Gertrude folded her letter to Harry and sealed it, but never addressed it and never sent it, hiding it away with her journals.
The two continued to live their own lives while living together. Gertrude’s wealth allowed her to be two separate people, leading the life of a society matron in her mansion at 871 Fifth Avenue, and then—dressed in silk gauze trousers and high heels, her lips colored cranberry, her hair russet, her long nails garnet, with rings on her fingers, bracelets on her wrists, and pearls around her neck—the life of a Bohemian artist at the art studio she had built at 19 MacDougal Alley in Greenwich Village. There she worked at her sculptures and helped promising artists who needed a patron.87
Grandmother Morgan knew just what she was doing in seeking Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney as an ally. When Harry Whitney died of pneumonia at the age of fifty-eight on October 28,1930, he left an estate of $72 million. Tall, thin, gaunt, her cheeks sunken, her face lined and hardened from years of chain smoking, Gertrude had lost her beauty, but that was all right. When Harry’s estate was added to Gertrude’s own fortune, she was, at the age of fifty-five, as Harry had predicted when courting her, a great heiress. In 1932, in the depths of the Depression, Gertrude’s annual income included $797,000 from stock dividends, $121,000 from interest on tax-exempt bonds, and $175,000 from her trust fund. Along with income taxes of $300,000, her expenses included $200,000 to maintain her Old Westbury estate, $30,000 for her Newport home, $90,000 for her Fifth Avenue mansion, $13,500 for her garage on East 66th Street, $160,000 to maintain her studio and the Whitney Museum she had established, $20,000 for her studio in Paris, and personal expenses of $160,120.88 Here was just the woman Grandmother Morgan knew could help her campaign against her daughter.
Gertrude Whitney had never been close to little Gloria. In fact, during the first eight years of her niece’s life, she had never even sent her a birthday card or Christmas toy, and in her own recollection had seen her only half a dozen times. Gertrude did not really believe the tales of neglect with which Grandmother Morgan regaled her. But when the eight-year-old was brought back to the United States, Gertrude saw for herself a pale, thin little girl who stammered, whose facial muscles twitched, who seemed high-strung and cried easily. Maybe there was some truth to the wild stories Mrs. Morgan had been telling her. It wouldn’t hurt to have little Gloria and Nurse Keislich come to Old Westbury to live with her for a little while. After all, over one hundred employees took care of the estate, which included her mansion, an art studio that looked like a Roman palace, the houses of her two daughters and son, stables with sixty-three stalls, livestock, tennis courts, swimming pools, exotic birds that roamed the gardens, an indoor riding ring, and an outdoor polo field. An extra guest or two would be no problem.
In June 1932, little Gloria had her tonsils taken out. When she was back at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel with her mother, who was about to set sail for Europe, Gertrude Whitney stopped by. She told Gloria Vanderbilt that she had spoken with the child’s doctors and that both of them felt that it would do the child a world of good to spend the summer in the fresh air and sunshine.
“Why not let me take her into the country at Old Westbury?” Gertrude asked.
‘That is very kind of you, Gertrude,” Gloria Vanderbilt said, and directed Nurse Keislich to pack up the little girl’s bags once again.89
When Gloria Vanderbilt returned from Europe in August and picked up her daughter at the train station, she found her in radiant good health. Gloria ordered the chauffeur to take them to the home she had rented on Seventy-second Street.
“Mrs. Vanderbilt,” Nurse Keislich interrupted, “the plans are to go to Mrs. Whitney’s.”
“Certainly not,” Gloria said. “We are going home.”90
Soon after they arrived, the phone rang. It was Gertrude Whitney calling from her Fifth Avenue mansion, asking Gloria if Dr. St. Lawrence had called yet. She explained that the doctor was concerned about little Gloria’s health. The next day, Gloria went to see Dr. St. Lawrence, who was a close friend of Gertrude Whitney’s and was the doctor for all her grandchildren. Dr. St. Lawrence explained that the child was not in good health and that a winter spent in the city would be detrimental to her. What Dr. St. Lawrence did not mention was that his recommendation was colored by Gertrude Whitney’s decision to keep little Gloria with her. Like Grandmother Morgan, Gertrude Whitney had concluded that Gloria Vanderbilt was not a fit mother. She would have to continue to look after her deceased brother’s poor young daughter.
Gloria went from the doctor’s office to Gertrude’s home at 871 Fifth Avenue.
“Now don’t worry, Gloria,” Gertrude comforted her in her low, slow voice. “I’m sure the little one will be all right in time, and she’ll surely be well enough to come to you in the spring. She can attend Greenvale School with my grandchildren and you can visit her. I know it’s hard to have to be parted from your little girl, but this is the right thing and you must follow Dr. St. Lawrence’s advice, dear.”91
Gloria agreed, and again sent her daughter with Nurse Keislich to live with Gertrude Whitney at Old Westbury, while she continued to roam the night spots of the world, living off the income from her daughter’s trust fund.
With little Gloria spending so much time with her aunt Gertrude, the obvious question was raised by Surrogate Foley: Why should Gloria Vanderbilt receive an allowance from her child’s trust fund when the child was being cared for by Gertrude Whitney? He reduced Gloria Vanderbilt’s allowance from $48,000 to $9,000 a year, with all of the child’s expenses to be paid directly by Mr. Wickersham.
Gloria Vanderbilt only now began to perceive what was happening. She had no freedom, no life of her own. She could not marry whom she wanted; she could not go where she pleased; she could not live as she desired; she had no money of her own. She was nothing but the guardian of her daughter. “Nothing in my household ever moved but they did so first on the foundations of Gloria’s desires or necessities. If it was a need for the car, she was given it and I used a taxi….Whatever the demand of hers, she was given it by prior right—nothing belonged to me but the governing of her time and years.”92 Gloria reflected on what had happened: “I bore my little girl—she was bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; I had gone down into the depths for her—and yet it seemed at times she never belonged to me. She belonged to the Vanderbilt name and the Vanderbilt money.”93
Gloria Vanderbilt now realized just how important it was for her daughter to live with her, and tried to get her back from Gertrude Whitney. Gertrude delayed, thinking of more reasons why her niece should continue staying with her for a little while longer. Grandmother Morgan, of course, supported Gertrude Whitney.
“Gloria,” Grandmother Morgan said to her daughter, “I want to talk to you and I want you to listen carefully to what I have to say. While you have been kind to me, no one knows how bitter it is to live on the charity of others. When your daughter is twenty-one you will have to live on hers, and I am telling you, you won’t like it! If you will permit her to live with Mrs. Whitney, I am informed…I mean I feel sure Mrs. Whitney will support you for life, if you will consent to this.”
“You must be mad to say such a thing to me!” Gloria responded in shock. “I am not selling my child!”
“You use such big words,” Grandmother Morgan replied.94
She began to walk toward the door.
“Sell is not so big, Mamma—it has only four letters.”95
“You had better reconsider, or you will be sorry.”96
Gloria’s current lover, A. C. Blumenthal, a movie theater tycoon, took her to his lawyer, Nathan Burkan. Burkan was astounded that Gloria, who had been a minor when her husband, Reginald Vanderbilt, died, had never in the intervening years been appointed guardian of her child. He began drafting the court papers needed for her to be appointed the sole guardian of her child and the joint guardian of her property, as a means to regain custody of little Gloria and some reasonable control over the trust fund.
G
loria told Mr. Burkan she would like to go to court with him when he filed the papers as she had never been inside a courthouse and was curious to see what it was like. “The less you see of courts the better,” he advised her, but agreed that she could come along if she insisted.97
On July 3, 1934, Gloria sat in the courtroom while her attorney explained the application to Surrogate Foley. When he had finished, a lawyer in the back of the crowded courtroom rose. “I object to the petition!” he called out to the surrogate.
Mr. Burkan spun around. “On what grounds?” he asked incredulously.
“On the grounds that Mrs. Vanderbilt is unfit.”98
“Court adjourned,” Surrogate Foley ordered, banging his gavel above the sudden turmoil in the courtroom. “I will hear this case in my chambers after lunch.”99
As she ate lunch with Nathan Burkan at a small restaurant near the courthouse, Gloria was baffled.
“Translate this to me,” she said. “In plain words, what does this accusation mean?”
“In plain words, the word ‘unfit’ in this connection alleges that the woman to whom it is applied is unmoral and immoral.”100
After lunch, back in Surrogate Foley’s chambers behind the courtroom, Mr. Burkan was indignant. “I must refuse, Your Honor, to proceed in this case unless I am informed who is bringing the complaint objecting to the guardianship.”
Well, who was it? the judge asked Walter Dunnington, the lawyer who had stood up in the back of the courtroom that morning.
“Does Mrs. Vanderbilt insist on knowing?” he hesitantly asked.
“Mrs. Vanderbilt insists on knowing,” Mr. Burkan replied.
“The Complainant is Mrs. Vanderbilt’s own mother, Mrs. Morgan.”101
From the courthouse, Gloria rushed to her mother’s apartment. The desk clerk told her that Mrs. Morgan was not in. When Gloria insisted on being admitted to her apartment, the clerk called the manager.
“I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Vanderbilt,” the manager told her, “but Mrs. Morgan’s instructions are that if you even make an attempt to get into the elevator, I am to send for the police and have you ejected.”102
This was getting more bizarre by the minute. Gloria left a message at the desk for her mother to contact her immediately.
Soon after Gloria reached home, her mother was knocking at the door. She stepped inside and tried to kiss her daughter.
“Don’t, Mamma, I can’t bear that now.”
Mamma looked surprised.
“Why, why, Mamma? Why have you done this to me?”103
Her mother answered matter-of-factly, “What I have done, I have done only for the good of the child.”
Gloria was too shocked to be angry. She was almost speechless.
“For the child’s good, Mamma? How can it be for the child’s good if you destroy her mother? Leave me, Mamma! You must be mad; you don’t know what you’re doing!”
Grandmother Morgan stood by the door, with one hand on the doorknob. “Gloria,” she said calmly, “I am advising you not to fight this. I have behind me money, political influence, and the Vanderbilt family. I am telling you this for your own good. If you try to fight it, you’ll regret it.”104
Confused, Gloria hurried to Gertrude Whitney’s mansion on Fifth Avenue. She ran past the butler who opened the front door, through the hall, and up the marble stairs to the drawing room, its walls hung with yellow damask and gold taffeta curtains.
“Gertrude,” she blurted, out of breath, “do you know what happened today in Judge Foley’s court?”
“No,” Gertrude said. “What happened? Sit down and tell me.”
As Gloria told her, she began to have the sinking feeling that Gertrude knew it all already.
“I’m going to ask you something that may sound to you impertinent. I have just left my mother. She told me that she will oppose my guardianship of Gloria; and she said that behind her were money, political influence, and the Vanderbilt family. You know my mother says she has no money except what Thelma and I allow her, so someone is behind this case. Is it you?”
Gertrude answered, and her voice to Gloria “acquired the steel precision of a saw blade, controlled and cutting.” Gertrude said, “Gloria, if you were not so upset I would ask you to leave this house. I am going to answer that directly. And the answer is emphatically no. I have always loved you. My mother loved you. I am horrified. Why, why should your mother want to do this to you?”
Gloria realized she must have been mistaken about Gertrude.
Just then, the butler came into the drawing room.
“Mrs. Morgan is downstairs,” he announced.
“That dreadful woman,” Gertrude said, touching Gloria’s arm. “I can’t see her now. Go down, Gloria. Tell her you have been waiting for me, and that I’m not here. ΙΊ1 get in touch with you later.”105
Gloria walked out to the hall where her mother was waiting.
“Mamma, please come home quietly with me. You are causing this family quite enough trouble. Don’t make it more difficult for me. I have been waiting for Mrs. Whitney; she is not here.”106
Mother and daughter together left 871 Fifth Avenue.
In the face of this family crisis, Gloria had summoned her older sister, Consuelo, and twin sister, Thelma, both of whom immediately returned from Europe. (Before leaving England, Thelma had asked her best friend, Wallis Simpson, to take care of the Prince of Wales for the several weeks she would be gone. “You look after him for me while I’m away. See that he does not get into any mischief.”107) Both tried reasoning with their mother.
“Mothers don’t do to their children what you are doing—blacken their characters before the world,” Thelma told Mamma. “Is it for money, or for hatred you are attacking Gloria? From the time she married Reggie Vanderbilt you have lived with her, until lately….She has never failed you in anything.”
Gloria herself was convinced that her mother’s motive in opposing her guardianship of her daughter was that “she wants it herself with the $48,000 a year,” and that the reason she was doing it “was purely money—that she was money mad—her god was money—and that it had always been, and it was what made the trouble.”108
Mamma, wringing her hands and weeping, stared at Thelma. “You have not been aware of the neglect that has been going on! This unfortunate child has been dying and Gloria has paid no attention to it!”
“That is a lie, Mamma,” Thelma said, “made of whole cloth to serve some end of yours—what we do not know; but we will soon find out. The child has never been alone from the day she was born without yourself or Gloria being with her—once for six weeks in her whole life in Glion with Keislich. The child has always come first in Gloria’s life—no one needs to be told that.”109
Sister Consuelo chimed in. “As for neglect, you never considered it neglect when you left your children scattered over Europe. For months at a time you never went near Thelma or Gloria when they were little, and at sixteen years you left them alone in New York City and never came near them….Neglect! Talk to me of money being the basis of this action but not of neglect.”110
“Are you going against me, too?” Mamma wailed to Consuelo and Thelma.
“If you ask me am I on your side or Gloria’s,” Thelma answered, “I have only to say I am on the right side. I don’t have to tell you which that is.”
“You be careful, Thelma, that I don’t take your child away!”
“Luckily, Mamma, my child has a father alive, and if there is any complaint it will come from him. Remember, my child has no rich aunt in England. What you do not seem to realize is that if you proceed with this case you will put a blot on this child whom you profess to love and will ruin your own.”
“I can never face my God if I don’t do this,” Mamma whispered, dramatically clutching her rosary.111
A flurry of conferences were held between Gloria Vanderbilt’s attorneys and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s attorneys to try to resolve the dilemma of how a ten-year-old girl would be ra
ised. With Surrogate Foley’s blessing, they reached an understanding: Little Gloria would stay with her aunt Gertrude Whitney during the next school year, during which time her mother could see her any time she wanted; she would stay with her mother for a month during her summer vacation; and the next year the matter would be reconsidered by Surrogate Foley.
In September 1934, Gloria Vanderbilt insisted that, pursuant to the terms of this understanding, her daughter return from Gertrude’s estate at Old Westbury to stay with her in New York City for a few days. Aunt Gertrude explained this to her niece.
‘Oh, I can’t go and stay with my mother,” little Gloria said. “I don’t want to go. I don’t want to see her. I don’t feel happy with her.”
“Gloria, you will be back by the end of the week.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am sure,” Aunt Gertrude assured her.
“Are you sure?” little Gloria asked again and again, pleading with her aunt not to make her go.112
Finally, the young girl consented, and Nurse Keislich packed their bags for the short visit to the city.
At 10:30 on the dreary morning of Friday, September 21, 1934, Gloria Vanderbilt walked into her daughter’s bedroom to tell Nurse Keislich the good news; she had just received word that she could take possession of a Long Island house right away. They would move in within the next day or two. If little Gloria needed the fresh air of the country, well, then, so be it, she would live in the countryside of Long Island, close to the school her daughter was attending. That way, there would be no reason her daughter could not live with her always.
As she spoke, Gloria noticed that the floor of the bedroom was littered with shredded wheat and toast crumbs for Gloria’s puppy, Gypsy-Mitzie. “This is like a pigpen,” Gloria scolded Nurse Keislich.
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