Posted on 08/28/2010 6:40:22 AM PDT by Daffynition
He has worked at the Connecticut country mansion for most of his life -- but doesn't even know who his boss is.
The guard at the $24 million New Canaan estate of reclusive 104-year-old copper heiress Huguette Clark says he's never met the woman -- and didn't even know her name until yesterday, when a reporter asked.
He's hardly alone.
Few people know the details of the long, mysterious life of one of America's richest women.
'PRINCESS' OF BETH ISRAEL
Born in the waning years of the Gilded Age to a rapacious, hated mining magnate with a fortune worth what would be $3.6 billion today, Huguette Clark has lived like a hermit for more than half a century and has spent much of the past two decades secluded in a hospital, not even agreeing to see family members.
She is now reportedly under the control of an attorney in a case being probed by the Manhattan DA. The situation has been likened to the final years of the late socialite Brooke Astor, who also lived past 100.
But unlike Astor, who for most of her life was every bit the vivacious socialite, Clark has worked hard to hide from the limelight and used her millions to drop out and surround herself with a cocoon of pricey playthings, including an epic collection of French dolls, whose clothes she paid her servants to iron.
"Her closest friends have always been her dolls," one of her friends, Suzanne Pierre, 89, told msnbc.com.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Bump
In 95% of photos, people looked like they were walking up the stairs to the Guillotine. What was up with that? Bad attitudes or bad teeth?
Clark made his greatest fortune in the Southwest. His United Verde copper mine, in Jerome, Ariz., yielded a profit of $400,000 a month, or in today's dollars, $10 million a month. The trading post of Las Vegas was a stop on his rail line. Here he speaks to a crowd in Las Vegas from his Pullman car in 1905. Las Vegas today is in Clark County, named for him.
Euuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuw.
Mark Twain's words are immortal. Things haven't changed much in the political world over the years.
Photographic emulsions of the day were very slow.
The subject had to hold a pose for several seconds or the picture was smeared.
Hard to hold a smile that long.
In 95% of photos, people looked like they were walking up the stairs to the Guillotine. What was up with that? Bad attitudes or bad teeth?
The phenomenon you describe was due to several different but interrelated factors:
1. Photographic technology (long exposure times requiring absolute stillness of the subjects).
2. In the days before cheap, instant photos, digital photography, etc., being photographed was a rare and hence serious business. Nowadays, a photographer can take twenty shots or more, and discard all but the best.
3. Sociological: It may have simply been considered more proper to present a composed, sedate demeanor and a stern facial expression, such as one might present in, e.g., church. Also, especially scions of the Upper Class - back then - may have been exhorted by their elders to act in a dignified manner.
4. Bad teeth, etc.
Regards,
Were I suddenly transported back 100 years, once I got over the amazement, I'd soon be frowning as I tried getting by without some of the basics that enable todays poor to live in better comfort that even the wealthiest of 100 years ago.
Clark's men tried one more audacity: On the day he resigned, they tricked the governor into traveling outside Montana. His lieutenant filled the vacancy — with Clark! When the governor returned, again Clark was out. Finally, he was elected in 1901. Though he retired after one term, for the rest of his life he insisted on being "Senator Clark."
As in available for adoption. What were you thinking?
Bet she ‘dies’ this year. No Federal inheritance taxes.
People of influence and their families adopted a grave manner in public, lending to their gravitas.
Neither did they crack knuckles or jokes according to my manual “How To Be A Man” published in 1911.
The reporter avers that he was a “rapacious, hated mining magnate”, but what exactly did he do wrong?
I used to rent an apartment in the same building as a 90-something woman. She was a NYC socialite in the 20’s and she her husband were personal friends of General Marshall. Once per week I used to love to just sip bourbon and listen to her tell me about those days. She had photo albums galore.
Sadly, her family had relocated her to the apartment to get her closer than her 40 acre country estate. They came once a month and the woman was terribly lonely. I moved away a couple of months after meeting her.
Today, with the perspective of ten more years, I often think about this woman who died earlier this year. What an amazing wealth of history the old ones are, as you said.
Clark's wife was rarely seen in public. He wrote of Anna, "Mrs. Clark did not care for social distinction, nor the obligations that would entail upon my public life." In 1912, former Senator Clark, 73, and Anna, 34, walked in the Easter Parade on Fifth Avenue with Andrée, 9. Huguette, not pictured, was just 5, starting her collection of dolls from France.
From the link.
“Twain didn't mention that one of Clark's Montana opponents, Henry Huttleston Rogers, had rescued Twain from bankruptcy. Rogers and Standard Oil cronies set up the Amalgamated Copper Company, which defrauded shareholders. As an insider, Twain profited from the Amalgamated deal. Twain cast his essay as if he was offended by having to listen to Clark drone on at a banquet, but his wallet may have been talking. Twain and co-author Charles Dudley Warner coined the term “the Gilded Age” in their 1873 book by that name.”
I have absolutely no respect for people whose only accomplishment is being born.
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