Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1926-11-18
ASSUMES ROLE
Continued from Page Onel

Belmont quietly evaded reporters and
disappeared from the metropolis to
the quiet solitude Of her country
home at Sands Point, Long Island.
She was too busy. her secretary
said, to be bothered by interviews or
by preparing statements. On the
twenty fourth of the month she will
sail for her home in France.
Members of the Colony Club, where
Mrs. Belmont stays when in New
York. and persons in the social cir
cies in which Mrs. Belmont has NOV
ed since her first marriage in 1874 to
William Nissan Vanderbilt, were
commenters in their own right, how
ever, and papers today We're filled
with pictures and printed comment
on the wedding of her daughter and
the duke that appeared at the time.
1t was "a great wedding" that
blocked the streets from Third to
Sixth Avenue as thousands Of per-
sons attempted to get close to st.
Thomas Church TO see the bride who
figured in the second information
al marriage representing American
money and alien title, according to
these old news stories.
Pictures showing the American
girl on the arm of her English bride
groom reviVified today the days be-
yond recall. Evident among the
many bridesmaids were the wasp
waists and mutton leg" sleeves of
the period.
1t was one of these bridesmaids, a
Catholic girl of Boston. who became
the second bride of the Duke of
Marlborough when ne and Consuelo
We're divorced in 1920.
While no one interviewed here who
attended the wedding would say that
Consuelo appeared to be entering the
marriage reluctantly or as if she had
been coerced into the alliance, there
were recollections of the honeymoon,
passed by the couple at Oakdale,
where, it is said, the two seemed
happy as a couple of robins"
Ten days the couple remained at
Idle Hour, the $3,000,000 home at
Oakdale built by Mr.. Vanderbilt, and
surrounded by an iron fence that
then extended for a mile, the two
wandered along the seashore or
through the shady woods that made
up the estate.
After the honeymoon, the couple
returned to New York and later went
to live in England.
From 1905 to 1913, when even
Queen Mary herself was reported to
have attempted to reconcile them.
there were constant separations, re-
Separations and attempted NJ tia
lions by friends.
The trial for divorce was started
in London November, 1920. ten days
after the twenty fifth anniversary of
the great wedding. The duchess,
the mother of two children, and now
a grandmother, found the suit un-
contested. A year later the duke
married Gladys Deacon, the Catholic
bridesmaid at his former Wife'S we'd
ding.
The attitude of Mrs. Belmont to-
ward the marriage, in which she is
said to have had. more than guld-
ing hand, is not publicly recorded
during the years of marital strife
between the couple in their English
home.
Like her daughter, Mrs. Belmont
was divorced and remarked. Nine
teen years after her wedding to w.
X. Vanderbilt, in New York--also a
notable fashion affair--she divorced
her husband after a cruise on his
Yacht through the Mediterranean.
The grounds for the action were
never made public.
In 1898 she remarked, that time
to oliver Fl. P. Belmont, who died
in 1908.
Three years after her daughters
divorce. however, Mrs. Belmont was
vigorous in the presentation of her
apparently crystallized philosophy
toward marriage.
In speeches. as the head Of the
National Women's Party, she urged
women to be more aggressively in
dependent, more "self-reliant."
Marriage" she said. lis sort
of slavery. ] would not say so in
SO many words that marriage is a
failure but it seems to me that sta
tistics speak for themselves"
Consuelo married Colonel Jacques
Balsan in London in 1921. Shortly
later she offered her London home
for sale and went with the colonel
to live permanently In France.
where for several years her mother
has had a chateau.
Both have villas in southern
France, where they pass the win
tiers. and Mrs. Belmont will probab-
Iy rejoin her daughter and family
in France considerable before the
Christmas holidays.
On the occasion of her last visit
to Consuelo and her then new hus-
band, Mrs. Belmont told ship re-
porters here:
Marriage is side issue. am
not against marriage. | am AGAINST
every young woman 4 who knows
nothing about taking1 care OF her
salt ncl-inp man t.k S11nDOrt her.