were older and plainer. Finding friends was not going to be an easy task. Loneliness was to become an ever-present companion, for Susan.
The dryness of Prohibition had set in, but that did not seem to prevent the Hunts from having plenty of booze to enjoy. Memphis was one of the most wide-open cities of the South during the roaring 1920's. Bootlegging and the crime associated with it were legendary there. Where the Hunts obtained their liquor was not precisely known. But obtain it, they did. It was, of course, entirely illegal. Even so, they began their married life fortified by cocktails. First it was madcap and a heady whirl. Soon it was a necessity. And while it may have been something that they could tolerate initially, at some point they were no longer able to tolerate it. Moderation was impossible. A decade-plus of imbibing takes its toll. In Memphis, the specter of alcoholism became a reality of their lives.
And soon after they settled in Memphis, they discovered that Susan was pregnant.
XII. Memphis in the Jazz Age
The Hunts made their home at 247 Buena Vista Place, a big four bedroom house with a welcoming porch and a porte cochere, built in 1916.
Their son, Edmonds Ethan Hunt, Jr. was born on January 27, 1922, almost exactly 9 months after their marriage.
Little Edmonds provided a focus for Susan and a distraction for Edmonds. Until he was suddenly taken from them at the age of two, on April 17, 1924. The cause of his death was an intestinal obstruction, according to his death certificate.
Edmonds, Jr., was buried in the Forest Hill Cemetery in Memphis. Mourned by his parents and by his Pittsburgh grandmother, who gave annual donations to the Kingsley Foundation in his memory. To lose a child is the worst experience any parent can face. It is among the very worst stressors upon a marriage. It can provide a means for a couple to grow closer and stronger, but that is seldom the case. Usually it pulls and tugs at each spouse in a different way. Each sees the other as grieving too much, or as grieving too little. Resentments fester.
Throughout the decade, Edmonds maintained an office at 510, in the Goodwyn Institute Building, which was at the center of commercial and artistic Memphis. Edmonds joined the University Club, making the kinds of connections necessary for business.
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| Edmonds E. Hunt - Monogramed Letterhead - Memphis, Tennessee |
Susan became of member of the Beethoven Club. The club had been founded to provide an avenue by which good music could be brought to and fostered in Memphis. This was both a social organization and an active events-planning organization. Down the years, famous musicians from afar were brought to Memphis, with tremendous success, by the Beethoven Club. A listing of the club's membership is long, not short. Mrs. E. E. Hunt was a part of it, and involved it its work. And it provided some measure of distraction from daily life.
The Hunts built a showplace of a home at 581 West Drive in glamorous Hein Park. A mottled limestone English Tudor mansion, replete with gables and towering chimneys, surmounted by a red and grey slate roof that looked as if it was centuries old. The house was quite the stunner, and still is, even amid its neighbors in the rarified air of Hein Park. The house took as its inspiration the best that Susan admired of Carincarque, with bay windows and soaring grand staircase, yet with all of Cairncarque's stern gloominess banished.
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| The Hunt Residence - Memphis, Tennessee |
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| Hein Park Gatepost - Memphis, Tennessee |
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| The Hunt Residence - Garden View - Memphis, Tennessee |
Life in Memphis in the 1920s centered around these places: work, home, the private clubs, and more. It was an era of quirky nightclubs and speakeasies and Memphis was famous for them. So a typical evening of amusement for Susan and Edmonds would begin by leaving the secluded Hein Park neighborhood, and driving to an unassuming location - a nondescript storefront or alleyway garage - and giving the prescribed secret password that opened the door to a hidden establishment where jazz was king and alcohol was abundant. The couple became familiar denizens of the nightclub scene in Memphis, and could always expect speedy service at the best tables in the house, as they spent long evenings going from this club to the next.
The music was of the latest, freest, and best kind, the buzz on Beale Street was electric. Any given night would find trumpeter Phil Napoleon and pianist Frank Signorelli and The Original Memphis Five, along with Ladd's Black Aces and the Cotton Pickers. As they moved from this club to that, Susan and Edmonds could hear Jimmy Durante at this piano, the spellbinding vocal stylings of Annette Henshaw (with her adorable tag line, "That's All!") and Anna Meyers at the microphone, or the instrumental verve of the brothers Dorsey before the Big Band Era, with Tommy on trombone and Jimmy on clarinet or saxophone. Music filled the night air, and it seemed as if the whole world was dancing to "Fireworks", "How Come You Do Me Like You Do", and the "Black Bottom Stomp" and humming "Who Stole My Heart Away" and "Bye By Blackbird".
To the observing world, Susan and Edmonds were among the brightest of the bright young things of what was considered Memphis' cafe society. The cups did not hold coffee, though. They were filled with hard liquor with dubious origins. But Edmonds and Susan danced and drank onward, and were on a first name basis with most of the musicians, from Bix to Louis to Hoagy, Scrappy, and Eddie. The cognoscenti's scuttlebutt was that the wildly popular song, "Sweet Sue" claimed Susan Hunt as its lyricist Will J. Harris' inspiration. Whenever the Hunts sashayed into this club or that, the orchestra invariably launched into its snappy strains:
It was no surprise that the police in Memphis looked the other way, for the most part, with regard to the speakeasies and their regulars; since so many law enforcement and judicial folks were part of the regular clientele. As long as the heady spree didn't get too out of hand, no one needed to be the wiser. And so, the mad decade raced onward, fueled by bootleg hooch, superlative music, and devil-may-care abandon.
During the day, the Hunts found plenty to do. Susan was involved with the Beethoven Club, and when not, was often seen golfing at the swanky Memphis Country Club, or whiling away some of her hours at bridge. Edmonds was making this or that deal with the construction industry, and, on the side, sought to develop various properties around the city, with mixed success.
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| The Memphis Country Club |
Meanwhile, up north, Susan Pitcairn Crabbe had another challenge on her hands, as if Susan wasn't worry enough. And that was daughter Elizabeth. Elizabeth had not yet found a husband, and was getting a bit long in the tooth to be considered eligible, even with her wealth. Every possible suitor of good family had been ether rejected by Elizabeth, or as was more often the case, never materialized as a real prospect. The playing field in Pittsburgh had become very sparse, indeed.
More than anything, Susan Pitcairn Crabbe wanted to prevent the prospect of her older daughter winding up an old maid. So she resorted to a stratagem that had been a part of well-to-do parents' planning for many decades. Elizabeth would be marketed for marriage in a larger social sphere; that is, New York City.
And so it was that Mrs. Victor Lee Crabbe of Cairncarque, Pittsburgh, took a grand apartment in the luxurious 540 Park Avenue. She was now "Mrs. Victor Lee Crabbe of Park Avenue" to all of the gushing society reporters. It was a fabulously fashionable building, and the best of addresses.
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| 540 Park Avenue - Home to Susan Pitcarin Crabbe and her daughter Elizabeth |
If you were a member of Pittsburgh society in the 1920s, and were hoping to launch your post-debutante daughter into this even-more exclusive environment, having a home in this particular building would have been an ideal way to start. And there, Mrs. Crabbe entertained. From there, she and Elizabeth sallied forth to the desirable social engagements where they could rub their elbows festively with The 400. Some of them, anyway. Other Pittsburgh people had gotten to New York before them, people like the Fricks and the Carnegies. And, being the dearest and oldest friends of Susan Pitcairn Crabbe, Adelaide Childs Frick and Louise Whitfield Carnegie included Miss Elizabeth Pitcairn Crabbe in glamorous gatherings where this or that as yet respectable unmarried gentleman might be present.
Eventually, Mrs. Crabbe's very own Manhattan project succeeded. And on November 14, 1926, in New York City, Elizabeth was married to lawyer Thomas Joseph Ward, who was her senior by four years. The son of Mrs. Thomas P. Ward of Manhattan. Mr. Ward had been born in New York on December 31, 1895. He was a 1919 graduate of Fordham University (L.L.H.), and had been admitted to the bar in 1920. Ward was an attorney with the prestigious Manhattan law firm, Davies, Stone, and Auerbach (that is, Julien Tappan Davies, Charles E. Stone, and Joseph Smith Auerbach). The firm's most illustrious member was Charles Henry Tuttle, the 1930 Republican candidate for Governor of New York, who lost out to a fellow by the name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Here, in Thomas Joseph Ward, was a solid, respectable man, working for a solid, respectable firm; consequently, he was acceptable son-in-law material for Mrs. Crabbe.
It was an intimate family wedding, to be sure, as suited the relatively advanced ages of the bride and groom. The nuptials took place in the Church of the Transfiguration, better-known as "The Little Church Around the Corner", officiated by the rector, the Rev. Dr. Randolph Ray (who, as was reported in the "New York Times" at the time of his death in 1963, would perform an astounding 50,000 weddings - averaging four a day - in his 35 year tenure at the church. That figure is undoubtedly exaggerated). Elizabeth was 26. Her younger sister Mrs. Edmonds E. Hunt traveled north from her home in Memphis for the occasion, to stand as matron-of-honor. The best man was Thomas Allen Reeter, of New York.
With both daughters now married, if not as ideally as she had once envisioned, Mrs. Victor Lee Crabbe could at last breathe a silent sigh of maternal accomplishment. The 1920s roared on.
The question may come to mind, did the Hunts attend worship in Memphis and if so, where. The answer is not known. What is known is that both of them were brought up as Presbyterians. So they had that commonality of faith to draw upon, had they wished. Of the Hunt family's commitment and devotion to the First Presbyterian Church of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, research is needed to ascertain the level of energy they did nor did not apply there. However, regarding the Pitcairn and Crabbe families, and their commitment and devotion to the Shadyside Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, it must be said their energy and faithfulness is unquestioned. For three generations, their families were understood to have a long and loving relationship with the congregation and a strong sense of responsibly for its well-being. Susan learned this from the cradle onward. This may have caused her to seek out a similar Presbyterian congregation in which to worship in Memphis. However, it is also often the case that when a person has such deep and long of a relationship with a home congregation, one is incredibly reluctant to seek another congregation in which to worship and serve. It is clear that whether or not Susan found a worship-home in a church in Memphis, she continued to think of herself as a member of the Shadyside congregation. She would not return there often, as the years unfolded - only upon occasions that marked family change. Nonetheless, she maintained such a tie to the church that its purposes were part of her intentional planning for the long-distant future.
And then came the Stock Market Crash and resulting Depression. It didn't faze the Pitcairns whatsoever as far as their personal wealth was concerned. Whether in Manhattan or Pasadena, Pittsburgh or Memphis, there was still plenty of wherewithal. But it did have an effect on business interests. Suddenly no one anywhere was building anything. Building materials, including steel, were the last thing people were buying. Architects stopped paying dues to the AIA; since no one was in need of their services, let alone the services of a steel supplier.
Very quickly, Edmonds' work dried up. But Susan and Edmonds did not change much about their lifestyle. They continued to frequent the nightclubs, soon freed from the shackles of Prohibition. The music played on, but with a notable difference. Gone was the hot, carefree innocence of the 1920s jazz scene. Now cooler music like Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo" set the tone. The drinking continued, at full tilt, and was taking more and more of a toll. Hangovers were harder to get over. Ungentlemanly lapses in polite behavior were more frequent, as Edmonds let his moodiness and anger have freer reign. Due no doubt to the levels of liquor in his system. Likewise, Susan was edgy and strained. She lost weight, and it did not suit her, despite the myth of one never being too rich or too thin. With these changes came another. Invitations to the homes of other Memphis notables were fewer and fewer. Invitations to parties at 581 West Drive were more and more often declined. The 1930s were indeed depressing.
XIII. The Early 1930s
Susan's sister Elizabeth was not doing well, four years into her marriage in New York. Things were stressful and strained living with Tom. In order to give herself a break, she decided to do as other members of the family had done before her, and spend a portion of the winter in Pasadena, California.
By 1930, the boom years of Pasadena had subsided, but not before they had created a high tone escape from reality, with towering palm trees lining smoothly paved streets that were a showplaces of every kind of home for the upper middle class, or as was more the case, the wonderfully well to do. Here and there, one could find residences that had graced the pages of the dwelling-type magazines, most notably of which were the many grand Arts and Crafts oversized California bungalows of Greene and Greene. There was even a small gem of a home by famous architect Frank Lloyd wright tucked away in a private ayarro, dubbed by its designer, "La Miniatura". There its owner, Mrs. George Madison Millard, lived surrounded by rare books that she sold to well-heeled book collectors such as Estelle Doheny and Henry E. Huntington, sallying forth to the mansions of her clients in her hired Rolls Royce limousine so as to arrive in convincingly elegant style. No matter that the little gully into which the home was built flooded the house whenever there was a torrential rainstorm, the place was just round the corner from the Gamble House, owned by the Proctor and Gamble Gambles, who, like the Pitcairns, had sought a relief from the grey chill of their hometowns in sunny California.
The Robert Pitcairn Jr. House was only minutes away from the Gamble House, and had also been designed by the Greene brothers. It stood as a monument to their suave, mature style, and surrounded Marion and Robert Junior with all of artistic coziness that money could buy. Elizabeth journeyed to Uncle Robert's for her getaway from New York. It was the last trip she would ever take.
As the newspapers reported, Elizabeth died "suddenly" in Pasadena, on March 8, 1930. The ominous word "suddenly" was news-copy's way of saying this was not a lingering illness, nor was it expected. Rather, Elizabeth's death was something abrupt, along the lines of a terrible accident, or, as was more often the case, suicide. Whatever the cause may have been, Susan's only sister was gone at the age of 30.
Susan's grief compounded the dreariness of the depressed decade. Yet the Hunts continued in their plush lifestyle as best they could. With virtually no income coming in from Edmonds, they were thrown back on Susan's inheritance to run their grand house and continue their rounds of jazz club nights. Money was there, but it was flowing at an alarming rate. They found themselves arguing about it on a regular basis. These arguments were not pretty. But still and all, they managed to keep up appearances in Memphis society, for the most part. However, when the grey winter skies and early darkness of the "off" months closed in, they longed for a change. Any kind of a change would do.
At some point in the mid-1930s they latched upon the idea of going someplace sunny for a portion of the winter. Pasadena, where things were still staid and stiff collar to the extreme with Uncle Robert and Aunt Marion did not hold any appeal. Pasadena was known for its sedate country club lifestyle which leaned heavily toward demure book groups and pinkies-out church socials. Susan had had enough of that in Pittsburgh. No, someplace other than Pasadena was called for.
So, they cast about for alternatives, and settled on Florida. From all they could tell, life in the Florida resort communities was more like life in the 1920s than the 1930s. Fun and sun beckoned. They went, they saw, and Florida conquered. Being the "Pitcairn Crabbe Hunts" they found themselves welcomed into the company of descendants of other famous moguls, the Firestones, the Wanamakers, the Stotesburys, and such. People who spoke their own language. People who did not have to focus on funds. For, funds were abundant and seemed the most natural thing in the world. To be born wealthy and to grow up in an environment of abundance makes such things seem the most natural in the world.
Quickly, they got to know Palm Beach. They got to know Coral Gables. And chief among the locales, they got to know Miami Beach. To the Hunts, it was a veritable fairyland of endless yachting on the waterways, partying at the private clubs, sunning in the private cabanas, tennis on the private courts, golf on the private links, and what have you. And unlike the gatherings of high society in Pittsburgh or Memphis, it was seasoned with a charming mix of plenty of old money, fascinating new money, glamorous Hollywood money, and impressively-titled Europeans who may or may not have had much money but made up for it in abundant elan. None of them were concerned about mundane matters such as how the tire, or steel, or automotive, or retail businesses were doing. They concentrated on where their next outing would take them, and what new whimsical twist it might have, from moonlit evenings overlooking the Atlantic under swaying palms, at the Surf Club or the Bath Club, to the flamingos and festive days at the Hialeah Racetrack, and languorous boating on the blue green Biscayne Bay.
Memphis was dull as dishwater compared with the sparkle of Miami Beach. So the idea began to form in their minds that perhaps going to Miami Beach should not be limited to a few winter months, but become their year round location. It took them several years to act on the idea. As they pondered and planned, they watched some of the new developments in the resort city. They noticed where the best homes were being built, and by which architects. They felt a strong attraction to the splendid white Miami Deco showplaces designed by the brilliant homegrown Miami architect Russell Pancoast. They visited some of his latest homes on one or the other of the elite and private Sunset Islands. They noticed that married couples seemed to be perfectly content with having their own, separate pursuits for much of the day, and for mingling freely for most of the night. They saw that although the sumptuous yachts of Gar Wood were selling briskly, there seemed to be room to market other boats. These thing held great appeal.
If they were going to move to Miami Beach, they wanted it all - the best of the best. The problem was, even with her own inheritance and now the added benefits of sister Elizabeth's share, there didn't seem to be quite enough to keep up with the Fords and the Firestones. Not yet.
And then, on Thursday, August 12, 1937, Susan's mother, Susan Blanche Pitcairn Crabbe died. The death notice in the August 14, 1937 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette stated:
CRABBE - At Spring Lake, New Jersey on Thursday, August 12, 1937, Susan Pitcairn Crabbe, beloved mother of Mrs. E. E. Hunt of Memphis, Tenn., and sister of Mrs. Charles L. Taylor of Spring Lake, and Mrs. Omar S. Decker of Pittsburgh, also of Robert Pitcairn Jr of Pasadena Cal. Funeral services at H. Samson's, 537 Neville Street, Pittsburgh on Saturday afternoon.
Following the funeral, Mrs. Crabbe was laid to rest in the Pitcairn family mausoleum in Homewood Cemetery.
XIV. The Move to Miami Beach
This sad passing also brought about another dramatic change in Susan Lee Crabbe Hunt's life. For now, the stipulations of her grandmother's will came to have an even greater impact on her financial status. Through the guidance of Pittsburgh attorney James E. Hindman, representing her mother's estate, Susan was suddenly one of the wealthiest women east of the Mississippi. This fact was known in Pittsburgh, but was not as well know elsewhere. It had been many years since Robert Pitcairn's passing, and other plutocrats had come into the public consciousness since.
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| James E. Hindman - Susan's Pittsburgh Attorney |
Hindman was Scots-Irish; his grandfather James Hindman had been a pioneer iron manufacturer in Pennsylvania, operation a foundry in Lancaster and another in Philadelphia. Grandfather James' son, and attorney Hindman's father, John Allen Hindman, entered employment with the Pennsylvania Railroad shops in Altoona as a young man, and worked for the PRR for a total of for forty-six years. Naturally he and his contemporary Robert Pitcairn, were well-known to each other and worked together on many railroad projects.
John Allen Hindman's son, Susan's mother's attorney and thereafter Susan's Pittsburgh attorney, James E. Hindman, was born in Altoona in on July 6, 1875. A graduate of Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and of Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, Hindman continued his studies at Dickinson Law School and the Pittsburgh Law School of Western University (now the University of Pittsburgh), He worked both prior to and after being admitted to the bar, for the American Surety Company, then established his own practice specializing in corporation and municipal law, serving as the East End Pittsburgh city of Wilkinsburg's legal counsel.
Robert Pitcairn's many interests had included serving as shareholder and sometimes officer of the Fidelity & Trust Company, the Citizen's National Bank of Pittsburgh, the First National Bank of Greensburg, and not incidentally, the American Surety Company.
Altoona, Pennsylvania Railroad, Pittsburgh's East End, the American Surety Company - all of these happy connections between them made James E. Hindman an utterly trustworthy figure to the Pitcairn-Crabbe family, and thus, to Susan as well. He had served as the legal guardian for Susan and her sister Elizabeth, as stipulated in Victor Lee Crabbe's will. Susan would rely upon his judgement and advice, throughout her life. She would also stipulate in her own will, a particular role for him.
At the time of Susan Pitcairn Crabbe's death, Hindman informed the younger Susan that she was now a woman of fabulous means. As a result, Susan and Edmonds felt ready to act on their plans to relocate to Miami Beach.
They commissioned a beautiful house on Sunset Island I, from the drawing board of Russell Pancoast. The house was built on a prime lot on the private island, at 1616 West 28th Street. This sun-drenched estate boasted 100 feet of waterfront, lushly landscaped grounds, covered patio with summer kitchen, and pool with southern exposure. Gorgeous architectural details throughout the spacious 8567 square foot home offered living room, formal dining room, den, and kitchen with water views. Upstairs were five bedrooms including the large master suite with luxurious marble bath, walk in closets, and balcony overlooking the pool, lawns, and water.
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| The Hunt Estate - Sunset Islands I - Miami Beach - Russell Pancoast, Architect |
At the same time a new venture was announced, the Miami Chris-Craft Company. Located at 1742 Alton Road in Miami Beach, a mere 1.7 miles from the new Hunt estate, the company served as the official Chris Craft dealers for Miami Beach, featuring custom built runabouts, utility boasts, cruisers.
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| Miami Christ-Craft Company - Advertising Matchbook Cover |
The yacht brokers engaged in this business were Edmond E. Hunt and his younger brother, Stanley Allen Hunt. The announcement read:
"Miami Chris-Craft Company Founded - The Chris-Craft Corporation of Algonac, Michigan, has recently announced the appointment of the Miami Chris-Craft Company as dealers and representatives for southern Florida. Their new showroom at 1742 Alton Road, Miami Beach is already open. Edmonds E. Hunt is president." (August 1938)
Mention should be made here of Stanley Allen Hunt's life. Stanley was born on July 17, 1906. Stanley first married debutante Barbara Cass in Atlanta, Georgia, in April 1932, according to a big society spread in the Atlanta "Constitution" for March 13, 1932: “Mr. Hunt is the son of Mr and Mrs Clinton Allen Hunt of Syracuse, New York. A graduate of the Kentucky Military Academy and Carnegie Tech. he lived and worked in Memphis, Tenn. He came to Atlanta a year ago. He is associated with the Central Iron and Steel Co of Harrisburg, Pa. Mr. Hunt’s elder brother is Edmonds Ethan Hunt of Memphis, Tenn.”
The marriage to Barbara Cass did not last long. Stanley married secondly Mary Francis McCollum just five years later, on August 4, 1937, at her parents' home in Little Rock, Arkansas. According to the "Southwestern Alumni Magazine", Miss McCollum was a Southwestern College alumnae in the class of 1936. Mary Hunt was listed as an officer of the Miami Chris-Craft Company when it opened in 1938. (MotorBoating magazine, 1938 - The Miami Chris-Craft Company, with Edmonds E. Hunt, president, Stanley Allen Hunt, vice president, and Mary M. Hunt, secretary). Stanley and Mary had a son, Anthony Allen Hunt born in 1941. Stanley married a succession of socialites.
The brothers were good publicists and managed to get notices about their company in the boating magazines:
MotorBoating - Vol. 62, No. 2 - "The West Palm Beach Fishing Club reports a new record... Organized by Edmonds E. Hunt and Stanley Hunt of Miami Beach, of the newly founded “Miami Chris-Craft Company”..."
MotorBoating - Vol. 62, No. 4 - "For fall and winter delivery of new and used Runabouts, Utility Boats, and Cruisers of all makes write or telegraph the MIAMI CHRIS-CRAFT COMPANY, Yacht Brokers, 1742 Alton Road, Miami Beach, Florida."
MotorBoating - Aug 1938 - Page 64, Vol. 62, No. 2 - "The newly formed Miami Outboard Club held its initial regatta on July Fourth on the north bay, eleven ... Organized by Edmonds E. Hunt and Stanley Hunt of Miami Beach...".
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| The Hunt Brothers also ran Miss Miami Speed Boats excursions |
Early successes of this boat dealership made the press, with the sizes of the boats and the names of prominent buyers listed, as follows:
"Stanley Hunt, Sales Manager of the Chris-Craft Company, reports the sale of a 29-foot express cruiser to Col. Frank C. Kolb of Philadelphia and Palm Beach: another of the model to H. T. Guest of Naples and Detroit: a 33-foot cruiser to Harry Hecker, Miami: a 41-footer to Malcolm McConnell, New York City and Miami Beach: and a 32-foot cruiser to Claude Cavalier of Miami Beach. This agency has been going wide open since it started in June."
The Miami Chris-Craft Company was nonetheless short-lived. Here is information about its being dissolved, just five years after its beginning:
Florida Profit Corporation: MIAMI CHRIS-CRAFT CO
Filing Information
Document Number 136066
FEI/EIN Number 00-0000000
Date Filed 06/01/1938 State FL
Status INACTIVE
Last Event DISSOLVED BY PROCLAMATION
Event Date Filed 06/01/1943
XV. Stormy Weather
If 1938 saw the Hunts relocate to the sunny climes of Miami Beach, by 1939, ominous storm clouds gathered. Things were terribly wrong for Susan. Edmonds seemed to be thriving as a yacht dealer, but she was withering away. From all reports of the time, it seems as if Edmonds restricted her movements in a disturbingly controlling fashion. The allure of southern Florida was not living up to expectations. Quite the opposite.
Chinks in the relationship caused Susan to reconsider decisions she had previously made about the fortune she had inherited. She had her attorney draw up a new will, in strictest confidence, unbeknown to Edmonds or anyone other than her attorney. As would only become clear upon its filing after her death, this last will and testament, which she signed on May 20, 1939, demonstrated her growing concerns.
To do so, Susan contacted attorney Paul C. Albritton, of Sarasota, as her counsel. Albritton was highly thought of, as one of the younger generation of lawyers in the newish county of Sarasota. He established his practice in the city of Sarasota in the early 1920s. Albritton was of these rare birds, a native born Floridian. He was the son of Thomas A. Albritton and his wife, Martha Jane Chauncey Albritton, his paternal Albritton grandparents had moved to Chicoro, Florida just after the end of the Civil War, while his maternal Chauncey grandparents had come to Florida even earlier, from South Carolina, while the Civil War was underway. Both of the grandfathers had become well-regarded planters and citrus growers in Polk county. Paul Albritton graduated from the law school of Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, in 1922, and was thereafter admitted to the Florida bar. As to his reputation, he was a man of integrity; as to his character, he was a devout Episcopalian.
The will that Albritton drew up, with input from Susan's Western Pennsylvania attorney James E. Hindman, and which Susan approved and signed, showed several things. It demonstrated clearly that Susan was intent upon doing all that she could, in the way of bequests, to honor her family in a munificent and memorable way. And it showed as well that Susan was no longer at all confident of Edmonds' trustworthiness. More will be said about both of these features of the new will, as the story unfolds.
It is safe to say that Susan's doubts about Edmonds were well-founded. This was born out in the observations of others in their Miami Beach set. But even more so, when the strife at home erupted in such a dramatic way that it made the newspapers in Florida, and in every other state of the union.
The first bombshell was a totally bizarre and frightening event that took place in 1939, and made the national news. It had do to with the marital conflicts of the Hunts, no longer able to be contained inside the white stuccoed walls of their Sunset Island I estate. It went far beyond the occasional rumbles that family and friends may have sensed. It was a dramatic upheaval that shook their lives to the very core.
On July 31, 1939, Susan had reached the end of her rope, and filed for divorce.
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| Susan Lee Crabbe Hunt - 1939 |
As soon as Edmonds found out about it, he took action in a most violent fashion, with the assistance of his brother Stanley and several others not named in press reports, who can only be described as thugs.
At a divorce settlement conference at their Sunset Island home, the men beat Mrs. Hunt's attorney, Paul C. Albritton, and while Stanley and the unnamed toughs held off Albritton, Edmonds took Susan against her will "kicking and screaming:" to his waiting speedboat at their dock, and revving the engine into responsiveness, disappeared with her for parts unknown.
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| The Dock and the Waterway - Hunt Estate - Miami Beach |
Susan had vanished. And under the worst of circumstances. No one had any idea where Edmonds and the speedboat had taken her. Nor her condition, after she had been so unwillingly abducted.
From the perspective of eighty-plus years later, it is clear that, at the very least, the controlling behavior of Edmonds Hunt is inexcusable, and would most definitely fall into the category of abuse by any of today's standards. Much more could be said by experts in marital conflict and marital discord. Even in 1939, however, it was evident to the news reporters that this was a deeply troubled and broken marriage.
More was to come.
The follow-up story was every bit as strange as the troubling events that proceeded it. Circuit Judge Arthur Gomez earlier had issued an order charging the brothers with contempt of court, and directing Edmonds Hunt to produce his wife in court. Here is that news story:
"SEARCH WRIT HELD UP IN FLORIDA DISPUTE OF SOCIETY COUPLE - Mr. and Mrs. Hunt Declared Out of Court's Jurisdiction - By the Associated Press. MIAMI, FLA. August 19 - A court ordered search for Stanley A. and Edmonds E. Hunts, brothers, and Susan Lee Hunt, socially-prominent wife of the latter, whom he is alleged to be "holding against her will," was delayed last least temporally today.
Chief Deputy Joseph Condermann reported the writ was held in abeyance after J. Harvey Robillard, attorney for Stanley Hunt, informed the court his client would answer the charge Monday morning.
Mr. Condermann said he understood Mr. and Mrs. Hunt had left Florida and they were out of the court's jurisdiction.
Mrs. Hunt's attorney, former Circuit Judge Paul C Albritton of Sarasota, obtained the order after he told Judge Gomez of having been beaten at the Hunt home last night.
Wealthy Mrs. Hunt, the former Susan Lee Crabbe of Pittsburgh, Pa., granddaughter of the late Robert Pitcairn, Pennsylvania Railroad executive, was plaintiff in a divorce action filed July 31. She charged she had been held virtually a prisoner since moving to Miami Beach three years ago." [The Washington Star, August 20, 1939]
It is hard to know what powers of persuasion or threats of retribution were brought to bear upon Susan, in order for her to reconsider her divorce action, before she reemerged from the kidnapping. Whatever was said, and by whomever, it crushed her initial resolve in filing the divorce action at the end of July. As later reported, on November 13, 1939, Mrs. Hunt brought dismissal of the charges, by declaring, "It was all a mistake." She said she had become reconciled with her husband, and the divorce action was to be withdrawn.
But it was not "all a mistake". Far worse was yet to come. Susan Lee Crabbe Hunt had only a few months left to live.
News of Susan's untimely death was reported in many USA newspapers, as follows in this example:
"HEIRESS AT BEACH FOUND SMOTHERED. Mrs. Susan Lee Hunt, Principal In Divorce Sensation Here last Summer, Dies In Sleep, Her Nose And Mouth On Arm. Mrs. Susan Lee Crabbe Hunt, 36, heirless who figured in a sensational divorce action here last summer only to be reunited with her husband, Edmonds E. Hunt, was found dead in her residence, 1616 W. 28th Street., Sunset Islands, yesterday.
"Peace Justice Ralph C. Pole, who ordered an autopsy “because of publicity attendant to the suit last year,” said death was due to suffocation caused by drunkenness and that no inquest would be held.
"Mrs. Hunt was a daughter of Victor L. Crabbe, Pittsburgh manufacturer, and granddaughter of Robert Pitcairn, who made a fortune with the Pennsylvania Railroad.
"The body, according to peace justice Pole, was found by Hunt. Apparently she died in her sleep in bed from suffocation caused as she lay with her nose and mouth on her arm. A physician was summoned who pronounced her dead. Peace Justice Pole said he had learned Mrs. Hunt was drinking heavily Friday night and that she had been under the care of physicians frequently during the last several years because of alcoholism.
"Last summer Mrs. Hunt filed suit for divorce from her husband and came to Miami with a Sarasota attorney to obtain personal belongings at her home. While there, the lawyer, Paul C. Albritton, was beaten severely by Hunts brother and several other men while Hunt left the house in a speedboat with his wife.
"The lawyer charged Mrs. Hunt was kidnaped by her husband and that he had not been able to communicate with his client. Later it was learned she was being treated in a hospital in the North, but on her return here she informed Circuit Judge Arthur Gomes she left with Hunt of her own volition and the divorce case was dropped.
"Mrs. Hunt’s body will be sent to Memphis today for burial by the Nicely funeral home."
Another news article contains much the same information:
"HEIRESS FOUND DEAD OF ALCOHOLISM
"MIAMI BEACH, Fla, March 3 – Mrs. Susan Lee Crabbe Hunt, 36, Pittsburgh heiress to a Pennsylvania railroad fortune, died at her home here yesterday. She was found dead in bed by her husband. Edmonds D Hunt (sic) head of a boat building firm here. Justice of the Peace Ralph C. Pole said an autopsy disclosed she died of “suffocation due to alcoholism”. She had been ill of a heart ailment for several months, her Pittsburgh attorney James E Hindman said.
"Mrs. Hunt, daughter of Victor L. Crabbe Pittsburgh industrialist and granddaughter of Robert Pitcairn, one time assistant of the president of the Pennsylvania railroad, was the center last fall of a court dispute growing out of a divorce action against her husband, a former Greensburg resident.
"Her attorney Paul C Aibritton of Sarasota Fla charged he had been beaten and Mrs. Hunt abducted by her husband and his brother, Stanley. Mrs. Hunt later testified she had left willingly and had effected a reconciliation with her husband.
"Mrs. Hunt inherited $125,000 from her mother who died in 1937. Funeral services and burial will be Tuesday in Memphis, Tenn."
This article appeared, as well:
Heiress Dies in Far South
Rites for Mrs. Susan L. C. Hunt Wil be Here
"Mrs. Susan Lee Crabbe Hunt, Pittsburgh heiress to a Pennsylvania Railroad fortune and figure in a headlined domestic wrangle last November, died Saturday at Miami Beach, Fla. Last year her lawyers asserted her husband Edmunds E. Hunt, and his brother, Stanley, forcibly removed her from her home at the resort following a divorce settlement conference, but later she asked that her divorce suit be dismissed.
"Mrs. Hunt was the daughter of Victor L. Crabbe, Pittsburgh industrialist, and granddaughter of Robert Pitcairn, Pennsylvania Railroad executive, who left her $125,000. She was 36.
"Funeral services will be conducted tomorrow by Dr. Hugh Thomson Kerr of the Shadyside Presbyterian Church here. Burial will be in Memphis, Tenn."
The following was also published:
Pennsy Heiress To $125,000 Dies in South
Susan Crabbe Hunt Ex-Pittsburgher Dead in Miami Beach
"Mrs. Susan Lee Crabbe Hunt, heiress to a $125,000 [sic] Pennsylvania Railroad fortune, died in Miami Beach Fla. Yesterday, the Associated Press reported.
"She was the daughter of Victor L. Crabbe, Pittsburgh industrialist, and the granddaughter of Robert Pitcairn, former resident assistant to the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
"Last November, Mrs. Hunt reached the headlines when it was charged she was removed from Miami Beach against her will by her husband Edmunds E. Hunt, and his brother, Stanley. Her attorney charged she was forcibly removed from her home after a conference regarding a divorce settlement.
"Later she denied this with: I love my husband. I am sure there will be no further trouble between us. I want my divorce suit dismissed.
"Squire Ralph C. Pole said death was caused by “suffocation due to alcoholism”. The Associated Press said.
"Mrs. Hunt’s Pittsburgh attorney, James T. Hindman, said she had been ill for some time with a heart ailment.
"She will be buried in Memphis, Tenn, he said, where her son, Edmonds E, Jr. was buried when he died at the age of 2. Dr. Hugh Thomson Kerr pastor of Shadyside Presbyterian Church, will go South to conduct the services Tuesday, he said.
"She leaves two aunts, Mrs. Omar S, Decker of Amberson Avenue, and Mrs. Charles Taylor…"
Susan Lee Crabbe Hunt's death certificate issued by the Commonwealth of Florida is not as enlightening as it might have been. The document gives the time, date, and place of death, as 12:15 a.m., March 2, 1940, at 1616 West 28th Street, Sunset Island, Florida. It states the the Hunts lived at this address for 2 1/2 years, but that the attending physician, the same Dr. Ralph C. Pole, "Coroner by Office" (JAD Notes: this is a puzzle to me, can someone explain how a person is both Justice of the Peace, attesting physician, and coroner by office?), had been caring for Mrs. Hunt since December of 1936. It further states that he had last seen her alive on March 1, 1940, the day before her untimely death. The date of the autopsy is given as the same day as her death: March 2, 1940. The cause of death is listed as "Acute alcoholism with Asphyxia". The Nicely Funeral Home of Miami was in charge of arrangements, for the removal of Susan's body for internment in Memphis.
Ralph C. Pole had been born in Philadelphia in 1889, and so was 50 at the time he figured in Susan's story. Pole had served as a private in WWI. As an aside, and only because I find it anachronistically amusing, Pole's 39 year old second wife was named "Mae", as in "Mae Pole"!
Even though virtually all of her family were interred in Pittsburgh's Homewood Cemetery, Susan Lee Crabbe Hunt's earthly remains were laid to rest in Forest Hills Cemetery, Midtown, Memphis, Tennessee, near the grave of her little two year old son, Edmonds Ethan Hunt, Jr. (1922-1924).
Who of the Pitcairn family was still living at the time of Susan’s death?
- Aunt Agnes Decker – 83
- Uncle Omar Decker - 84
- Aunt Lillian Taylor - 82
- Cousin Lillian Taylor Savage - 56
- Uncle Robert Pitcairn Jr - 66
- Aunt Marion Sellers Pitcairn - 59
Susan's parents and only sister had pre-deceased her. At the time of her death, she was the youngest member of the Pitcairn family still living. Which, if any, of her extended family members listed above traveled to Susan's funeral in Memphis, is unknown.
A word or two should be made about the senior minister of the Shadyside Presbyterian Church, who did travel and officiated at Susan's funeral. The Rev. Dr. Hugh Thomson Kerr had been called to serve Shadyside in 1913. as its fifth senior minister.
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| The Rev. Dr. Hugh Thomson Kerr, Senior Minister Shadyside Presbyterian Church Photo by the author |
He had an amazing 32-year pastorate there, and was a celebrated preacher and pastoral leader. Under Dr. Kerr's leadership, the Sanctuary of the church was remodeled to the form still extant today.
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| The Sanctuary - Shadyside Presbyterian Church - Pittsburgh Photo by the author |
As a visionary leader, Dr. Kerr was the first minister anywhere in the world to initiate regular weekly broadcasts of his sermons, on station KDKA Pittsburgh. This interest in communicating the Gospel electronically extended to the first radio broadcast of worship to the North Pole and to the South Pole. In 1933, Dr. Kerr initiated the practice of World Wide Communion Sunday, which has grown to be a part of the worship year for a multitude of congregations throughout the world, celebrated on the first Sunday in October. Dr. Kerr had been Susan's minster from the time of her girlhood, and held her, and the entire Pitcarin Crabbe family, in the fondest regard. His daughter was Susan's dearest friend, and received a gift of her jewelry upon her death.
In consulting the various newspaper accounts, the reader of today is left with more questions than answers. For example, if Susan Hunt was kept virtually a prisoner in her own home since the time that the couple moved to Miami Beach from Memphis, then how was it even possible that she had obtained the alcohol and drugs that were said to be in her system at the time of her death? She may or may not have had a drinking problem; it may or may not have been out of control. But surely if that was the case, every precaution would have been taken by the people close to her to be sure she could not obtain liquor; especially if she were kept confined to the Sunset Island estate.
What forces were brought to bear in Susan's withdrawing her suit for divorce? What was said or done to cause such an abrupt reversal, after determination to end the marriage?
As to the stated manner of Susan's death, medical experts will have more to say. It is not likely that a person, even intoxicated and under the influence of a mix of alcohol and drugs, would have repositioned themselves to avoid being unable to breathe? The situation is at the very least, suspect.
If, as is stated, Susan was kept a prisoner in the home, more questions arise. One wonders exactly how she was able to contact and meet with Paul Albritton to change her will - it seems that at that point, before the attorney was beaten and before Edmonds kidnapped Susan, that she had some autonomy of movement and actions. However, it is also true that in a community where the doings of couples such as the Hunts would have been chronicled in the local press, there seems to be none of that. If they were getting out, either together or alone, to the usual private clubs of Miami Beach, the society columnists ignored them.
The contents of her will were revelatory.
In her Last Will and Testament dated May 20, 1939, the late Susan Lee Hunt created the Pitcairn-Crabbe Foundation to perpetuate the memory of her mother, Susan Pitcairn-Crabbe, and her grandparents, Robert and Elizabeth E. Pitcairn. And in keeping with the will, on December 23, 1940, the Pitcairn-Crabbe Foundation was incorporated as a nonprofit corporation by order of the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The Pitcairn-Crabbe Foundation's stated purpose:
"The income of the said Corporation shall be applied in equitable proportions through approved institutions, organizations and individuals for religious and church work, for Christian education, for community welfare, and, generally, for the relief of distress and the improvement of the spiritual and material condition of humanity, especially in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania."
Further, Susan's will stipulated that her Pittsburgh attorney James E. Hindman would serve as one of two life-members of the foundation, the other being Alexander P. Reed, a Pittsburgh attorney admitted to the bar in 1915, who had studied at Washington and Jefferson College, Harvard Law School, and the University of Pittsburgh law school. All of the other Pitcairn-Crabbe Foundation directors would serve as such concurrently with their term as Trustees of the Shadyside Presbyterian Church.
The generous of act Susan Lee Crabbe Hunt's will initiated a remarkable 80-plus years (and counting) of support for deserving organizations and projects in Western Pennsylvania and beyond. In a sample year, the grants conferred include but are not limited to: East End Cooperative Ministry, Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, The United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania, Allegheny County Assistance Office, Crestfield Camp and Conference Center, Foundation of Hope, Knead Community Care, Melting Pot Ministries, and St Paul of the Cross Monastery and Retreat Center. There are so many ways that these gifts have touched the lives of people in need and people with good work to do, that it would be fair to say that the majority of Pittsburgh's people's lives are the better for it.
Susan's will also caused Edmonds a great deal of consternation when its stipulations were revealed, as is made clear in this news article:
She Didn’t Tell Her Hubby Her Will Was Changed!
And Now He’s In Court to Break It
"MIAMI – (Special) – A series of domestic fireworks, including divorce suits, kidnappings, assault and contempt charges and reconciliations, going on since early 1939, is ending on a post-mortem will contest in county court here,
"Edmunds E. Hunt, husband of the late Susan Lee Hunt, Pennsylvania Railroad heiress, is fighting for the $3,000,000 estate she left after her death last March of suffocation while intoxicated.
"The Hunts were married more than 18 years ago. They had no children.
"Mrs. Hunt’s original will left the bulk of her estate to her husband, but in May, 1939, she changed it to provide him with only a trust paying $10,000 a year. She did not tell her husband.
"On July 31 Mrs. Hunt’s divorce attorney obtained a court order forbidding Hunt to molest his wife.
"In August, 1939, Hunt and his brother, Stanley, carried Mrs. Hunt, kicking and screaming, to a waiting yacht which spirited her away. She later returned unharmed.
"Her lawyer maneuvered a contempt charge against Hunt on a charge that he had violated the July 31 order. On Nov. 13, Mrs. Hunt brought dismissal of the charges by declaring, “It was all a mistake”. She said she had become reconciled with her husband and that the divorce action was to be withdrawn.
"On March 2, 1940, Mrs. Hunt was found dead in bed. It was then Hunt learned about the will. He promptly asked County Judge W. F. Blanton to revoke it on the ground that it was made by Mrs. Hunt while under the influence of narcotics and alcohol.
"Now he says that since filing the action contesting the will the administrators have ceased payment on the $10,000 a year willed him by Susan. He claims to have received only $2,000."
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From this news report, it is clear that Edmonds was caught completely off guard. His energies were focused on having the latest will revoked. The result of this is not known. There seem to be no further reports of any kind in the newspapers about this case. This strongly suggests that some kind of out of court settlement was effected between Edmonds Hunt and the executors of Susan Lee Crabbe Hunt's will. More research may bring further information to light, and will be added here, if it does.
The next definite news of Edmonds Hunt is the photograph that was taken of him, in the yard of the Sunset Island I estate, by Miami photojournalist, Gleason Waite Romer, on October 22, 1940. In it, Edmonds is shown kneeling with two of his dogs, on the beautifully manicured lawn of 1616 West 28th Street, with the mansion visible through the palm trees. Edmonds is wearing a short sleeved dress shirt open at the neck, and what appear to be glen plaid trousers. He does not look well; indeed, he looks totally emaciated. Whether this is from stress, or from being a chain smoker, or a combination thereof, he looks a decade or more older than his 43 years.
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| Edmonds E. Hunt with two dogs - Hunt Estate - October 22, 1940 |
What is known is that before long, Edmonds remarried. HIs second wife was Mary Ann Danluck, one of a large group of siblings. Mary Ann was born in 1912, and so was 28 years old at the time of their wedding. A petite, slim brunette, who dressed plainly but in chic style, Mary Ann looked like nothing so much as a younger version of Susan Lee Crabbe Hunt. How she and Edmonds had met, and when, is not yet known. It is highly likely that they knew one another prior to Susan's death. It is also quite possible that the other unnamed men who were present at the time of Susan's kidnapping included one or more of her relatives.
Mary Ann was a local girl. Her family had moved to Miami Beach from Winnipeg, Canada, where she continued to have family including an uncle, a Dr. Podorney. Mary Ann had three brothers, and four sisters: Daniel Danluck (1908-1973), Stanley Danluck, and Jerry Danluck, and Mrs. Hope Danluck Couch (1924-2006), Mrs. Faith Danluck Parker (1925-2009), Mrs Charity Danluck Day, and Mrs. Joyce Danluck Morin (1930-2016). Her mother Sophia Podorney Danluck (1888-1971) would live in Miami to the end of her days, reaching the ripe old age of 82, and number among her descendants 19 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
Two of Sophia's 19 grandchildren were born to Edmonds and Mary Ann Danluck Hunt. The newlyweds wasted little time in staring a family. Their son, Michael Edmonds ("Ned") Hunt was born in Miami Beach the day before Armistice Day, November 10, 1941; or just twenty months after Susan Hunt's tragic death. He died February 25, 2006. Their daughter, Patti Allen Hunt, would follow, born in 1946.
As for the Hunt brothers' Miami Chris-Craft yacht business, it fell off completely, and was noted earlier, by 1943 was declared defunct by the Commonwealth of Florida.
The next piece of this story is somewhat mysterious. Somehow or other, Edmonds made his way back to his father's and paternal grandparents' home town of Rising Sun, in Ohio County, Indiana. How, when, and why he went there is open to conjecture. Perhaps it was "Island Farm", his grandparents' place, that created a pull to that rural setting alongside the banks of the Ohio River. One wonders if Edmonds had perhaps inherited the farm, or a portion thereof. His mother Flora Sugden Hunt had died on October 22, 1942 and was buried in the Rising Sun New Cemetery, in Rising Sun, Indiana.
Or did some other reason propel him there? We may never know. Nor do we know whether his wife and children went with him to the old homestead in Indiana or if they took a separate path. What is known is that for Edmonds Ethan Hunt, Sr. it was the end of the road. He died there, in Rising Sun, Indiana, and is buried there, near his grandparents, in the Rising Sun Cemetery.
And what became of Mary Ann Danluck Hunt? She met and married a second time to a native of Belgium, George Lewis Hartwigsen (August 15, 1902-May 14, 1988), who was a successful businessman and general sales manager for the Dictaphone Corporation. George had joined the Dictaphone Corporation as a New York salesman in 1929, and became district manager of the Kansas City branch in 1937. For a time, they lived in Indiana. Thereafter, beginning in 1952, they made their home just steps from the Sunningdale Country Club at 320 Glendale Road, a five bedroom 5500 square foot home in upscale Scarsdale, New York, where Patti Allen Hunt was a debutant in the 1963 Holly Ball.
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| Mary Ann Danluck Hunt Hartwigsen (left) in her Scarsdale Home, on the left |
Later they lived in Rancho Bernardo, California. Finally, in 1986, Mary Ann and her husband George retired to a deluxe senior citizen's planned community, The Village on the Green, 565 Village Place, in Longwood, Florida. George would die there on May 14, 1988. Mary Ann Danluck Hunt Hartwigsen outlived her second husband by 14 years, dying there in 2000, nearly 60 years after she had married Edmonds Hunt. In addition to son Ned (who lived in Vermont and died on February 25, 2006) and daughter Patti (who in 2021 lives in Connecticut), by marring George, Mary Ann gained a stepson, Bruce Hartwigsen. A graduate of Westminster College in Missouri and Cornell University, Bruce married the late Rosemary Murphy in 1956, and practiced architecture in New York and Orlando, Florida. He is now a resident of the Winter Park Towers Presbyterian Retirement Community, on South Lakemont Avenue in Winter Park Florida.
It is fair to reflect upon the effect Susan Lee Crabbe Hunt's early and tragic death had upon the establishment and stellar record of the Pitcairn-Crabbe Foundation's work. Had she lived what we might call an expected lifetime to old age, one could easily suggest that she might have lived into her 90s; meaning that she would have been alive near the dawn of the 21st century. It seems completely likely that the provisions she made for the Pitcairn-Crabb Foundation would then have brought it into being.
All of the charitable organizations that have received grants from 1940 until fifty or so years later have done so because Susan died so early in life. We can think of each year of the Pitcairn-Crabbe Foundation's existence as her legacy, but the years 1940-1990 might also reasonably be considered her sacrifice.
The precise value of the estate of Susan Lee Crabbe Hunt at the time of her death had been widely speculated in the press of her day. (As was the value of the estate at the time of Robert Pitcairn's death and again at the time of Elizabeth Erb Pitcairn's death). One source from the Shadyside Presbyterian Church believes that the fortune had been "spent down" in the years since Robert Pitcairn's death, to about $300,000 when Susan died. That "spent down" figure would translate to upwards of $20,000,000 in 2021 dollars. The 1940 news report of Edmonds' contesting her will states the estate value as $3,000,000, the equivalent of $200,000,000 in 2021.
Author's note: This is the story of Susan Lee Crabbe Hunt and her family. As time progresses I will be adding to it. The story is entirely true; a careful researcher will find all of it available on line, after diligent searching. It is as gripping as any novel, and covers a sweep of time from the mid-1800s down to the present day. Because of my interest in Pittsburgh history in general, and Shadyside Presbyterian Church in particular, I have had the privilege of learning many of these things first hand.
I hope you will enjoy reading this as much as I have been enjoying researching and writing it. Let me know in the comments, if you would.
Copyright © 2021, John A. Dalles
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