man to be trifled with. “He was a tough old bastard,” said his granddaughter Elsie Walker. “His sons hated him.”
“It’s true,” said his youngest son, Louis Walker. “We were scared to death of him.”
Louis once made the mistake of showing up for a tennis match “slightly inebriated.” His father, who worshipped sports, was determined to jackhammer “a respect for the game” into the boy. To punish him for disregarding the rules of American lawn tennis, Bert sent Louis to work in the coal mines in Bradford Township, Pennsylvania, which delayed his graduation from Yale by two years. “In our family, life was based on athletics,” said Louis.
Bert sent all of his sons to Yale because the men in his wife’s socially prominent Presbyterian family, her brothers, had graduated from there: Joseph W. Wear (1899), James H. Wear (1901), and Arthur Y. Wear (1902). Bert felt his sons needed the best education and social entrée money could buy, but he ignored his daughters’ wishes to go to Vassar, because he felt that college was unnecessary for girls. “It’s not ladylike,” he told them. “It will just make you hard and opinionated.” After the girls graduated from Mary Institute, the elite all-girls school in St. Louis, Bert sent them to Miss Porter’s School in Farmington, Connecticut, known as a finishing school for rich girls, and then to Paris for six months with their aunt so they could polish their social skills and become more valuable on the marriage market.
The two young women returned to St. Louis in the spring of 1919 because nineteen-year-old Nancy, the older, prettier, and more flamboyant of the sisters, had been selected to be First Maid to the Queen of Love and Beauty at the Veiled Prophet Ball. This was the equivalent of being named first runner-up in the Miss America pageant, the Mardi Gras carnival, and the Rose Bowl parade. “In its time, being the Veiled Prophet Ball Queen was probably the next-best thing to being crowned Queen of England,” said Ann Biraben, a native of St. Louis. “And being First Maid was almost as good as being Queen.”
This was the first Veiled Prophet Ball to be held since World War I, so St. Louis was gearing up for a huge social season. The entire city was swept up in the excitement of the extravaganza that lionized the young women who would make their bows to society. Everyone was invited to participate in the torchlight parade of floats and bands that preceded the invitation-only ball, and crowds lined up for six miles to watch the festivities. The society pages of both of the city’s newspapers covered the teas, suppers, luncheons, and cocktail parties beforehand in breathless detail; little girls growing up in St. Louis could not be blamed for wanting nothing more in life than to be selected by the mysterious Veiled Prophet as the Queen of Love and Beauty at the ball.
Responsibilities came with the title. Following her coronation, the Veiled Prophet Queen had to give up a year of college to devote herself to the daily social obligations of her reign. No Queen ever objected enough to give up the crown, although many years later Dorothy Walker, Nancy’s younger sister, said she found the entire social ritual “barbaric.”
As the elder daughter of one of the city’s most prominent men, Nancy Walker was a natural selection for First Maid and practically stole the spotlight from the Queen in her Paris-made gown of white tulle spangled with brilliants. No one realized then that Nancy, who looked like one of the most eligible young women in St. Louis society, was not the marrying kind. After backing out of an engagement to a minister, the stylish young woman would eventually decide that no man in the world would ever take better care of her than her father.
“She was the family’s most colorful character,” said Christopher Walker, who remembered his great-great-aunt as theatrical and a bit eccentric. Dorothy’s children would later refer to
“It’s true,” said his youngest son, Louis Walker. “We were scared to death of him.”
Louis once made the mistake of showing up for a tennis match “slightly inebriated.” His father, who worshipped sports, was determined to jackhammer “a respect for the game” into the boy. To punish him for disregarding the rules of American lawn tennis, Bert sent Louis to work in the coal mines in Bradford Township, Pennsylvania, which delayed his graduation from Yale by two years. “In our family, life was based on athletics,” said Louis.
Bert sent all of his sons to Yale because the men in his wife’s socially prominent Presbyterian family, her brothers, had graduated from there: Joseph W. Wear (1899), James H. Wear (1901), and Arthur Y. Wear (1902). Bert felt his sons needed the best education and social entrée money could buy, but he ignored his daughters’ wishes to go to Vassar, because he felt that college was unnecessary for girls. “It’s not ladylike,” he told them. “It will just make you hard and opinionated.” After the girls graduated from Mary Institute, the elite all-girls school in St. Louis, Bert sent them to Miss Porter’s School in Farmington, Connecticut, known as a finishing school for rich girls, and then to Paris for six months with their aunt so they could polish their social skills and become more valuable on the marriage market.
The two young women returned to St. Louis in the spring of 1919 because nineteen-year-old Nancy, the older, prettier, and more flamboyant of the sisters, had been selected to be First Maid to the Queen of Love and Beauty at the Veiled Prophet Ball. This was the equivalent of being named first runner-up in the Miss America pageant, the Mardi Gras carnival, and the Rose Bowl parade. “In its time, being the Veiled Prophet Ball Queen was probably the next-best thing to being crowned Queen of England,” said Ann Biraben, a native of St. Louis. “And being First Maid was almost as good as being Queen.”
This was the first Veiled Prophet Ball to be held since World War I, so St. Louis was gearing up for a huge social season. The entire city was swept up in the excitement of the extravaganza that lionized the young women who would make their bows to society. Everyone was invited to participate in the torchlight parade of floats and bands that preceded the invitation-only ball, and crowds lined up for six miles to watch the festivities. The society pages of both of the city’s newspapers covered the teas, suppers, luncheons, and cocktail parties beforehand in breathless detail; little girls growing up in St. Louis could not be blamed for wanting nothing more in life than to be selected by the mysterious Veiled Prophet as the Queen of Love and Beauty at the ball.
Responsibilities came with the title. Following her coronation, the Veiled Prophet Queen had to give up a year of college to devote herself to the daily social obligations of her reign. No Queen ever objected enough to give up the crown, although many years later Dorothy Walker, Nancy’s younger sister, said she found the entire social ritual “barbaric.”
As the elder daughter of one of the city’s most prominent men, Nancy Walker was a natural selection for First Maid and practically stole the spotlight from the Queen in her Paris-made gown of white tulle spangled with brilliants. No one realized then that Nancy, who looked like one of the most eligible young women in St. Louis society, was not the marrying kind. After backing out of an engagement to a minister, the stylish young woman would eventually decide that no man in the world would ever take better care of her than her father.
“She was the family’s most colorful character,” said Christopher Walker, who remembered his great-great-aunt as theatrical and a bit eccentric. Dorothy’s children would later refer to
Similar Books
