Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1914-12-20
Mrs Albert Gallatn Wheeler, Jr in Her Wedding Dress

mother and sister to call on mine. and he
gave box party one night that his
parents might hear me sing Unthinking-
~ wore my engagement ring. The elder
Mr. wheeler seeing it, said: Bert it ap-
pears Miss Carlstedt Is engaged, and II
wouldn't be hard to guess to whom" Toat
ring revealed the secret we were on the
verge Of disclosing.
was playing the next week in Scranton.
The elder Mr.. Gallatin came over to See
me. He said:
MISS Carstedt, am willing you should
marry my son. believe you would make
him good wife. But feel that it is NV
duty to warn you. He is faddist. He
won't stick"
In the confidence of youth answered.:
20, Mr.. Wheeler! You don't know your
SON." '
The smile with which the elder Mr..
wheeler greeted this speech was a proph-
ecy, had but known.
My parents went back to Chicago for
few weeks. Thus the actual obstacle to
our marriage was removed, and the mar
riage took place in the apartments of the
elder Wheelers, in March, following the
May in which we met
Mamma Wheeler at once took me under
her wing. 1t was an ample wing she
weighing $50 pounds. But accommodated
my proportions happily to it. for she was
the mother Of my adored bridegroom, the
man whom ! called my Angel from
Heaven"
Mamma Wheeler wanted me to become
domestic. | was more than willing She
Wlshed us to be installed at once in a
nome. She said: UNLESS you have the
common interest of a home you will not
be as close to each other as husband
and wife should.& | agreed The day after
our wedding we went house hunting. We
decided upon furnished fiat somewhere
IN the Eighties. Mother Wheeler bought
n ni Of t,t&t
hemmed and embroidered it. That kent
me busy for three months. When Sum
mer came we went with the elders to
Lake Champlain.
We stopped at a hotel. There it was
that the campaign Of criticism began.
was identified in many minds with the
song: 20, Love Divine" which Mr.. Her
bert had written for me. When would
pass through the great hall leading to
the dining room the orchestra would st,iko
up the strains Of 20, Love Divine"
lnis annoyed Mamma Wheeler. She
would say: 20. Claudia. am so sorry you
were an actress. People look al you so.
Please come into the dining room through
the piazza window"
When we came back to town Mamma
Wheelers complaints grew louder She
SAID: Il hate to go to Sherry's with Bert
and his wife. Claudia is so conspicuous"
at the opera she complained that people
stared at us because | was conspicuous.
My education in domesticity continued
Mamma Wheeler taught me to darn table
linen. Being Pennsylvania Dutch woman
she was frugal. When Albert and bought
country place, Fairfield, in Connecticut.
Just across the line from New York, we had
fourteen servants, but I hemmed and ar
ranged all the curtains for our huge house.
Three hundred yards of silk | made into
curtains, and one thousand yards of other
SILK for draperies. couch covers and so on.
! worked for weeks turning the new satin
finished brass mantels and fixtures into
properly old verdgris tinted ones, By ap-
plying mixtures. even mounted the
scaffoldng and painted panels.
Why? Because the shadow that lies
Upon so many multi-miionaires' homes had
already fallen upon mine, the shadow of
my. Great Britain Rights Reserved