frenchcostume

Mrs. Clarence Mackay (LOC)

from The Library of Congress

• pennylrichardsca (now at ipernity) said:

  Aha, but which Mrs. Clarence Mackay? www.mackayhistory.com/2_mrs_mackays.html That might be the former Anna Case (1888-1984), second wife of financier Clarence Hungerford Mackay (1874-1938). Anna was a soprano with the Metropolitan Opera, which would make the costume reasonable. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Mackay The necklace Clarence gave Anna for a wedding gift is in the Smithsonian's Gem and Mineral Collection: gimizu.de/sgmcol/html/mckay.html But on the other hand.... Clarence and Anna didn't meet until 1916, and they didn't actually marry until 1930 (his first wife divorced him in 1914, but he wouldn't remarry while she was still alive). So it could, instead, be Katherine Duer Mackay (1880-1930), also a beauty; Katherine was a suffragette who ran away with Clarence's doctor in 1910, and took their three kids with her.

• Wystan said:

  This is an old photo of Katherine Duer Mackay, copied by Bain in 1913 to illustrate 1913 news stories of her abandonment of Clarence AND their three children, to run off to Europe with a physician she had met in 1911. Here is the story: www.uscourttennis.org/index.php?id=202

• Joe said:

  Katherine Duer Mackay was also the mother of Ellin Mackay Berlin, songwriter Irving Berlin's second wife. Here's Ellin Berlin's obituary in the New York Times, with additional interesting information about the Mackay family saga.