Evening star., 1937-10-24

popular nor exactly good form socially.
For the meetings of those who were
sponsoring suffrage she permitted the
use of her Connecticut avenue drawing
rooms, famous because of her hus-
bands brilliant Wednesday evening
gatherings when the socially elite of
Washington as we'll as its greatest
political and scientific minds met in a
sort of forum for the discussion of the
problems of the day.
With Mrs. Grosvenor, Mrs. Bell
marched. too, in one of the early suf-
frage demonstrations up Pennsylvania
avenue from the White House to the
Capitol, and from that time on both
took additional interest in the Boy
Scouts as an organization because of
their efforts to keep the suffrage ranks
from being swamped by the jeering
citizenry on the side lines. Neither
Mrs. Grosvenor nor her mother, how
ever, followed the militant group Of
suffrage leaders in their picketing
policy which eventually led to jail
sentences.
Slipped Into Sessions.
In commenting on her fathers We'd
nesday evening gatherings, held here
in Washington after he had won world
wide recognition from his invention of
the telephone, Mrs. Grosvenor says
she and her sister. who is now Mrs.
David Fairchild. wife of the eminent
authority on foreign and domestic
plants, liked nothing better than to
slip in at the rear after the assem-
blages we're seated, TO hear the master
minds discuss the problems of the era,
even if we weren't any too sure what
the dissertations were about"
Having Sunday afternoon tea with
the Gilbert Grosvenors is to become
an intimate part of an atmosphere
probably not to be duplicated any
where else in the vicinity Of the
Nations Capital.
Nowhere is the china more faSci-
mating or more apt to have story
behind it than at the Grosvenors.
brought from the world around, as
much of 1t has been. Likely as not
the plate on which teacup and sand
| wich or bit of cake rest will show
a royal crown upon it. 1t was once
used perhaps for similar purpose
in the imperial palace of the last
Gar OF Russia.
Lovely old doors whose crotched
mahogany surfaces are Of interest in
themselves, one learns, were once an
integral part of the ancestral home
| of DR.. Grosvenor's forbears in New
| England.
Rescued From Wreckers.
| The exquisite, almost lacelike carv-
ing which is feature of the Grosve-
nor library was brought from the
Orient by Alexander Graham Bell and
his wife to adorn the library of their
Connecticut avenue home. When aft
er their death, the site became a
parking lot, this carving was rever-
emily salvaged to have its present set
ting built around 1t.
A real romance was the Grosve-
nors. Mrs Grosvenor's mother was
entertaining DR.. Edwin Grosvenor.
father of DR.. Gilbert Grosvenor, after
a lecture which he heard him give
before the National Geographic So
ciety, then in its infancy under the
motivation of DR.. Bell. DR.. Gros-
venor's account of the amazing re-
semblance between his twin SONS,
Gilbert and Edwin. as source of be-
wilderment to their professors and
college associates, fingered with Mrs.
Bell.
The following June paragraph in
Harper's Weekly commenting on their
graduation and the justification OF
the commencement audience as to
which was which. again centered Mrs.
Bells attention on them. AS a re-
suit, she sent them joint invitation
to attend house party she was CIV
ing for her daughters and group OF
their friends.
The meeting which followed was q
case of love at first sight between
Gilbert Grosvenor and the Bells
younger daughter, Elsie. OF them
their friends uniformly say. 1T is
difficult to think of two people who
more genuinely enjoy the same pur-
suits, interests and worthwhile en-
deavors than the Grosvenors."
They have crossed our own conti-
nent innumerable times by train ano
by motor and journeyed the globe
around with the true zest of natural
born geographers.
Only this past Summer DR.. anc
Mrs. Grosvenor were the first married
couple to make the journey entirely
by air from the Alameda Airport
California, to Hong Kong as part
of a % 2,000-mile survey of the Orient
lust before the hostilities broke Out
in China.