The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-08-26
LIKES CONTRACT BEST
Whist Queen Lan1en1tS KibitSing' Era
BY PAUL HARRISON
NFA Services Writer

WneelOCR. the WnlSb queen.
mo, sir, a couple of generations
ago, a persons hand was consld-
cred as private as his thoughts.
In more than one sense of the
word was whist a gentleman's
game It was played in a refined
way. and by people Of culture"
The Oldest living teacher Of
bridge laughed suddenly and
rifled a sheaf of kilograms on the
card table before her.
I'm talking like a doddering
sentimentalist," she continued. I
guess it's because they've wired
me all these congratulations on
my seventy-ffth birthday. They
make me think back.
But I don't really mean to sigh
for the gay nineties. I'm glad the
game has changed, too-from
whist to bridge. from bridge to
auction, and from auction to con-
tract.
And I'm glad that millions of
people are enjoying it-even If
many of them don't play it any
too we'll.
"E kept for Edmond Hoyle,
Il who died in 1859, was the
very first person to teach whist. 1
started in 1885. Also, I was one Of
the first to teach auction and con-
tract, and I don't mind admitting
that contract is the best Of all.
play it myself as often as l can"
White-haired and plump, with
an active mind and a whole
hearted laugh, Miss Wheelock
lives alone in comfortable
apartment in the neighborhood of
the famous bridge clubs of Man
haitian.
She is retired now; hasn't
taught in couple of years. al
though she still goes to teachers
conventions in the role of the
games dowager empress.
She doesn't play in tournaments
now, either, believing that she no
longer has quick enough percep-
ton.
Besides, she says, any teacher is
likely to become too mechanical
too stepped in method. But she is
trying to overcome this fault by
studying the modern psychic"
bid.
Miss Wheelock was born in
Green Bay, Wis. but it was in
Milwaukee, where the American
Whist League later was organized,
that she began teaching fellow
members of the Ladies Whist Cir
Gle at 1919 cents an hour a person.
1T was considered rather dar-
4 ing for a woman to teach
cards in that day, and Miss Vince
locks first pupils were society
women whose husbands were
whist adopts.
Soon, though, the husbands
themselves were coming to her for
instruction. and her rates went
to 81 an hour. She moved to
Chicago, then to New York, and
finally conducted teaching tours
throughout the country and
abroad.
Her clientele included some of
the greatest names in society and
business. Her rates were S12 an
hour when she retired.
L hesitated to teach bridge
whist when it first came in" Miss
Wheelock reninisced. II remem-
Der saying that they were tack
ing on the name of whist to make
1t sound respectable. Most of us
were afraid it would become a
gambling game.
1t seems funny now that I re-
member how innocuous it was. and
the polite little fornalities that
we're attached to it. The dealer
always had to play the hand, al
though If he had poor one, he
might say, Please make it, and
his partner had to name the suit
for trumps.
Then the player at dealers
left would ask, May I lead?' The
other defensive player, if he didn't
want to double, would answer,
Pray do
MERE was a determined
a form of politeness between
players of that day. Card table
manners didn't permit wrangling
of the sort that goes on now. But
I suspect that feelings were about
the same.
"All through my teaching ca
reer, for instance, usually
have been careful to put hus-
bands and wives at different
tables.
There is something about
cards that makes more ennity be-
tween intimates than between &C
quaintances. Of course, in every
circle there are married couples
who get along wonderfully we'll
together,
Men generally are better
bridge players than women. But
they're not as superior as they
think they are.
Women are likely to study
bridge more seriously and become
better posted on fine technicali-
ties and rules. But they don't
take the calculating business
chances that men do"
In more than half a century of
card playing, the best hand the
whist queen ever saw had only
ten trumps, She didn't hold it,
either.
Miss WheeIock frankly does not
believe the many widely ircu-
lated stories about perfect bridge
hands. The chances Of holding
an entire suit, she says, are only
one in more than three hundred
and sixty-five billion.
What she does believe is that
in most cases when such phe-
nomenal hands occur, there is
joker-not in the deck, but in the
room-wlTQ has stacked the cards.
To confound players who in