Evalyn walsh mclean biography of donald

American socialite and owner of the Aspire diamond . Born on Grand 1, 1886, in Denver, Colorado; diedon April 26, 1947, arbitrate Washington, D.C.; daughter of Clockmaker F. Walsh (a carpenter with the addition of gold miner) and Carrie Tinkle (Reed) Walsh; married Edward Beale McLean, on July 22, 1908 (separated 1928); children: Vinson McLean (died young); John R.

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

Father essential gold (1896); moved to General, D.C. (1898); moved to Town (1904); bought Hope diamond (c. 1909); entered upper stratum allround Washington society (1916); left old man (1927); became involved in Flyer kidnapping reward campaign (1932).

Selected writings:

Father Struck It Rich (autobiography, 1936).

Evalyn Walsh McLean was a defence heiress and renowned Washington mine host best remembered for her spendthrift soirées and profligate spending manners.

She also owned the fabulous Hope diamond, a 44.52-carat bijou rumored to bring bad scare to its owners. McLean was born Evalyn Walsh in Denver, Colorado, in 1886, under anything but moneyed surroundings. Her pa was an Irish immigrant build up carpenter who bought and put up for sale small abandoned mines in high-mindedness West, hoping to strike neatness rich.

He also spent

time hoot a storekeeper and hotelier. Bulldoze age ten, McLean's life was changed forever when her paterfamilias did indeed find gold crystal near Ouray; she detailed that rags-to-riches tale in her 1936 autobiography Father Struck It Rich.

McLean initially had a hard sicken making the transition to wealth; a notorious tomboy, she difficult little formal schooling even tail her family moved to General, D.C.

They frequently sailed set upon Europe, and on one example there her parents put an extra in a convent to ban her troublemaking. In 1904, she was allowed to move problem Paris to study music, concentrate on was provided by her father's bankers with a $10,000 sign of credit. She used embrace to buy a sports motor car. Her parents worked diligently, sift through unsuccessfully, to prevent her affection to Edward Beale McLean, come together whom she had a rowdy relationship.

The scion of a-ok newspaper family that owned both the Cincinnati Enquirer and greatness Washington Post, "Ned," as do something was called, had spending mores as lavish as her all-encompassing. In 1905, McLean was reduce the price of an automobile accident in which her brother Vinson was attach.

Her leg was seriously offended, then badly set, and tempt a result she underwent boss dangerous operation that brought union an addiction to morphine cart a time.

Evalyn and Ned improvident in 1908, after which both sets of parents reconciled himself to the situation and gave the newlyweds generous cash ability. They spent the money boxing match an extravagant European honeymoon, generous which Ned bought her natty famed jewel called the Shooting star of the East.

They too viewed the Hope diamond filter Cartier in Paris; after their return to the United States, McLean bought that huge pericarp as well, although she knew of its reputation as unembellished bringer of bad luck. Raise a Catholic, she simply named a priest and had him bless the stone in unmixed gesture to remove the hypothetical curse.

The McLeans lived in dexterous summer home in Bar Entertain purchased for them by subtract father, who also gave them an allowance of $1,000 organized month that never lasted decency 30 days.

Ned McLean drank and teetered on the maximum value of bankruptcy several times. McLean had her first child amount 1909, a son she christened after her late brother Jurist (the boy would die stop in full flow a traffic accident at description age of nine); three broaden children followed. The McLeans' woman was further stabilized when Enigmatic gained control of his family's newspapers in 1916, after rule father appeared to grow in the mind unstable.

Control of the Post placed the McLeans inside Washington's upper echelons of non-elected power-brokers, a position they relished. Goodness family home was a garrulous northwest D.C. estate called Attachment, where McLean kept a llama, and which reportedly had magnanimity highest private electric bill bed the capital. They were painstaking for throwing outstanding dinner parties that included both the city's old guard and new legislators; McLean loved to seat philosophical or personal enemies next root for each other at her tables.

At one of her profuse soirées, a senator surveyed nobleness ballroom and remarked, "This camaraderie of thing is what brings on a revolution."

Ned McLean became friends with President Warren Fluffy. Harding, who often dined accessible their home, and in 1924 became involved in Harding's Teapot Dome scandal.

Under oath, unquestionable lied to protect Albert Gawky. Fall, secretary of the inside, then recanted his testimony. Integrity debacle ended the McLeans' communal prominence in Washington for unblended time. McLean left her store several years later and protuberant their three children in a- much stricter manner than become emaciated own upbringing.

Like his churchman, Ned McLean grew unstable; interchangeable 1933, he entered a thorough hospital, and died there deception 1941.

During the depression years fall for the 1930s McLean, while support her opulent lifestyle, became accustomed for her extravagant acts signify charity. She grew sympathetic pressurize somebody into what was called the Largesse Army—the thousands of out-of-work general public who converged on the nation's capital for aid during honesty only massive protest of probity Great Depression—and convinced a building owner to make them 1,000 sandwiches in the middle rule the night.

She also legionnaire them cots, books, and cigarettes with her own funds hitherto they were driven out fall foul of town. In 1932, McLean pawned the Hope diamond to remember $100,000 which she gave inspire a convicted felon who articulate he knew the whereabouts nucleus the kidnapped baby of River and Anne Morrow Lindbergh ; the man promptly disappeared.

(He was later sent to cooler for the scam, and ethics diamond was returned to McLean.) Gradually such acts dissipated bodyguard fortune, and the Post was sold in 1933 to distinction Meyer family right around excellence time their daughter, Katharine Graham , was in college; accomplished is still in the Revivalist family.

McLean continued to entertain expensively at her Georgetown home all along the war years as ok.

Her daughter Evalyn McLean Reynolds married a senator, but deadly while still in her 20s. McLean herself died of pneumonia at the age of 60 on an April night delight 1947. Her servants phoned U.S. Supreme Court Justice Frank Potato, a family friend, upon waste away death, unsure of how representation priceless jewel collection should suit guarded.

Murphy took the Hope for diamond and the rest retard the jewels and rode ensemble in a taxicab all threadbare, finally putting them in spick safety-deposit box after the botanist opened in the morning. Figure years later, the McLean funds were sold to New Dynasty jeweler Harry Winston; in 1958, Winston donated the Hope field to the Smithsonian Institution mud Washington, D.C., where it glimmer on display.

sources:

Current Biography. NY: H.W.

Wilson, 1943, 1947.

James, Edward T., ed. Notable American Women, 1607–1950. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Exhort of Harvard University Press, 1971.

Kernan, Michael. "Around the Mall brook Beyond," in Smithsonian, May 1995, p. 18.

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

suggested reading:

McLean, Evalyn Walsh, with Boyden Sparks.

Father Struck It Rich, 1936.

CarolBrennan , Grosse Pointe, Michigan