Names in the News

During the past decade no U. S. families have appeared more sensationally in the nation's newspapers than the McCormicks of Chicago and the Stillmans of New York. Last week, both families made one big story. At Poughkeepsie, N. Y., Mrs. Anne Urquhart Potter ("Fifi") Stillman, 52, obtained an amazingly secret divorce (grounds: infidelity) from James Alexander Stillman, 60, onetime president, now director and largest stockholder of National City Bank. A few hours later Mrs. Stillman married, at Pleasantville, N. Y., Harold Fowler McCormick Jr., 32. These were the glittering names which the news conjured up:

Cyrus Hall McCormick, inventor of the harvester, founder of an immense fortune, grandfather of the groom. He was 47 years dead.

John Davison Rockefeller, astute nonogenarian with potent holdings in National City Bank, who reputedly advised the younger Stillman to resign the institution's presidency because of scandal ten years ago. Grandfather of the groom, he kept to his home in Pocantico Hills, N. Y., sent his blessing.

Cyrus Hall McCormick II & III, respectively uncle and cousin of the groom. While Alexander (Farm Board) Legge rules International Harvester Co. the uncle presides respectably as Board Chairman. The cousin--popular "Cy" to thousands of employes--had just published an able book, Century of the Reaper.

Harold Fowler McCormick, father of the groom, now married to Ganna Walska. In Chicago he said: "I have known for some years of Fowler's unwavering devotion to Mrs. Stillman and of his desire for this outcome, and I have known, too, of her deep regard for him. . . . Basing my thought on what I know of them both, I not only hope but truly believe that they will find in this marriage lifelong contentment and comradeship."

Edith Rockefeller-McCormick, mother of the groom, an extraordinary lady who eats from gold plates and indulges a fancy for advanced psychology and a faith in the real estate operations of two friends, Krenn & Dato. From her castle-home on Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, she sent word through her secretary that "she had nothing to say."

James Alexander Stillman, the elder, who built up the great National City Bank, father of the divorced husband. He was 13 years dead.

James A. ("Bud") Stillman Jr., eldest son of the bride, who married a servant at his family's fishing camp at Grand Anse, Que., three years ago. In 1921 he and the groom, longtime friend of the family, searched for evidence to aid Mrs. Stillman defend herself against her husband's divorce suit. Last week he was unable to leave his studies at Harvard Medical School, did not witness his mother's marriage ceremony. But his wife was her mother-in-law's maid of honor.

Florence H. Leeds, a red-haired chorus girl whom Mrs. Stillman showed during the first suit to be the mother of two of Mr. Stillman's children. She was reported as having married a John Rosseau Metcalfe in London two years ago.

Mrs. Percy Rockefeller, sister of James Stillman, whose husband is a cousin of the groom. In other words Mrs. Stillman's onetime sister-in-law becomes her cousin by marriage.

S.S. Olympic also figured in the news. On it, last week, Mr. Stillman sailed for Europe, smiling, wishing the newlyweds luck, denying that he would remarry. It was on the deck of the Olympic that Mrs. Stillman was served with her husband's first divorce action in 1920. The same ship carried the Stillmans to Europe for their reconciliation honeymoon in 1926. Asked about her affection for young Fowler McCormick at that time, said she:

"Fowler and I love and understand each other, but we are not lovers. Do you think I could have been able to leave him if we were lovers? . . . I owe a great deal to Fowler. He is the man who taught me to fight, who sent me first to Zurich [to seek, like his mother, the help of psychoanalysts], when my life was smashed like broken crockery.

"Has Fowler ever offered marriage to me? Of course not. We have been too good friends for that. And five years from now wouldn't it be ridiculous for a woman of 50 (and I am not imperishable, you know!) to be the wife of a young man of 32?"

Last week's story as it was developed through three front-page days was anything but a scandal: it was an idyl. Bride & Groom motored from courtroom to a cottage on the ocean at East Hampton, L. I. Thither, eventually, came troops of newsmen, including many oldtime baiters of the Bride, to receive polite and smiling welcome. For eight long hours, the honeymooners entertained the Press. As they posed on the beach, on the cottage steps, in the hammock, the Bride jollied her old acquaintances. One remark: "Perhaps I have a vulgar taste. I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of reporters, riding along with me on trains, telling me about their own troubles after their long stories had been filed. I like beautiful jewelry. I love beautiful clothes, stockings that cost lots of money. I'm going to like working with my husband."

What gave the story its clear and happy atmosphere of romance was the engaging personality of the Groom. "Yes," he smiled, "I proposed by telephone last summer." All kinds of people have entered Fowler McCormick's heterogeneous life and he remains a romantic. When very young he intimately associated with the folk in his father's and mother's Chicago Civic Opera Company (now Samuel Insull's). He left Groton School to drive an ambulance in France. Returned to the U. S., he was popular at Princeton. Encouraged by Mrs. Stillman, he went to Milwaukee in 1925, lived in a boarding house, worked as a laborer in the family business. He is now an enterprising sales manager of International Harvester Co. Said he: "In my business one never knows where one will be sent next, so it is impossible to plan very far ahead." Said she: "I'll live in Chicago and spend most of my life on steel Pullmans, going around with Fowler--if he will let me."

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