The evening world. Newspaper, August 16, 1922, Page 16

"running story of the McCormick clan EVENING WORLD, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1922. ‘The Most Unexpected Family in America- Harold F. McCormick, “Harvester King” and newly-wed fourth husband of beautiful Ganna Walska. ——++ Their ‘‘Serial Romances,’’ Told Chapter by Chapter, Keep Readers Guessing As to Just What. Will Be *“Continued in Our Next’’ By Marguerite Mooers Marshall. @wpyrisht, 1022 (New York Evening World) eight years. No member of her fam- by Press Publishing Company ily uocompanied ‘Her, although ber HE most unexpected usbund arrived a few days later on another s! mer. family in. America She promptly and emphatically de That's the McCormick family—Harold F. Me Cormick, ‘* Harvester King,”* multi-million- : f} aire, leader in Chicago's social and artistic circles, newly-wed fourth husband of beautiful Ganna Walska; Edith Rockefeller MeCor- mick, his ‘first wife, who recently divorced him and who ts the daugh- ter of John D. Rockefeller; Muriel McCormick, his elder daughter; Mathilde McCormick, her sister. Harold Fowler McCormick jr., son of the house of McCormick, is the only one of them all about whom one never hears anything strango or startling. And even he has been engaged, by Dame Rumor, to Miss Anne Stillman, Gaughter of James and “Fifi"’ Still- man, the proponents in one of New York's must sensational divorce sults ‘The engagement has been denied. The McCormick family motto ought to be: ‘You never can tell!” For you never can—about any one of ‘em with the possible exception of Harold jr. You never can tell which way they'll jump. You never can tell what they'll do next, Jonsequently, their names fill the dlines, Therefore, New York, San “rancisco, New Orleans reads the with almost as much interest as Chi cago itself. It’s like # serial, each instalment of which stops at the most thrilling point and so leaves the reader guessing frantically as to just what will be ‘continued in our next.”’ There's pretty seventeen-year-old Mathilde McCormick. Wi} she wed Max Oser, her Swiss riding master of forty-eight? Or won't she? It's a good gamble, either way, to judge by the published reports during the last half-year, which have had the en- gagement “‘off again, on again’ in the most approved Finnegan fashion. Ma- thilde, according to the latest news cabled, was packed off to Switzerland by her loving father and her new stepmother just before the latter were wedded the other day in Paris, Per- haps she is on the point of becom- ing Mrs. Oser, Perhaps she isn't One doubts if Max himself feels any certainty on the point. One wonders if Mathilde herself knows, For she fs a member of the McCormick fam- ily, of whom nothing is to be ex- peated except the unexpected nied that she (P. 8.—It she IS married between Mathilde McCormick and Max Oser, whose engage- ment has kept the kettle of speculation boiling and whose marriage any day may be announced, contemplated starting an action for divorce. ‘I can assure the time this story goes to press and you," she was quoted as saying, “that the time you read it, gentle reader, nothing is further from my mind.’" don't blame us! We @ no seventh And she spoke pleasantly of her hus- daughter of a seventh daughter to band, and said that she had s een hin Prophesy even an hour or two in a fortnight ago in Zurich : advance what a McCormick will do She and Mr. McCormick both ar- next!) rived in Chicago on Oct They Bust consider the record of this most arrived on separate trains. The next talked-about American family during day Harold McCormick, through his the past twelve months. butler, gave out what {s surely one It was not quite a year ago—on of the strangest public statements any Sept. 27, 1921, to be exact—that Har- man ever dictated—a bitter fact, old McCormick's first wife, Edith couched in the sweetest of social for- Rockefeller McCormick, returned to mulae: This is it her mative land after an absence of “Mr, Harold McCormick presents The McCormmicks , Motto t to Be ‘You Never Can Tell ” PHOTO “onexpected” by ling. Mrs. Harold F. McCormick his compliments and begs to announce that the report that he and his wife are living apart is true.”’ Still Mrs, McCormick denied ru- mors of separation. She talked, however, She talked with glowing enthusiasm of her new psychological theories, which she had studied under the great Jung himself, the noted European psychiatrist. She announced that she would es- tablish in Chicago a school of “syn- thetic psychology’'—that she was pre- pared to devote her life to it, and that she had had ninety pupils in Zurich “synthetic psychology,"" she de- clared, ‘will solve all problems of business and domestic life. All per- plexities and w dispelled by it.”’ Maybe they are, But it was not synthetle psychology which dispelled one of the McCormick perplexitics. It was something much more tangible— the Chicago divorce courts. For, after all her denials, a Me Cormick, as usual, did the unexpected She sued for and obtained a divorce trom Harold MeCormick in the lat ter part of December on the gro of desertion. The granting of the de cree took exactly fifty-five minutes. Mr. McCormick was not even in the court room, It was understood that the gigantic fortunes involved were divided on a Afty-fifty basis Then, while Chicago was stil! talk- ing about the matrimonial smash-up, came the bland announcement from one of the attorneys: ‘Not the slight est il] feeling exists between Mrs McCormick and her husband.” Mrs. McCormick herself expounded further her philosophy less than a month after her divorce to the eagerly listening members of a Chicago women's club. “Woman {s a negative force; man, she said. “To be passive {s woman's great forte, Through not asserting herself she influences the positive male." But has Mrs. McCormick remained as meekly passive as her theory of life suggests? She has not! ‘The next bit of extraordinary news from the McCormicks came along in February—the average has been a sensation a month. Then Harold Mo- Cormick announced, formally, the en- gagement of his youngest daughter, Mathilde, to a Swiss riding master Max Oser, whom the girl had met while staying with her mother in zurich. Oser is two years younger than fifty-year-old Harold McCormick himself. Mathilde is now seventeen; she was sixteen when the engagement was announced, And mothe aid mother ries of existence are didn't approve. Nor 8 might have been ex pected from her announced philosophy of life—restrain her disapproval to “passive influence.’ She went once more to the courts—the Probate Court, this time—to ask for an injunction to restrain Harold McCormick, Ma- Mises Even Harold F. McCormick jr. is accomplishing the nothing strange or start- doing (J Int FILM SERVICE among other That said Max Oser is with- ain or regular income or means of livelihood; t said Oser desires primarily to enter into sald contemplated marriage be e he be ves in so doing he will secure la of money and financial gain Meanwhile, in New York, Mathilde had been about to sail for Europe and Oser, Instead, she rushed back to Chicago to fight for her fiance. The next bit of news was that Mrs. MeCormick had withdrawn her pet tion for the restraining order to pre- vent the marriage. But It was tp dicated that father had determined to withhold his consent to the marriage “for the present.” Apparently, it was “all off.’ This was on Jun About two months later Mathilde McCormick sailed for Europe. Max was at the Cherbourg dock to me her, according to one rpport. Max wasn't, according to another. Max and she were in Lucerne last Satur- according to still a third busy Step-mamma Ganna Walska McCormick helped Mathilde buy her trousseau in Paris before she bec! a step-mamma, if we may believe a fifth rumor. And there you are! Mathilde h said she going to marry him; Mathilde has pouted and remaini silent at the mention of his name; Mathilde had his picture on view in her stateroom; Mathilde had it tucked out of sight; Mathilde—oh, well, We might just as well stop expecting what she will do it's sure to be something else! For the McCormicks are like that. As for Harold McCormick, to hear him talk during the last year—even during the last month—marrying beauteous Ganna Wals until recently ‘he bride of New York's richest bachelor and his friend, Alexander Smith Cochran, was a thing furthest from his thoughts. To be sure, he gave her a wonder- ful house in Paris last May, To be sure, she divorced Cochran--the de cree became absolute a few days ago. To be sure. Harold McCormick was her champion with the Chicago Opera Company—where @Ganna DIDN'T make her debut in Zaza, owing to the © UNPERWOOD 4 UNDER Wood objections of the conductor, the lead ing male singer, and a few other ar tistic experts Nevertheless, Harold McCormick insisted that he merely sailed to Europe “a rest’ three weeks ago. In Paris he maintained that he didn’t even expect to see Ganna. And at that time correspondents reported that he was lunching and motoring with her, to t mutual satisfac tion. All the members of his family in Chicago were not expecting the Marriage, to judge by the impulsive comments attributed to his elder daughter, Muriel. It's done, never theless, and the multi-millionaire and the opera singer are honey mooning Then there's Miss Murlel—'poor little me," ‘as she described herself the other day. No one shall ever know how I feel about my father's marriage,"’ she added. No romantic complications in her young life have yet been made public She suggested, with obvious sarcasm, in her latest interview, that she be reported engaged either to the Prince of Wales or the Prince of Mesopo- tamia, so that ehe might no longer feel ‘slighted’ by the press. Nevertheless, in her case Chicago suclety first had to get used to the unexpected—not to say bizarre—idea ot its prize debutante, the grand- daughter of “Old John D.,"" going on the stage—the professional stage—and in men's clothes. Muriel m debut last April with the Modern Theatre Company as Zanetto, a boy who made love to a professional courtesan. She was yoted a success by the critics as well as by her audi- ence. Apparently a future in the art of the theatre was open to her Then, @ month ago, along came Miss Muriel McCormick, who has thus far escaped romantic complications but who has already tried the diversion of the stage, and, it is announced, will next actively engage in business. news that Miss Muriel is going into business in New York next fall. She was sald to have bought a half in- terest In a hat and gown shop in the Fifties and to be about to conduct the business actively with a woman partner Just what she will do next—who knows? Sffe’s a McCormick! There is no space in this chronicle to do more than mention such oddities and surprises in the news of the fam fly as that secret operation under. gone by Harold McCormick in a Chi cago hospital just before, boyish!» happy and healthy, he sailed to weit Walska; Mrs. Edith Rockefeller Me- Cormick's announcement of her inter- est in a Chicago-New York air line of two-million-dollar passenger airplanes, carrying 200 persons aplece; the six- teen-foot wall she has ordered erected about her Lake Forest estate, to pro tect it from ‘intruding’ bungalow dwellers; and—most curiosity piquing of all the reports—her rumored forth- coming second marriage to Edward Krenn, the plump, blond, youthful Swiss architect who accompanied her from Switzerland last autumn and, since then, has been living in a hotel across from her home and serving at her personal adviser. He is twenty years younger than she—but, once again, who knows? §he, too, .8 a@ McCormick—by marriage, twenty-six years ago. ‘ Variety clearly is the splée of the McCorinick life—and there's no short- age of spice,