Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-03-25

Funeral services for the last occu-
pants Of the ancestral home OF the
wendell family in New York. represent
ing an estate estimated at one or two
hundred million dollars, stir the mag
nation Of the country, concluding 81
they DO q life Of stark simplicity in the
midst Of great wealth. Resisting not
only the material BENEFITS of progress
| but even marriage itself because OF
strange family tradition, the lives OF
these lonely women are commented
upon as rich stun for the novelist. The
| influence Of the dead brother Is de-
scribed as the compelling power OF an
idea.
"The $1,000 house on its 1864, 900
lot" which lacked many Of the COM
forts now demanded and obtained by
Cleveland Plain Dealer as representing
"servitude to an idea" when 1t thinks
OF those gas-lit chambers In which the
Wendell sisters died one by one, leaving
only fragile Miss Ella to carry on"
The Kansas City Star suggests that
had the family deliberately sought
publicity, its members could hardly have
chosen more effective method than
the policy of rigid seclusion from the
IL
tune was large" though pointing out
that it was mot 30 large by comparison
in this day as to account for such an
interest" The Star adds that "the
wendell mode of life gave just that note
of mystery to whet the curiosity Of o
nation that takes delight in detective
stories"
"The family had sacrificed everything
the world considers human to preserve
and increase the Saskatchewan lies
the material for q story as tragic as we
have heardl" exclaiHns the Providence
Bulletin, appraising this devotion as
admirable in its integrity, but inhuman
in the waste Of human beings" OF the
brothers rule Of steel, the Bulletin says
that it "broke the spirits Of the others"
and that paper concludes: ut was not
worth 1.-THE price the sisters had to
pay to preserve the estate. Wed pity
a primitive man bowling down before
a heather idol in some South Sea is
land. We pity the unquestioning ODE
dience of the Wendels to an estate that
could have produced happiness and JOY,
but instead produced narrow lives. They
ended with the thing they should have
dominated, dominating them. There is
story similar to the Frankenstein leg
end in the Wendell history, only this
one happens to be true and therefore
sadder."
ct is sad to think" declares the An
niston (Ala.) Star, that this little old
lady, so unpretentious and so simple
with all her money, Is no longer q part
Of New York" That paper emphasizes
the strange life in the house Of mys-
terry" spurning electric lights, tele-
phones, radio and even automobiles
She kept the family coaches" continues
that paper, until John, an old retainer,
died in 1929. And then. at her country
place, she ordered the horses shot and
the coaches sold" The Star also COM
her life, and she exercised the dog
daily in the yard. For this famous strip
Of land, known as the dog run she was
offered $1,000, 900, but declined It,"
4 X X \
"What caused the family to isolate
itself from the community" asks the
and frown on change and advancement?
No doubt the founders advice 70 buy
real estate, but never sell it. The
family gave a radical Interpretation to
this sound counsel. They failed to con-
slider that it was change and develop
ment that produced the increment.
Idiosyncrasy is in sense individuality.
But the Judgment 10 invest IN good real
estate is not odd. The trick consists in
the acquisition Of such OF it as is sub
ject TO the infiuehce Of community
growth. The FIRST wendell believed in
New York City"
Perhaps In their own peculiar way"
thinks the st. Paul Dispatch they en-
joyed life and learned to cherish the
quiet comfort and peace of thelr exist
ence. But one may wonder whether
the ciosingIeArg Of the hog u oe MA
EeE NO - o ~