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Martin Williams
Member
Username: martin_williams
Post Number: 595
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Friday, November 21, 2008 - 1:51 pm: | 
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The existing biographical thread devoted to Margaret Graham is one of the oldest on the board and I can't see a way of adding new posts. So please forgive me for starting afresh!
Many thanks to Michael Poirier for contributing the lovely photograph of Margaret to Encyclopedia Titanica. It is always great to see a new shot of one of the more obscure passengers. And, if I'm correct in thinking that this is actually an American passport photograph (which, then or now, are not noted for being terribly forgiving), then Margaret must have been something of a looker in the flesh.
What do we know about Margaret and her mother, Edith? A preliminary Google reveals that the Grahams were very affluent indeed. Edith's husband, William Thompson Graham, was a wealthy businessman, the President of the American Can Company, who had been one of the original backers of the 'Dixie Cup'. This simple little invention - the prototype of the disposable paper and polystyrene cups we are all so familiar with today - boosted the Graham finances still further and, by the beginning of the twentieth century, they were comfortably established in Greenwich, Connecticut, which was then (as it has remained) one of the most expensive and exclusive towns in the eastern United States. Around that time, Greenwich was attracting some of the nation's wealthiest tycoons and industrialists to its elegant environs and they spent millions of dollars building palatial houses for themselves and their families. There were replicas of the Petit Trianon and Warwick Castle; and it was in Greenwich that an heir to the Phelps Dodge fortune erected a genuine Elizabethan manor house which he'd had shipped in pieces from England. According to a recent article in 'Vanity Fair' magazine, the Grahams lived in 'a graceful Tudor home on Greenwich's Belle Haven peninsula, overlooking Long Island Sound'. The house survived until 1998, when it was torn down by multi-millionaire hedge-fund manager, Paul Jones II, and replaced by an domed-and-columned edifice sniffily described by a local as 'a cross between Tara and a national monument'.
Living close to the Belle Haven Country Club allowed the Graham children (Thomas and Edith had another daughter, Alice, and a son, Samuel) to practice their sports. Samuel was a keen golfer and both the girls were noted for their prowess on the tennis courts. In September 1908, after a long, hard struggle, the teenage Margaret was defeated in the Ladies' Doubles by Miss Mary Green and her team-mate, Mrs Frank Gould. The sports writer of 'The New York Times' reserved words of praise for the valiant Miss Graham: 'she proved a formidable opponent to the other side, was all over the court and frustrated many an attempt to pass her'.
In the spring of 1910, Edith Graham, together with Margaret, Alice and Samuel, was staying at the fashionable resort of Hot Springs in Virginia. Whilst there, the girls were chaperoned by Mr and Mrs John P. Cane at an informal dance given for the 'younger set' at the Daniel Boone Log Cabin. It would be interesting to know if they encountered their near-contemporary Dorothy Annan (shortly to become Harder) who was at Hot Springs the following month. |
Carole Lindsay
Member
Username: carolel
Post Number: 59
Registered: 1-2001
| | Posted on Friday, November 21, 2008 - 5:48 pm: |
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Martin,
Can you tell me the date of the Vanity Fair article? Thanks! |
Michael Poirier
Member
Username: mike_poirier
Post Number: 899
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, November 22, 2008 - 2:49 pm: |
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They may have known Lambert Williams and the Taylors due to their connection to the American Can Company.
Voyage, journal of www.titanicinternationalsociety.org
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Martin Williams
Member
Username: martin_williams
Post Number: 596
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Monday, November 24, 2008 - 1:35 pm: |
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You can read the 'Vanity Fair' article I mentioned here:
http://anderson-real-estate.com/PDFs/ArticlesonGreenwich/Vanity%20Fair%20Article%20on%20Greenwich.pdf
Purely by chance, I had a copy of the magazine knocking around at home, and so was able to read it in its original format. Sadly, the on-line version does not feature photographs but, on the basis of those I've seen myself, I can add that the Graham mansion once stood in a spectacularly beautiful spot. In its day, it must have commanded magnificent views of the ocean - although whether Edith and Margaret would have appreciated these quite so much after their ordeal on the Atlantic in April, 1912, is open to question! |
Brian Ahern
Member
Username: brian_ahern
Post Number: 606
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Monday, November 24, 2008 - 8:27 pm: |
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Thanks for contributing the link, Martin. I'm not sure if the house bought and torn down by Paul Tudor Jones is the house the Grahams were living in by the time Margaret was married. The article says that that house was built by William Thompson Graham. But Margaret's wedding announcement in the Times listed her parents' home as "Otter Rocks" in Belle Haven, which had at least two owners before the Grahams lived in it.
The grandeur and expensiveness of the house made it an object of news to the New York Times every time it sold. In 1901, it was owned by Colonel Albert Hilton and was occupied by William Leeds (whose widow would marry Prince Christopher of Greece and whose son would marry Princess Xenia of Russia). In 1902, the Times reported that John L. Elliott of New York was purchasing the house for $76,000. |
Martin Williams
Member
Username: martin_williams
Post Number: 597
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 - 10:56 am: |
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Thanks, Brian. It has been some months since I carried out my preliminary (and, in any case, not greatly in-depth) research on the Graham family and the details of where they were living, and when, have since become a little cloudy!
The Graham governess, Elizabeth Shutes, perhaps deserves an honorary mention on this thread too. I was quite surprised to learn that she and Margaret did not get on and that she left her post soon after her return to the States. The impression I have derived from her account of the sinking is of an intelligent and articulate woman of some sensitivity. Her passport photograph, dated (I think) 1919, can be found somewhere on-line. Again, I was taken aback to discover that, even in her mid-forties, she remained quite strikingly attractive. The status of the governess varied enormously from household to household. Undoubtedly, there were some who were treated with disdain by their employers but then there were many others who were viewed almost as members of the family. The other 'Titanic' governess, Grace Scott Bowen, is a case in point. Throughout her testimony, Emily Ryerson consistently refers to Miss Bowen as her 'friend' and one has the impression that she was more of a companion than a straight-forward governess. |
