The New York herald., 1922-02-19
POET has told us that whom we first
love we seldom wed. Poets are


love. They are the oracles in the temples
of sentiment. We read them and we be-
lieve them. But even the poets will be
glad to learn of an exception to their rule
or romance.
The more commonplace among us will
be glad, too, to know of an instance of a
woman who has wed her first love. Both
poets and we on the more conventional
to discover that the exemplar of this rare
experience is one of the most beautiful
women in America, one who was the win
ner in a competition for the title of the
most popular actress in the United States.
Pauline Frederick has wed her first love.
In the quaint town in southern California,
Santa Ana, she was crowned with a chap
let which every woman would wear. She
was led to the altar by a man who had
loved and waited for her more than twenty
years
Consider that, maid or wife or widow
who reads this!
They who were babes when he met "the
woman" have grown to the dignity of
boards and BARRIERS and ballots while he
kept on loving her. He loved, though his
love seemed hopeless. For she became
famous, but his love grew no less. She
married another, but he cherished that
love in the silent chambers of his heart.
She severed those first bonds and took on
others for the second time The man who
waited buried his love deeper in his heart,
but silence did not smother it.
She Wept When She Knew
OF His Lifelong Wait
Then shortly before st. Valentines Day.
by what seemed an accident, if there are
any accidents in the subtle, inscrutable
game of love, they met. 1t was in that
State that has made so many matches,
California. And within a week the man
who had waited was rewarded for his
twenty-one years of faithfulness.
The woman for whom he had kept his
long vigil alone looked at her true knight,
first with eyes Of unbelef, then through
yelling mist He had reached and passed
that which has been called the Mount
Pisgah of existence-forty-five years He
was undeniably middle aged man. But
he had loved her for half lifetime
Was there such quality of stanchness in
all this changeful world? There was. He
had proved it. The awkward Boston youth
of more than a score of years ago lived
still in that strong, controlled, smiling
man. and both were faithful to her in a
world that it seemed to her was peopled
with great and small infidelities.
The woman wept little, as any woman
would have done, If only in her heart, and
said: Eyes, will marry you"
DR.. c. A. Rutherford of Seattle, once of
Boston, won her for his wife by waiting
The wait established new record in the
annals Of love. This modern physician had
waited longer than did that model of con-
stancy, Jacob.
They were Beatrice Libby and Charlie
Rutherford twenty-one years ago when
they met in Boston. She was studying
vocal music, with grand opera as her goal
He was a medical student at Harvard. He
meant to serve humanity as great surgeons
do by winning the battle with disease. 1t
was long, upward journey for both. The
road Of their ambition stretched far before
them.
Then the impertinent interloper Cupid
crossed their path. He challenged them.
He importuned them. He played all the
arts known to his tricksy, tiny SELF He
won and lost. He won the heart OF the
youth. for the medical student was for an
instant marriage and graphing with the
problems of existence together. But the
maid, calm, cool, Galatea like, hesitated,
postponed, counseled waiting for a turn
in the tide Of their affairs.
The boy waited as boy lovers must unless
they are cavemen. He was no Lochinvar
with an address somewhere west of the
Mississippi. He vas Bostonian with his
way to make-the long, weary way of the
doctor without patients.
How Her Debut Raised Her
Above His SchooIboy Place