A Voice From Old New York: A Memoir of My Youth Read Online Free Page A

villas and marble busts taken on Roman honeymoons, the Russells, by the time of my childhood, were faintly shabby.
    Much smarter and up to date were Mother's maternal family, the Dixons, a cheerful, close-knit, handsome, and worldly group who set a high but not unreasonable value on appearance in clothes, sport, and general behavior. They were devoted to each other, and their neighboring brownstones on Forty-ninth Street were known as Dixon Alley. But at parties they were less inclined to cluster; they mingled and didn't interfere with family unless a girl was stuck on the dance floor or a boy was spending too much time at the bar.
    The Auchinclosses were the Johnny-come-latelies, not bringing their woolen business from Scotland until 1803. The first Hugh Auchincloss was interned as an enemy alien in the War of 1812 and unsprung by an indignant visit by his wife to President Madison. (Anyone could go to the White House then.) The family produced a high percentage of vigorous males who made their rapid, unopposed entry into society through business and legal aptitude as well as advantageous marriages. The dour Scotch ways were soon abandoned, though I can remember a maiden great aunt who, during a visit to Bar Harbor, refused to go with us to the swimming club because men and women shared the pool. And that was when women's bathing suits covered them from neck to toe with long, black stockings added!
    The Stantons, Mother's father's clan, were too few in number for notice, except for the elegant Uncle Ed, who sent his shirts to Europe to be properly laundered and was so esteemed by his rich friends that they eased him into a job for which he had little qualification: nothing less than general manager of the Metropolitan Opera. His unexpected passion for German opera when the boxholders all preferred the Italian led to his dismissal, and he died abroad of alcoholism.

    New York, unlike Boston, had, even in my young days, scant respect for genealogy. Although some of the Auchincloss wives had distinguished colonial forebears (my great-grandmother Auchincloss could boast that both her grandmothers were Sal-tonstalls), I doubt that had much to do with the family's rise. But an early origin—when combined with a large fortune-will attract a certain awe in the city. To be an Astor or a Rockefeller was to be important even to the oldest New Yorker.

    I remember as a boy Mr. and Mrs. John D. Jr., who summered in Seal Harbor, Maine, visiting the neighboring Bar Harbor Swimming Club. Received like royalty, they passed, nodding graciously, through the umbrella tables on the club lawn where members were having a noontime drink. Mr. Rockefeller was not a noticeable figure, but his wife, who had put the family on the social map and also orchestrated the splendid landscape architecture of their great estate in Tarrytown had a wonderful, almost Edwardian, elegance.
    It was she, notoriously, who had made a philanthropist of her spouse. Yet he had refused to support her in her major interest: the Museum of Modern Art, which he regarded as red and radical. This was a problem in the museum's early years, for although Mrs. Rockefeller had money of her own, it was not nearly on the same scale as her husband's. If she gave only, say, $50,000 where a million was expected, too many of the wealthy would also reduce their pledges. Peggy, the wife of David Rockefeller, downplayed any tensions. "My father-in-law," she claimed, "so adored his wife that he couldn't bear to have her not share all his interests." Eager to hear more, I couldn't help pointing out that this wasn't so much love as possession. After this comment, little more was divulged. (Of course the Rockefeller children ultimately followed their mother and became the principal supporters of the museum.)

    While on the subject of such prominent families we must, of course, raise the name of the Vanderbilts, who dominated newspaper accounts of society. But this was not enough to ensure