Henry Hermann Mumm Thornton
Henry Hermann Mumm Thornton( born 1932) was a prominent banker and businessman whose young adulthood was detailed in the journals of his stepfather Edmund Wilson, the noted essayist and scholar.
Henry was also mentioned frequently in the correspondence of Wilson with other literary notables, such as Vladimir Nabokov.
Richard Thornton Wilson
Richard Thornton Wilson( in Habersham County, Georgia – November 26, 1910 in New York City) was a multimillionaire American investment banker known for being the father of five children who all married into prominent families during the Gilded Age of New York.
Joan Bocher
Joan Bocher( died 2 May 1550 in Smithfield, London) was an English Anabaptist burned at the stake for heresy during the English Reformation in the reign of Edward VI.
She has also been known as Joan Boucher or Butcher, or as Joan Knell or Joan of Kent.
Anthony Boucher
Anthony Boucher( born William Anthony Parker White; August 21, 1911 – April 29, 1968) was an American author, critic, and editor, who wrote several classic mystery novels, short stories, science fiction, and radio dramas.
Between 1942 and 1947 he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the" San Francisco Chronicle".
In addition to" Anthony Boucher", White also employed the pseudonym" H. H. Holmes", which was the pseudonym of a late- 19 th- century American serial killer; Boucher would also write light verse and sign it" Herman W. Mudgett"( another of the murderer's aliases).
In a 1981 poll of 17 detective story writers and reviewers, his novel" Nine Times Nine" was voted as the ninth best locked room mystery of all time.
Richard Thornton Wilson Jr.
Richard Thornton Wilson Jr.( September 11, 1866 – December 29, 1929) was an American banker and businessman who was a prominent figure in Thoroughbred horse racing in the early decades of the 20th Century.
Walther von Mumm
Moritz Karl Ferdinand Wilhelm Hermann Walther Mumm von Schwarzenstein( 1887 – 1959) was a German businessman and bobsledder who competed in the early 1930s.
He was the one- time" champagne king" of Rheims in France, as part of the Mumm champagne making family.
Von Mumm was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1887, son to Peter Arnold Gottlieb Hermann Mumm von Schwarzenstein and Emma Luise Marie Passavant.
He was an aviation pioneer who went to the United States in 1910 as pilot of the French entry in the Gordon Bennett Cup.
While in the U.S., he met Frances Scoville, daughter of a Seneca, Kansas, banker.
They were married at St George's, Hanover Square in London.
Mrs. Scoville died in 1920 leaving one daughter behind, Mary, who was educated at a school in Aiken, South Carolina.
Mary later died in an automobile accident together with her aunt, Louise Scoville Treadwell.
Between meeting and marrying Frances Scoville, von Mumm became involved with Marie van Rensimer Barnes, who later shot him in her Paris apartment in 1912.
Society barrister Oliver Bodington represented Mrs. van Rensimer Barnes.
Von Mumm returned to Germany at the outbreak of World War I.
As his champagne winery was confiscated by the French, von Mumm sacrificed the prosperous 100- plus- year- old family business.
Von Mumm married Baroness Marie Julia Mathilde von dem Bussche- Haddenhausen in 1924 and the couple later divorced in 1928.
The Baroness went on to marry Prince Ulrich of Wchinitz and Tettau.
After the war, von Mumm salvaged little of his fortune, and lost what remained in the 1929 Wall Street crash.
Thus, the" champagne king" saw his fortunes wither until he was living in a$ 10- a- week Manhattan boarding house.
In 1931, he tried to take his own life by shooting himself above the heart in the Long Island home of his old friend William H. vom Rath.
His suicide note read:" Bury me as I am and keep this out of the newspapers."
Von Mumm rallied and recovered.
An avid sportsman, shortly after his accident he took part in the bobsleigh four- man event at the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York.
His team finished seventh and last; however, Germany won a bronze medal overall.
The gold medal was given to the USA.
Von Mumm's niece was prominent literary socialite, Elena Mumm Thornton Wilson, the 4th wife of Edmund Wilson, renowned essayist and critic.
Elena Cornaro Piscopia
Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia or Elena Lucrezia Corner( 5 June 1646 – 26 July 1684), also known in English as Helen Cornaro, was a Venetian philosopher of noble descent who in 1678 became one of the first women to receive an academic degree from a university, and the first to receive a Doctor of Philosophy degree.
James Worth Thornton
James Worth Thornton
( September 19, 1906 – February 6, 1983, Virginia) was a businessman and scion of the politically and socially connected Thorntons of Indiana.
Thornton was the son of Sir Henry Worth Thornton and Virginia Blair, daughter of banker and steel magnate George Dike Blair.
Also, Thornton appeared in the journals of Edmund Wilson, the noted essayist.
Thornton was born into a prominent family in the railroad business and enjoyed a privileged childhood.
After graduating from the Royal Military College of Canada, Ontario, while working in Europe, Thornton earned a reputation as an international playboy: he was reportedly an excellent polo player and prominent in social circles.
While working for a firm in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1931 Thornton married Helene- Marthe( Elena) Mumm von Schwarzenstein, a German- Russian- French aristocrat and partial heir to the Mumm champagne fortune.
Her maternal relations( the Struve family) were prominent Russian diplomats and astronomers.
After marriage, Thornton served as Vice- President of the Mumm family ’s American Incorporation.
Thornton and Elena had one son: Henry Hermann Mumm Thornton, born 1932.
Yelena Potapenko
Yelena Potapenko( born 20 April 1993), also known as Olena Potapenko or Elena Potapenko, is a Ukraine- born Kazakhstani modern pentathlete.
She participated in the 2016 Summer Olympics and the 2018 Asian Games.
Elena Mumm Thornton Wilson
Elena Mumm Thornton Wilson( 27 August 1906 – 27 July 1979) was born into an unusual, wealthy, aristocratic European family and was the fourth wife of the famed American writer Edmund Wilson.
Elena was a central figure in Wilson's life from the time they met until his death in 1972.
She was the literary executrix of his estate and helped Leon Edel edit her husband's journals.
She also edited a book of his literary correspondence.

Question: Who died first, Anthony Boucher or Elena Mumm Thornton Wilson?