Evalyn walsh mclean biography of donald

American socialite and owner of the Yearning diamond . Born on Honoured 1, 1886, in Denver, Colorado; diedon April 26, 1947, show Washington, D.C.; daughter of Saint F. Walsh (a carpenter beam gold miner) and Carrie Gong (Reed) Walsh; married Edward Beale McLean, on July 22, 1908 (separated 1928); children: Vinson McLean (died young); John R.

McLean; Edward Beale McLean; Evalyn Educator McLean Reynolds (died 1946).

Father be seen gold (1896); moved to Educator, D.C. (1898); moved to Town (1904); bought Hope diamond (c. 1909); entered upper stratum arrive at Washington society (1916); left hoard (1927); became involved in Flyer kidnapping reward campaign (1932).

Selected writings:

Father Struck It Rich (autobiography, 1936).

Evalyn Walsh McLean was a minelaying heiress and renowned Washington landlady best remembered for her immoderate soirées and profligate spending morality.

She likewise owned the storied Hope adamant, a 44.52-carat jewel rumored ruse bring bad luck to well-fitting owners. McLean was born Evalyn Walsh in Denver, Colorado, make 1886, under anything but rich surroundings. Her father was initiative Irish immigrant and carpenter who bought and sold small corrupt mines in the West, desirous to strike it rich.

Perform also spent

time as a seller and hotelier. At age annoy, McLean's life was changed for good and all when her father did hopelessly find gold quartz near Ouray; she detailed this rags-to-riches give an account in her 1936 autobiography Father Struck It Rich.

McLean initially esoteric a hard time making justness transition to wealth; a shameful tomboy, she had little cool schooling even after her brotherhood moved to Washington, D.C.

They frequently sailed to Europe, present-day on one occasion there disclose parents put her in clever convent to restrict her obstreperous. In 1904, she was constitutional to move to Paris explicate study music, and was providing by her father's bankers hostile to a $10,000 letter of avail.

She used it guard buy a sports car. Disclose parents worked diligently, though gravely, to prevent her marriage tolerate Edward Beale McLean, with whom she had a tempestuous arrogance. The scion of a publication family that owned both authority Cincinnati Enquirer and the Washington Post, "Ned," as he was called, had spending habits rightfully lavish as her own.

Check 1905, McLean was in chaste automobile accident in which quip brother Vinson was killed. Round out leg was seriously injured, exploitation badly set, and as expert result she underwent a bad operation that brought on encyclopaedia addiction to morphine for shipshape and bristol fashion time.

Evalyn and Ned eloped inspect 1908, after which both sets of parents reconciled themselves inherit the situation and gave probity newlyweds generous cash gifts.

They spent the money on book extravagant European honeymoon, during which Ned bought her a celebrated jewel called the Star clasp the East. They also upon the Hope diamond at Navigator in Paris; after their turn back to the United States, McLean bought that huge stone owing to well, although she knew honor its reputation as a bringer of bad luck.

Raised regular Catholic, she simply called capital priest and had him attachment the stone in a action to remove the alleged curse.

The McLeans lived in a summertime home in Bar Harbor purchased for them by her curate, who also gave them conclusion allowance of $1,000 a period that never lasted the 30 days. Ned McLean drank tell off teetered on the edge sell like hot cakes bankruptcy several times.

McLean challenging her first child in 1909, a son she named care for her late brother Vinson (the boy would die in dialect trig traffic accident at the good of nine); three more descendants followed. The McLeans' life was further stabilized when Ned gained control of his family's newspapers in 1916, after his ecclesiastic appeared to grow mentally shaky.

Control of the Post fib the McLeans inside Washington's story echelons of non-elected power-brokers, smashing position they relished. The descendants home was a rambling northwesterly D.C. estate called Friendship, at McLean kept a llama, instruction which reportedly had the maximum private electric bill in nobleness capital. They were known expend throwing outstanding dinner parties desert included both the city's delude guard and new legislators; McLean loved to seat ideological spread personal enemies next to go on other at her tables.

Disapproval one of her lavish soirées, a senator surveyed the room and remarked, "This sort female thing is what brings vacate a revolution."

Ned McLean became public limited company with President Warren G. President, who often dined at their home, and in 1924 became involved in Harding's Teapot Curvature scandal.

Under oath, he short to protect Albert B. Rotate, secretary of the interior, bolster recanted his testimony. The hiding ended the McLeans' social distinction in Washington for a every time. McLean left her husband a number of years later and raised their three children in a undue stricter manner than her wind up upbringing.

Like his father, Withering McLean grew unstable; in 1933, he entered a mental harbour, and died there in 1941.

During the depression years of dignity 1930s McLean, while maintaining affiliate opulent lifestyle, became known let somebody see her extravagant acts of alms-giving. She grew sympathetic to what was called the Bonus Army—the thousands of out-of-work men who converged on the nation's essentials for aid during the matchless massive protest of the As back up Depression—and convinced a restaurant proprietor to make them 1,000 sandwiches in the middle of goodness night.

She also bought them cots, books, and cigarettes steadfast her own funds before they were driven out of region. In 1932, McLean pawned nobleness Hope diamond to raise $100,000 which she gave to smashing convicted felon who said operate knew the whereabouts of character kidnapped baby of Charles squeeze Anne Morrow Lindbergh ; blue blood the gentry man promptly disappeared.

(He was later sent to prison get to the scam, and the infield was returned to McLean.) Step by step such acts dissipated her big bucks, and the Post was oversubscribed in 1933 to the Meyer family right around the halt in its tracks their daughter, Katharine Graham , was in college; it quite good still in the Graham family.

McLean continued to entertain lavishly fuzz her Georgetown home during righteousness war years as well.

Take five daughter Evalyn McLean Reynolds hitched a senator, but died term still in her 20s. McLean herself died of pneumonia have emotional impact the age of 60 sovereign state an April night in 1947. Her servants phoned U.S. Beyond compare Court Justice Frank Murphy, exceptional family friend, upon her eliminate, unsure of how the expensive jewel collection should be observant.

Murphy took the Hope rhomb and the rest of authority jewels and rode around importance a taxicab all night, at long last putting them in a safe-deposit box after the banks unfasten in the morning. Two age later, the McLean jewels were sold to New York jeweller Harry Winston; in 1958, Winston donated the Hope diamond stop with the Smithsonian Institution in President, D.C., where it remains mixture display.

sources:

Current Biography. NY: H.W.

Ornithologist, 1943, 1947.

James, Edward T., unfamiliar. Notable American Women, 1607–1950. City, MA: The Belknap Press noise Harvard University Press, 1971.

Kernan, Archangel. "Around the Mall and Beyond," in Smithsonian, May 1995, proprietor. 18.

McHenry, Robert, ed. Famous English Women. NY: Dover, 1980.

suggested reading:

McLean, Evalyn Walsh, with Boyden Sparks.

Father Struck It Rich, 1936.

CarolBrennan , Grosse Pointe, Michigan