Read Online The Family by Kitty Kelley - Free Book Online
Authors: Kitty Kelley
Tags: Fiction
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their vivid Aunt Nancy as “Flash.”
“She wore bright red lipstick no matter the occasion and big flower dresses . . . I can still see her in the back of a limousine looking like a little painted doll in a fur wrap,” said Christopher Walker. “She is definite proof that the women in our family are far more interesting than the men.”
Dorothy was never a Veiled Prophet Queen or even First Maid, but one little girl in St. Louis grew up wanting to be just like her anyway. “I had such a crush on Dotty,” said Mary Carter. “I used to ink the back of my hand with her initials and walk up and down and up and down to her house . . . She was absolutely my hero. I worshipped her . . . She was just wonderful [at sports] and so much better than anybody else. We used to have indoor tennis, and she was so far the best of our group.” Years later Mary Carter, who also graduated from Mary Institute and Miss Porter’s School, married Dorothy’s brother George Herbert Walker Jr., known to the family as Herbie, and became Dorothy’s best friend.
Nan and Dotty, as they were known in the family, could not have been more dramatically different. Although polar opposites, they were loving sisters and good friends. Nancy was all fashion and lace and fur muffs; she enjoyed silver-service tea pourings and the luxuries of a finely appointed home. Dotty was the tomboy daughter of her sports-loving father and, like him, played to win, especially on the tennis court.
Few women in those days excelled in sports, but Dotty was a natural athlete. Her uncle Joe Wear, captain of the Davis Cup team in 1928 and 1935, told her that with a little practice, she could easily become a tennis great. As a runner-up in the first National Girls’ Tennis Championship in 1918 at the Philadelphia Cricket Club, Dotty was described by the newspaper as “a rattling good tennis player.” Her opponent won because “she possessed more strokes . . . and because she was the steadier of the two at critical stages of the match, but when Miss Walker has received a little more coaching there should be little to choose between them.”
It was after one of her coaching sessions that eighteen-year-old Dotty bounced into the family home on Hortense Place in her ankle-length white tennis dress and was introduced to Prescott Bush, who was visiting her sister. He had stopped by to pick up opera tickets from Nancy and stayed for tea. Flora Bush’s “splendid boy,” who had just moved to St. Louis in the fall of 1919, had blossomed into an extraordinarily handsome twenty-four-year-old man. He was making one hundred dollars a month working for the Simmons Hardware Company, selling the Keen Kutter line of tools.
“So like Pres to have met the debutante daughters of the town’s leading citizen, who just happened to belong to the St. Louis Country Club, isn’t it?” said one of his relatives. The sly observation was meant to gently deride the young man as a social mountaineer. Yet St. Louis, during its social season, opened its arms to eligible young men, especially those who had served in the Great War and graduated from Yale. This particular young man, more personable than most, was not the least intimidated by the stately mansion at 12 Hortense Place, where Loulie Wear Walker’s portrait dominated the drawing room. Bert Walker had commissioned Philip Alexius de László to paint his wife because he thought the Hungarian portraitist was the natural successor to John Singer Sargent. De László catered primarily to American socialites and European royals. He painted Mrs. Walker as he had Mrs. David Bruce, Mrs. James Duke, and Mrs. Harvey Firestone—with just enough hauteur to justify the $14,000 fee ($190,150 in 2004).
Prescott Bush had met a peer in the young Dorothy Walker, at least on the tennis court, and the Walker sisters had met a charmer who just happened to share their father’s passion for golf. As a member of the St. Louis Country Club, Bert Walker
“She wore bright red lipstick no matter the occasion and big flower dresses . . . I can still see her in the back of a limousine looking like a little painted doll in a fur wrap,” said Christopher Walker. “She is definite proof that the women in our family are far more interesting than the men.”
Dorothy was never a Veiled Prophet Queen or even First Maid, but one little girl in St. Louis grew up wanting to be just like her anyway. “I had such a crush on Dotty,” said Mary Carter. “I used to ink the back of my hand with her initials and walk up and down and up and down to her house . . . She was absolutely my hero. I worshipped her . . . She was just wonderful [at sports] and so much better than anybody else. We used to have indoor tennis, and she was so far the best of our group.” Years later Mary Carter, who also graduated from Mary Institute and Miss Porter’s School, married Dorothy’s brother George Herbert Walker Jr., known to the family as Herbie, and became Dorothy’s best friend.
Nan and Dotty, as they were known in the family, could not have been more dramatically different. Although polar opposites, they were loving sisters and good friends. Nancy was all fashion and lace and fur muffs; she enjoyed silver-service tea pourings and the luxuries of a finely appointed home. Dotty was the tomboy daughter of her sports-loving father and, like him, played to win, especially on the tennis court.
Few women in those days excelled in sports, but Dotty was a natural athlete. Her uncle Joe Wear, captain of the Davis Cup team in 1928 and 1935, told her that with a little practice, she could easily become a tennis great. As a runner-up in the first National Girls’ Tennis Championship in 1918 at the Philadelphia Cricket Club, Dotty was described by the newspaper as “a rattling good tennis player.” Her opponent won because “she possessed more strokes . . . and because she was the steadier of the two at critical stages of the match, but when Miss Walker has received a little more coaching there should be little to choose between them.”
It was after one of her coaching sessions that eighteen-year-old Dotty bounced into the family home on Hortense Place in her ankle-length white tennis dress and was introduced to Prescott Bush, who was visiting her sister. He had stopped by to pick up opera tickets from Nancy and stayed for tea. Flora Bush’s “splendid boy,” who had just moved to St. Louis in the fall of 1919, had blossomed into an extraordinarily handsome twenty-four-year-old man. He was making one hundred dollars a month working for the Simmons Hardware Company, selling the Keen Kutter line of tools.
“So like Pres to have met the debutante daughters of the town’s leading citizen, who just happened to belong to the St. Louis Country Club, isn’t it?” said one of his relatives. The sly observation was meant to gently deride the young man as a social mountaineer. Yet St. Louis, during its social season, opened its arms to eligible young men, especially those who had served in the Great War and graduated from Yale. This particular young man, more personable than most, was not the least intimidated by the stately mansion at 12 Hortense Place, where Loulie Wear Walker’s portrait dominated the drawing room. Bert Walker had commissioned Philip Alexius de László to paint his wife because he thought the Hungarian portraitist was the natural successor to John Singer Sargent. De László catered primarily to American socialites and European royals. He painted Mrs. Walker as he had Mrs. David Bruce, Mrs. James Duke, and Mrs. Harvey Firestone—with just enough hauteur to justify the $14,000 fee ($190,150 in 2004).
Prescott Bush had met a peer in the young Dorothy Walker, at least on the tennis court, and the Walker sisters had met a charmer who just happened to share their father’s passion for golf. As a member of the St. Louis Country Club, Bert Walker
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