Evening star., 1924-04-06
MARGARET Ii. DOWNING.


The Secretary of the Navy and Mrs.
/ Curtis Dwight Wilbur have all the
prestige OF those who come to Wash
ington for the first time in a lofty
official and social role. and they will
pass many happy days discovering e
things.
Secretary and Mrs. Wilbur, like the
Secretary of Commerce and Mrs.
Hoover, are accredited to California
but only Mrs. Hoover is native Of
that state. 1t is an interesting coin
cidence that Iowa is the birthplace of
both these cabinet officials, Judge
Wilbur claiming Boonesboro as his
natal town, and Mr.. Hoover. West
Branch. Mrs. Wilbur is native of
marriage in 1898, Olive Doolittle.
She is altogether the type of home
loving wife and mother, and in her
culinary accomplishments she is mind
full of another deniZen of the Pacific
coast. Mrs Victor Metcalf, who could
dismiss an impertinent cook and pre-
pare dinner herself even as she did
for the President and Mrs. Roosevelt
and the cabinet circle of those times.
Mrs. Wilbur is an active worker for
the Girl and Boy Scouts, and has been
an officer in the Y. W. c. A. many
years. The Wilbur home in Freder
ick street, San Francisco, is notable
in the neighborhood for it's modern
equipment, every electrical device
having been installed.
Mrs. Edward Brandegee, the cousin
of Mrs. Larz Anderson and Joint
heiress of the Weld fortune, lived in
Washington many years as the wife
of the late Charles Sprague, mem
ber of Congress from Boston. She
is an occasional visitor yet, for her
present husband is the cousin of
the senator from Connecticut and
both are interested in all that con-
Germs that bachelor statesman But
New York and it's opportunities for
music and art always have lured MRS.
Brandegee. and just now she IS
deeply concerned in the remarkable
art exhibition at Grand Central
Palace. Her own portrait by Sargent
is always surrounded by a crowd
and. strange to say, the eager spec
, tators are, with few exceptions,
modistes and illustrators of fashion
, magazines rather than artists. for
the eminent master who painted MIS-:
! Brandegee found a motive in the old
canvases by Sir Joshua Reynolds and
Gainsborough and he insisted that an
iIlustrious maker of gowns in Paris
should design a dress atter the
sketch and directions of the artist
So the lady smiles down from the
large canvas in a. robe of soft yellow
lace, billowy in effect with the
hodice trimmed in folds OF yellow
satin and a wide, loose girdle OF pale
blue brocade. The sleeves are maze
elbow length and are successor
OF lace ruffles, the last oeing on 'te
shoulders.
Mr. Edward Box. who has filled so
large a place recently In the Worlo
news, has surprised his friends by De
parting from his spacious home IN
Merion. Pa, and purchasing the fine OLD
mansion of Mr.. and Mrs. George W.
Childs Drexel, in Rittenhouse square
For many years the Drexels nave
preferred the sylvan JOY or Wootsn
at Bryn Mawr, and the Dig marol
palace where the most impressive
functions have been staged during
a half century has been boarded and
in the hands OF caretakers- EVEN
opulent families like the Drexels feel
the tax of maintaining homes they
do not use, and so Mr. Box. who wish
es hereafter to be more in the midst
of affairs, has become the owner and
already is removing from the. big
country house in Merton. The man.
sion and a ballroom of unusual pro-
portions and a music or assembly hall
One thing MT. Box has in mind in
acquiring such vast domicile Is to
Try out rhetorical efforts dealing with
as a plans In the q
sIN5eSt5 that he I'm enfsE on SO
in the future viii repeat the lively
chapters of the past. All about Rit-
tenhouse square, business is creeping
in and many of the mansions which
SaCrOSAnct. X