The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1906-08-07
INTERESTING TALK ABR0ET
MISS MARY GUSTS LEI

washington Correspondence Of the
Louisville Courier-Journal.)
One of the interesting characters
in life who spends much of her time
in Washington is Miss Mary GUSTS
Lee, the only surviving daughter Of
Gen. Robert E. Lee, a woman to whom
her famous father has transmitted
many individual traits. She is a wom-
an now Of middle age, commanding in
physique, with an honest, straightfor-
wardness of manner that sometimes al
! most amounts to bousquerie. What
Miss Lee thinks, she thinks and she
say it, too, without furbelows. \
part of the summer she has been the
guest on Massachusetts avenue of Mr..
n Mrs. Arthur Lee. Of no particular
relationship. Pretty, piQuante, young
Mrs. Lee is the daughter of Hon. Henry
Gassaway Davis, the old gentleman
who doesn't happen to be vice presi-
dent. By the same token she is the
sister Of the wife of Senator Elkins of
West Virginia, and a good many ether
pleasant things besides.
When you call on Miss Mary Gus
It's Lee she shows you things. She
loves to scramble through ancestral
loot and regale the appreciative with
| views of relics that have played their
| part in history and romance in other
days, things that pertain to her person
al pedigree. For Miss Lee is "blOodE
| kin" as the small boy said TO mosc o;
! the big things that have happened in
this country.
! Her sacred treasure is an tx
! quisite miniature Of her beloved father,
l--~ -. ;,,,--- -, no~;r ~ --@-ll 4nyo
ed expert. Another is a quaint n
valuable necklace of precious stones,
| presented to her during a residence in
Europe by various foreign admirers Of
her father. She wears this, like rOyal
insignia, on every grand occasion upon
her handsome neck, en- grande decolle-
tage.
\ set of buttons from the coat of
General Washington is an interesting
possession of Miss Lee. The buttons
themselves are intrinscially valuable.
They are of a beautiful moss agate
of a milky t~ransucence, with tiny
fecks Of moss below the surface. the
whole about the size Of a half dollar,
mounted on gold of heavy workmanship
done in England.
During Miss Lees sporting childhood
at old Arlington on the Potomac, The
mansion built by her grandfather,
George Washington Parke Curtis a
foster son of the illustrious general the
old black velvet coat upon which these
buttons originally figured was simply
a part Of the fotsam and jetsam OF the
old attic Of the house. In those days,
my dear Miss Lee smiled remlnls-
Gently, people didn't value heirlooms
as they do today" She and her small
brothers and sisters more than lalt
q century ago likely as not played
dressing up" and having shows II
Grandpa Washington's old plumber IN
that dim attic across the river. Any
how, the buttons from the old velvet
coat were the only traces preserved IT
the distinguished garment
A relic Of inestimable value which
Miss Lee has just received after long
years Of oblivion, is the old Bible OF
Martha Washington, which disappear
ed from Arlington the home OF the
Lees, during the civil war. II Is I
quaint old leather-bound affair in per
feet preservation, in large, clear type,
in which the lands first first lady
was wont to read her daily chapter
from the time she was pretty Martha
Dandrige, through her welded life
with Daniel Parke Custis; down tn
the time of her death at Mount Yer
non. The book contains no record
of the marriage OF the young widows|
Martha Gusts, to George Washington,