Evening Star Newspaper, September 14, 1930, Page 101

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, SEPTEMBER 14, 1930. Where Lindy Courted Ann®TH v/ - Here for the First Time Is Told the Love Story of the Secretive Lindberghs as Pieced Together by Some of BY HELEN WELSHHIMER. = | HERE is a’white house down in Mex- ico that is attracting lots of atten- tion jut now. It is the place where some of the scenes in the world’s favorite love story were staged. Anne and Lindy sat on its porches, walked in the garden, saw the moon come up above the fountain. . The famous residence is the house chosen by Dwight W. Morrow, United States Ambassador to Mexico, for his week end and Summer home. Ambassador Morrow chose it because he liked it, without asking the rest of the family’s ad- vice at all. He had no idea that there was going to be a sentimental glamour over it some dav. Now every one is wondering what will happen to the house. The Morrows may leave Mexico soon. Mr, Morrow is the Republican candidate for the United States Senate in New Jersey. If he is elected in November he will resign his post at the Mexican embassy. And what will he do with his house at Cuernavaca, Mexico, in the State of Morelos? Keep it, sell it, or give it to the American embassy? The landscaping is his own idea. He¢ en- gaged Pancho Robello, a native workman, to carry out his instructions. The Ambassador drew pictures in the air as the two wandercd over the estate. The gardener made lines on the ground. When Mr. Morrow said “si,” which means “yes” in Spanish, Pancho went ahead and arranged plants and shrubbery and foun- -tains quite as though he were building a movie set for the last act. Of course, he really was, but he didn’t know it. Neither did Anne’s father. NNE and Lindy had the proper background to finish up their courting, due to Ambas- sador Morrow’s exceptional taste. The world has had an idea that the famous couple began their courting down at Cuernavaca when the moon was gold above the cloudy mountains and the guitars were tinkling through the - might. They didn’t. They had been engaged as nicely as you please for some time before the Lone Eagle came flying down to Mexico. But that is the end of the story. The beginning took place on the top floor of & New York apartment housé some time after Lindy's return from France. It was Sunday morning. Mrs. Morrow had been away. When she stepped from the elevator at the top floor of the apartment house, a floor which the Mor- row family owns and occupies when in New York City, she stopped in surprise. A tall young man was waiting to go down on that same elevator.. A tall young man whose face was perfectly familiar to every one who reads newspaper. It was Lindy. Mrs. Morrow sensed at once that the famous aviator had been in consultation with her hus- band. She introduced herself, Then she hunted up her husband. Ambassador Morrow discovered that he hadn’t been doing his duty as a father. He knew the world's most popular young man, and he hadn’t presented him to his daughters, Elizabeth and Anne. Mr. Morrow decided that he had been socially amiss. He invited Lindy to his home, wonder- ing if the young aviator would accept. Lindy did Afier that Ambassador Morrow didn’t worry about his hospitality being appreciated. Lindy came back. Again and again. Tll‘lflmttlmehetookdlnnernthe Morrow ! home in Englewood, N. J., the servants were so excited they could hardly arrange the flowers and dust the chairs. After Lindy had gone, that night, Mrs. Mor- row’s maid came in and held out a silver spoon from the table service, all wrapped around and tied with a bow of narrow red ribbon. “I thought you might like to keep this, Mrs. Morrow, for Lindy used it,” she said. “I wonder if you woldn’t like it yourself. You keep it. Just take it along with you,” answered Lindy’s future mother-in-law, who had no idea at the time that she would ever occupy that position. Their Closest Friends. Meantime the Morrow family went back to Mexico. Anne stayed on in New York, osten- sibly to attend a few weddings of friends. And Lindy still came calling. Not even Anne’s family knew that she was being courted by the famous young aviator. The Morrows were building a new home over at Englewood, so Anne spent a great deal of her time in New York City, where her secretary had an apartment. Lindy came. Very, very frequently. The telephone would ring in the morning. The secretary would answer it. “Will you please tell Miss Morrow that Mr. Cramer will be out this evening?” a very pleas- ing masculine voice would ask. “Certainly,” the secretary always answered. Some times the same voice would announce that Mr. Jones or Mr. Smith or Mr. Miller was coming to call. But no matter what name it gave, Charles Augustus Lindbergh always walked in at the appointed hour. One day the secretary said to Anne: “It's funny, Miss Anne, but every time Mr. Cramer calls Mr. Lindbergh comes.” Anne merely smiled. She and Lindy knew how to keep secrets. O the romance went on, in and around New York, in quite the manner that any girl and any young man in any city might fall in love. Lindy proposed and Anne accepted, and still nobody, not even Anne’s family, knew any- thing about it. Each was very quiet, or so the world judged. Each had a flair for adventure. Lindy hadn’t left any girl behind when he flew to France. Girls were all right, of course. But he had never had time for them. He had much preferred spending his leisure hours with gasoline engines and navigation charts. Then he met Anne. Anne hadn't been interested in men before, either. They were all right, of course. She just didn’t go In for extensive dating. There was something gay and winged and daring in Anne that made her understand just why Col. Charles Lindbergh had wanted to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. Most people, though, oo Smiling quietly in the realization of their love, Anne and Lindy kept their secret, and not one person, even in their families, knew she was seeing Lindy, let alone engaged to him. Ambassador and Mrs. Morrow were prepar- ing, with ill-concealed elation, to assist in the entertainment of the young colonel. . All the dark-haired, velvety-eyed maidens of the country south of the Rio Grande stuck red roses in their hair and draped silken shawls across their graceful shoulders, in honor of the aviator. Mrs. Morrow and Anne were dressing for a dinner at the embassy, or some other gala affair, when the maid announced that the most popular man in the world had arrived. Mrs. Morrow was excited. She told Anne to hurry and went out to greet him. When she returned, Anne was dhsting a pow- der puff across the rose-pink of her cheeks and her large violet eyes were quite calm. Mrs. Morrow informed her daughter that Col. Lindbergh looked well and handsome and happy. “Does he?” Anne asked passively. Anne and her mother went on out together The American Embassy at Mexico City. merely thought that Anne was sweet and lovely and very, very quiet. Anne had dreamed of flying long before she met Lindy. Once she had written a poem about it. She had gone into her room on the Northampton campus, at Smith College, where she was a student, closed the door, and tried to imagine the wonder of flying down the sky. “I pushed my head against the blue, “Still, like a singing lark, I find “Rapture to leave the grass behind, “And sometimes, standing in a crowd, “My lips are cool against a cloud.” Some day she was going to fly—with Lindy. Some girls tell their secrets. Anne didn’t. Not one person knew that she was even seeing Lindy, let alone engaged. THEN the scene shifts, and the setting grows romantic. In December Anne went home to Mexico, Lindy was bound that way on a Central Amer- ican flying mission of good will. The Morrow home at Englewood, N. J. wearing their evening wraps. Anne and Lindy shook hands in a friendly, casual manner, but their eyes exchanged the old, old secret that is told in three little words, “I love you.” They knew they were going to surprise every one pretty soon, for the very next morning Lindy was to ask Anne’s father if she couldn't please get married to him. When Mr. Morrow was asked for Anne’s hand, he shot out his own friendly one, and removed all of Lindy’s doubts as to his recep- tion into the family. The Morrows welcomed Lindy joyfully. Then they, too, joined in the agreement to keep the romance a secret. NNE was graduated from Smith in June of 1928 with two highly coveted awards—the Mary Augusta Gordan prize for the most origi- nal piece of work by a member of the senior class, and the Elizabeth Montagu prize for the best essay on “Women of Dr. Johnson’s Time.” Then the scene shifted back to Mexico and public interest increased. Col. Lindbergh was invited on a Mexican hunting trip by Col. Alexander McNab. Col. Lindbergh accepted. And, of course, he visited the Morrows. Down at Cuernavaca the Ambassador and his family were spending their idle moments in the old Spanish home, with its creamy stucco walls and soft red-tiled roof. There were wide stone steps to the sunken garden, which was a riot of vivid bloom, car- men, magenta, yellow and blue and orange. There were balconies and winding walks. There was the mirador, a porch set on top of the house, where you could sit and look across the country to the mountain crests be-’ yond. The steps wound up and up and up to. this retreat. There was an outdoor dining room. Long, narrow verandas with colored blossoms drifting against the white arches that supported their roofs. A fountain with a narrow ladder leaning on the wall nearby. And s swimming pool. Gay awnings hung over the veranda that stretched along one side of the pool, and vivid tiles promenaded along the other. There were tinkling guitars and old Spanish love songs. The famous couple splashed in the blue-green water of the pool. They joined Am- bassador Morrow as he swam and floated, and dived for silver dollars, They went motoring and they went flying. Lindy showed Anne how to pilot a plane. Meantime the world was getting pretty inter- ested. All the shop girls and factory girls and school teachers and stenographers and their mothers and grandmothers and fathers and brothers were wondering if Anne and Lindy were going to be engaged. Anne and Lindy kept still. engaged for a very long time. They had been THEN on February 12, 1929, Ambassador and Mrs. Morrow confirmed the rumors. “Ambassador and Mrs. Morrow have an- nounced the engagement of their daughter, Anne Spencer Morrow, to Col. Charles A. Lind- bergh,” read the printed notices which were handed to newspaper people. The scene shifted then to the Morrow home at Englewood, N. J. Col. Lindbergh was a reg- ular guest now. All the neighbors and all the world knew he was going to marry Anne. They knew it was going to be soon. Anne and Lindy kept still, but one day the famous birdman went to a jewelry shop and bought a slender golden band. Anne went to Mary Smith, the local dressmaker who had made many of her clothes, and asked her if she would please make her wedding gown. Mary Smith was installed at the sewing machine in the Morrow house. ‘Then on the morning of May 27, 1929, Lindy and Anne went into the garden, where the world’s most popular man picked an armful of blue larkspur for Anne. He and his fiancee Joitered a little while and remembered the flow- ers in a far-off garden, where a fountain played, and a gold moon shone at night. In the afterncon a few relatives and friends came, summoned by a code message. Then Anne put on her wedding dress, Lindy straightened his tie, the minister started his “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together to- day . . .” and the world’s most famous couple promised to cherish each other in sickness and in health, in fortune and in adversity, and, for- saking all others, to cleave unto each other until death. Thriller in Modern Form. THI old-time thriller of the “10, 20 and 30 cent” days, with the hero dashing to the rescue of the train just before it plunged to destruction on the burning trestle, was re- cently given, with all its old-time thrill, albeit in a new setting, when Mal B. Freeburg, night airmail pilot, saved a Chicago, Burlington & - Quincy train near Trevino, Wis. A Freeburg, on his regular route, noticed far below him a glow, which he dropped down to investigate, as all airmail pilots do. This habit of the pilots incidentally has saved many a life as the planes have been dropped down with a roar of motors to awaken sleeping oc- cupants of burning dwellings. Freeburg, as he ncared the ground, dis- covered that the railroad bridge was burning and, recalling that he had passed a train ap- proaching the bridge a few miles back, he swung around and flew back to give warning. Circling the train and flying low, the pilot flashed his landing lights repeatedly and, this not availing, he dropped a flare. The engi- neer, sensing then that the pilot was doing more than waving him a sort of greeting, brought his train to a stop. The train, heavily crowded, was only a quarter of a mile from the bridge at the time. Seeing the train halted, Freeburg flew on ahead to the bridge and, circling it repeatedly, continued to flash his landing lights until he saw that the train crew was on the way to im- vestigate what was wrong. Having probably saved many lives, Freeburg went on his way and landed his mail on time and without telling of his actions. The rail- road (rew, however, reported what had hap- pened and, upon investigation, the name of the pilot was disclosed.