katherinealexanderduermackayblake

Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Thoroughbred Horse Racing, and we'd love to have this added to the group!

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.

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

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.

Clarence Hungerford Mackay (1874-1938), American financier; his wikipedia entry: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Mackay The children are John William Mackay, Ellin Mackay, and Katherine Mackay: Ellin Mackay (1903-1988) married Irving Berlin in 1926; Clarence disapproved, and he threatened disinheritance. Ellin Berlin became a novelist: www.nytimes.com/1988/07/30/obituaries/ellin-berlin-85-a-n... Her papers are at the University of Nevada Reno: knowledgecenter.unr.edu/specoll/mss/90-87.html John William Mackay married Josephine Gwendolyn Rose in 1929. Katherine Mackay married twice, to judge Kenneth O'Brien (divorced in 1937), and to lawyer Robert Ziemer Hawkins (1903-1979) in 1939; she lived in Reno, Nevada. Her papers are at UC Berkeley: www.oac.cdlib.org/search?style=oac4;titlesAZ=k;idT=UCb112...

Thanks so much pennylrichardsca for your extensive research into this family and for providing the links for those who may want more information. Amazing stories. We'll fill in the names for this record the next time we update.

Eldest daughter Katherine and C.H. Mackay at a wedding in the summer of 1915: