The Historical Dilettante

An enterprising local woman provided airline passengers and workers with fine dining options beginning in the late 1920s. The first airplane meals prepared in Pittsburgh came from Katherine Baker’s kitchen in Pleasant Hills. She was known as "Lady" or even "Ma" Baker — but she was no plump, flour-dusted grandmother.

Wilbur Wright carried the first airplane passenger 2000 feet across a North Carolina beach in 1908, but paying passengers were still a novelty nearly two decades later. The first documented passenger had flown over Pittsburgh sometime in 1911. By 1928 the Pittsburgh Press was publishing articles like “How to Enjoy Your First Airplane Ride” – an experience so novel that readers needed advice about what to expect. The top tip was this: “Don’t worry. Relax, settle back and enjoy life. If there’s any worrying to be done let the pilot do it.”

But relaxing wasn’t easy! Not only were the heart-stopping, ear-popping, stomach-dropping sensations of first flight experiences uncomfortable, Pittsburgh's first passengers didn’t even have seats! Perched precariously atop stacks of mail bags in small, open-cockpit biplanes, those who dared could pay to fly to Ohio. But by 1928 travelers could purchase one of four seats in the enclosed cockpit of a high-wing Fairchild monoplane, or join up to 17 other passengers in a noisy Ford Tri-Motor cabin.

Pittsburghers could travel to Cleveland or Washington or New York, but they would have counted themselves lucky to be offered a cup of coffee before taking off from West Mifflin’s Bettis Field, the first local field to offer commercial flights. Nationally, the rapidly growing airline industry was scrambling to meet passenger expectations for comfort, and facing tough competition for long distance travel from the railroads. Industry leaders recognized that amenities such as beverages and meals would enhance flying experiences and even entice passengers into the airports and skies above. Meals would also have the secondary effect of distracting passengers from the discomforts of flying. But since there were no industry-guided initiatives to guide in-flight dining, a local woman took it upon herself to inaugurate in-flight dining over Pittsburgh skies.

From chorus line to tea room

Katherine “Kitty” Baker was born in Ottumwa, Iowa in 1878 to farmer William M. King and wife Sarah Jane “Jennie” Ball, followed by siblings Frederick and Minnie. She would later tell a Pittsburgh Press interviewer that by age 17 she had married in her hometown and was acting in New Orleans stock theater a year later in 1896. Those earliest stories cannot be confirmed, although census data does confirm that the King family moved to New Orleans around 1895.

Kitty claimed to have then studied ballet in New York, where she “got a job in a chorus – pony ballet – and worked at that for a long time.” Pony ballet was an early 1900s fad popularized by a traveling British dance troupe of petite young women, each younger than 19 years, less than 5 feet tall, and weighing under 130 pounds. Their performances, enhanced by whimsical costumes and props, were characterized by synchronized, precision chorus-line movements (some of which seemed to mimic how ponies moved). Pony Ballet-style choreography was all the rage for a few years in comedies and vaudeville.

A coy Kitty would later chide her Press interviewer:

“Never mind in what shows!” she held up a stern finger. “You know we women in business have to cheat on our ages, anyway, I don’t intend to have people saying ‘Oh, if she was in that show, she must be - well, let’s see- ’ and then the years pile up.”

Although Kitty obfuscated aspects of her early life, public records confirm her marriage to David F. Baker on 16 April 1904 in Manhattan. Mr. Baker worked as a brokerage office telegraph operator and the couple lived in Jersey City through at least 1910. After her husband died, Kitty took a “nurses training course” and worked at that profession during World War I “…. but I was never sent overseas because I was underweight. Couldn’t seem to put on another ounce. After the war I stuck at nursing for two years, and got sick of that. I got interested, then, in dietetics, and took some courses.”

By 1920 Kitty was operating a tea room in Greenwich Village, which she described as “….quite a Bohemian place in the days before Bohemian became ‘arty’.” Recalling that this was “before the village got ‘phoney’,” her clientele included luminaries of the day like Sinclair Lewis, journalists, and theater celebrities Kitty knew from her chorus girl era. After legal Prohibition took effect in 1920, such tea rooms became enormously popular as people sought alternative gathering spaces to replace bars. Long associated with the temperance movement, and often owned and operated by women, tea rooms had reputations for serving nourishing home-cooked meals and snacks. These alcohol-free establishments were considered decorous places for unaccompanied women to gather – although Village tea rooms were famous (and perhaps notorious) as meeting hubs for intellectuals and artists – and in some, alcohol was often consumed secretly.

Eventually "Bohemian" life wore thin. Kitty, “pretty sick of that literary and theatrical crowd”, relocated to Pittsburgh by 1924, following her siblings and mother to its southern suburbs. She operated the Green Teapot Inn at 5201 Fifth Avenue in Shadyside and managed another tea room restaurant at the stylish Ruskin Apartment Hotel in Oakland's prestigious Schenley Farms district (now the Ruskin Hall residence of the University of Pittsburgh).

These establishments brought her into contact with Pittsburgh's East End high society. Moving about the wealthier neighborhoods also brought her unwelcome attention when she was named in a story about a drunken city police officer who verbally abused and physically assaulted several women shoppers. On Christmas day 1924, while Kitty's car waited outside a Shadyside "chain store" on Filbert and Walnut streets as she shopped, her "negro chauffeur" was targeted with racist epithets by an officer. Kitty took no guff from racist, abusive drunks with badges: the papers noted that "Mrs. Baker reprimanded the officer" on the street and agreed to testify against him.

The Ruskin properties underwent bankruptcy reorganization in 1934, which may have prompted Kitty to seek employment elsewhere. A September 1934 Pittsburgh Press want-ad, though not identified as having been placed by Kitty, highlights the lengths to which a well-trained and experienced hostess would go to seek work during the lean years of the Depression:

Kitty found her next position out of the city in the South Hills, opening another tea room that same year at the historic Pleasant Hill Inn (which was also described as the Pleasant Hills Inn, Farm, or Tavern).

This was a former stagecoach tavern situated at the prominent intersection of Saw Mill Run Boulevard and Clairton Road. Dusty liquor licenses and bills dating to 1830 that Kitty found in an attic trunk prompted another Press story – ironic but welcome publicity for her liquor-free establishment.

From tea rooms to cockpits and cabins

Within a year Kitty was capitalizing on the inn’s proximity to two other important landmarks: the regional airports in West Mifflin. Established in 1925, Bettis Field occupied the high, flat land at the intersection of Lebanon Church Road and Pittsburgh-McKeesport Blvd. It served as Pittsburgh’s main airfield until Allegheny County Airport (AGC) opened a mile away in 1931. Both airports operated simultaneously for another 18 years until the Bettis site was purchased for an atomic research facility in 1949 (which still operates today). In their heyday, both airfields teemed with hungry pilots, workers, and travelers – which suited Kitty Baker just fine.

With her restaurant situated just west of two airfields, Kitty was soon catering meals to both sites and feeding and housing workers who showed up at her door calling her either “Ma” or “Lady” Baker. “Now I seem bound by the sky,” she told the Press in a May 1935 article, and described herself as thoroughly immersed in aviation:

“I know all the pilots, am used to their shop talk, and am just as fussy about weather conditions as they are. I have to be, you know. If the weather is bad, and they’re staying over, I’ll have to prepare lots more food. I know every ship that flies over the field…You can tell them by the noise the motors make when you get to know them as well as I do.”

Such intimacy with aviation was good for business, but Kitty’s affection for her “boys” was genuine. She got to know pilots from across the nation who flew through Pittsburgh. The paper commented that the “coziness of her farm house tavern or flavor of her cooking has made Mrs. Baker a second “mother” to the pilots." But the dangers of early aviation were also part of that connection. “‘Ma’ Baker left her kitchen in Pleasant Hills Farm yesterday to fly with one of her boys,” read a photo caption in April 1935 as Kitty boarded a TWA flight for Kansas City. Two weeks later she mourned that flight's pilot, Harvey Bolton, who perished in a crash that killed four others, including a New Mexico senator. Kitty even helped in an emergency by transporting rescuers to a TWA crash site in Uniontown in 1936; she had been waiting at the airport with lunches for the pilots who ultimately perished in the crash.

When Central Airline launched five “luxury service” round trips per day in July 1935 between Washington and Detroit, with stops in Pittsburgh and Cleveland, it was Kitty who supplied the luxuries aboard the new Stinson plane. She provided a full course, white-tablecloth luncheon on the christening flight, which was piloted by noted Pittsburgh pilot Trow Sebree and famed McKeesport aviatrix Helen Richey. As the first woman hired as a pilot on a commercial airliner. Richey partook of this “luncheon in the clouds” photo op, but her career with Central was brief. She quit a month later, realizing that she’d been hired for a job that was more of a stunt hire than industry commitment to equal opportunities. Squab on toast couldn’t compensate for Richey only getting scheduled for 11 flights in eight months.

But Kitty kept on cooking, providing more than 60 high quality boxed lunches each day for coast-to-coast passengers. Studies have since shown that altitude and pressurization have impacts on taste and smell, but Kitty discovered the effects on food breakdown and flavor perception via trial and error, as she told the Press in 1937:

Fowl – chicken, squab, duck – are ideal foods, but fish is absolutely “out.” Most fruit juices and prepared fresh fruit add taste to the lunch, but bananas are ruled against – unless you want the entire lunch box to have a banana flavor...

Salads, coleslaw especially, are seldom used, because of souring when packed with other foods. Pickles and olives may be used if correctly packed in individual containers.

The cheese list is also limited, Mrs. Baker says. A mild cream cheese has proved a favorite. On the ground man may like a pungent bite with their favorite lager, but in the air they prefer a more dainty morsel.

Kitty even sent homemade ice cream aloft for short flights. Steady business from locals and those in the aviation community kept her tea room solvent, and in June 1936 Kitty even assumed management of the restaurant at Allegheny County Airport, a move which gave her “far famed corn fritters, spiced fruit and pecan pie a new locale.” But this was a short-lived experiment for Kitty. The world was fundamentally accelerating in this aviation age and convenience and profit were being prioritized. Because airports were expensive to run, income from high turnover/low overhead concessions like casual restaurants and coffee shops provided important revenue. Concession contacts were hotly contested as lucrative business opportunities, and Kitty was soon pushed out as restaurant manager.

The Pleasant Hill Inn was sold in 1937. Kitty continued to provide meals at Bettis Airfield into the 1940s, first at the terminal’s former equipment building and then at a private home across the road, which Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics temporarily took over as a wartime dormitory. But as airplanes got bigger and flights became more numerous, Kitty's in-flight catering business of home-cooked boxed meals was unable to keep pace with demand. In 1940 TWA announced the installation of a $5000 “passenger kitchen” to prepare special airline foods in the Fliers's Club building opposite AGC, which was renovated to house flight crews during stopovers. Facilities there provided more than 300 hot meals for passengers per day that could be reheated in small convection ovens aboard plane galleys.

High volume and impersonal service were not Kitty’s style. By the early 1940s, Kitty had moved to Canonsburg in Washington County to open a new tea room she called Baker Farm. The Pittsburgh aviation crowd followed the charismatic, petite woman they called “Ma Baker” or “Lady Baker” and she provided luncheons, dinners and parties until she passed away at the age of 71 in 1950.

This busy little woman once claimed that she couldn't "stand monotony." Indeed, she went from Iowa farm fields to Broadway chorus lines, served as a wartime nurse, and spent much of her adult life managing multiple successful catering and restaurant careers. Her love of variety and her joy at trying new things inspired her to set standards for in-flight dining that today's highly salted and preservative-laden prepackaged airline meals fall far short of.

Addendum

Pleasant Hill Inn (aka as Pleasant Hills Inn, Farm, or Tavern) stood on 376 acres of land granted to John Reed in 1796. He sold it to his brother-in-law William Walker, who built the house in 1799. The Walker family operated a stagecoach stop there until 1849. Before Kitty Baker took over, the YWCA used the land for weekend retreats during World War I. The Walker estate was sold in 1937, and Kitty expanded her catering operations to the two local airports. It was subsequently used during WWII as a fresh air retreat for working women. The house was finally demolished in 1959. Today the site near a busy suburban cloverleaf is the location of a U-Haul business in West Mifflin.

29 January 2023

Wild Orgy Sunday Night in Homestead

This salacious headline appeared one hundred years ago on the front page of the Pittsburgh Press.

That word, orgy? It didn't quite have the same impact that it does today. I mean, it’s always been used to conjure associations of excessive, frenzied, debauched behavior. But the sexual connotations weren’t as automatic in the 1920s.

Still, this headline got attention. It was meant to. It appeared on 24 January 1923, the same day that a Homestead mother and her three children were buried. The family had immigrated from Scotland’s Glasgow region in September 1922, only to perish barely four months later in a Homestead hotel fire.

The Winnie Family

On 22 January 1923, 26-year-old Margaret Miller Magowan Winnie died with her sons David (5) and William (7) Magowan and her step-daughter Catherine (Katie) Winnie, age 17. Margaret’s husband James Guighan Winnie, age 47, escaped the flames by crawling from their room onto a window ledge. He had awakened first and rushed to another part of the building to alert daughter Katie about the fire. He then tried to usher his family to safety on the roof, but they were unable to follow him through fire and smoke.

“Winnie was found hanging to a window ledge outside of the bedroom,” recounted Homestead newspaper The Daily Messenger. “Taken to the ground on a ladder he dashed around the building and attempted to rush into the flaming front hallway, but was restrained by firemen.”

What the papers didn’t know in 1923, but what the availability of modern genealogical records reveals, is that this was a family well-acquainted with tragic loss. Margaret’s first husband Samuel Magowan was only 31 when he died in 1918, possibly during the influenza pandemic. Maggie was left with two small sons, and was newly pregnant. Another son born seven months later did not survive infancy.

In July 1920 Maggie married James Guighan Winnie, a widower 24 years her senior who had six young adult children.

James Guighan Winnie is pictured here with his first wife, Annie Traynor.
From left, their children are: Peter, James Jr, William, Nellie, Katie and Annie.
Photo from Ancestry.com family history files

James and Margaret had a son who lived less than a year. They gathered five of their children a few months later for a new start in America, stating at immigration that they planned to settle here permanently. Three other children remained in Scotland.

The Winnies lived for a while in East Pittsburgh, but James got work as an engine oiler at Homestead Steel. The family moved into the 22 room hotel at 513 Dickson Street in early January, likely hoping to find better lodgings once James was situated in his job.

Pittsburgh Daily Post described how the Winnie family began to settle into the community:

When their father brought them to Homestead, little William and David Winnie were happy because they were to go to school together. Their mother took them one day to St. Mary Magdelene’s school in Tenth street. But David was too little. He wasn’t big enough to go to school, the sisters said. He had to stay at home while William sat in a front seat in room No.1. They were separated for the first time in their lives. They died together.

Peter (19) and Annie (25) were the other family members living in the area. Peter had been the first to arrive in the United States in July 1922, settling in Braddock. He signed a declaration of intent to become a naturalized citizen of the United States on 2 October 1922. Annie was an unwed mother, having had a son in February 1922 whom she left behind in Scotland.

In December, Peter and his younger sister Katie posed for a photo taken for Christmas at a Pittsburgh studio.

Siblings Peter and Catherine Winnie, Pittsburgh PA, December 1922.
Photo from Ancestry.com family history files.

Peter was working a night shift at Homestead Steel when the fire occurred. Annie was said to be “visiting friends in Pittsburgh” according to some press accounts. Later reports indicated that she was employed and did not live with her family at the Dickson Street hotel.

Peter was the one who had to tell his father that the rest of the family had perished. After identifying the remains, the two men informed Annie. Some papers claimed that two additional Winnie children had recently sailed from Scotland to join the family, unaware of the tragedy that awaited them.

Maggie, her boys, and Katie were laid out at Gillen-Coulter undertakers in Homestead. Pittsburgh papers noted that hundreds of people “visited the undertaking establishment at 322 Eighth avenue and looked at the little burned bodies.” As barbaric as this sounds to us today, it was not uncommon following gruesome deaths for people to flock like tourists to public visitations.

Perhaps local authorities even approved of this pathetic display with good intent, hoping it might arouse sympathies and thereby help with fundraising for burial expenses. Borough Burgess John Cavanaugh had appealed to his Homestead community for donations since “the husband and father was in no circumstances to pay the funeral expenses as the fire….had left him practically penniless. Burgess Cavanaugh considers the cause a worthy one….” Thus endorsed, various papers noted that contributions could be made directly at the mayor’s office or to his wife, at the Daily Messenger office, or to any Homestead police officer.

A tally published on 31 January indicated that the community gave generously: $934.53 was raised, of which $357.50 was used for funeral expenses. Inflation calculators rarely give all-encompassing views of historical vs. current valuation, but this generally would have amounted to $17,000 today, a significant sum to collect from a working-class community. Considerable disagreement was reported about whether the remainder after funeral expenses should be donated to the Winnie family, or kept in a community trust for future tragedies. Burgess Cavanaugh emphatically informed the community about his decision in the Messenger:

Since the only dependents in the family met death in the fire, since the youngest left is 19 and is working every day in the mill, since the father has steady employment and the sister is likewise employed and since the two members of the family on their way from Scotland are aged 21 and 25 years it does not seem advisable to help those who can and are helping themselves. It was specifically stated at all times that the money was to be used for burial expenses.

Such adamant sentiments may seem harsh a hundred years on, but were in keeping with the charitable philosophy of the times which held that aid should only be extended to those “worthy poor” unable to help themselves. Collected money would be refunded should donors so request.

Maggie Winnie, her boys, and stepdaughter Katie were buried in St. Mary Magdalene Cemetery.

Thomas Davies

Hotel owner Thomas W. Davies, age 43, also perished in the fire. Known to friends by the nickname “Goat,” Davies had worked variously as a bartender and hotel clerk in the area. He rented and managed the hotel that locals referred to as the “Murphy place,” owned by a Bridget Murphy.

Davies lived on the second floor of the hotel. According to the Messenger, he awoke to smoke “pouring into his room in the central part of the hotel.” He said he first ran to awaken the Winnies one floor above in the rear, then found himself trapped as fire climbed the building walls. Firemen described how he “burst down the stairs and through a wall of flame. He rolled to the bottom of the stairs and fell unconscious on the hall floor.” Homestead Fire Chief Bryce sustained burns as he and another fireman dragged Thomas Davies from the building. Davies was taken to Homestead Hospital, where despite enormous pain he remained conscious and able to speak with friends and family. He died within a few hours.

Caption:
Upper - Showing the rear of the hotel of Thomas W. Davies,
513 Dickson street, Homestead after
fire had virtually destroyed the building yesterday
causing the death of five persons and injuries to a fireman.
Lower - Mr. Davies, proprietor of the hotel, who died of burns.
Pittsburgh Gazette Times, 23 January 1923

The Davies family immigrated from Wales in 1893, and like the Winnies had known hardship and tragedy. Mother Mary died 16 years earlier when a fire destroyed the family home on Tenth Avenue in Homestead. One paper hinted at the trauma that Davies’ father must have experienced after losing yet another family member to a fire; his father “would not be consoled” and “would not leave the place where the body of his boy lay.”

Davies’ wife of 15 years “had gone to Los Angeles….a week ago to regain her health.” Whatever the circumstance this implied, Davies was able to relay her contact information to his mother-in-law. Frances Bitner Davies did not make it back in time to see her husband buried, and she was not named as a survivor in Thomas’ public obituary, but she remained on record as executrix of his will. The couple had no children.

Arrangements for Davies’ funeral were made by the Homestead Elks, where he was a member. The Messenger noted that the extensive Welsh community of Homestead turned out to pay respect to one of their own and support the surviving family. Thomas Davies was laid to rest in a family plot in Homestead Cemetery.

County Detectives Investigate

Amid such unremitting tragedy, what possessed the Pittsburgh Press to lede with a headline about an orgy at the hotel?

According to various articles, proprietor Davies got a party rolling on Sunday night by “inviting several women and men to come to his establishment." The hotel porter said this party stretched into the wee hours, with a phonograph blaring until 1 AM. The next-door neighbors claimed they “were unable to sleep owing to the boisterousness and disorder of the guests attending the party” which went on until 2 AM. The porter claimed he witnessed lit matches and cigarettes tossed around the hotel kitchen, where the fire was believed to have originated.

The Winnie rooms were right above the kitchen, marked by a cross scratched into the center of this newspaper photo.

The Daily Messenger, Homestead, 24 January 1923

The fire’s origins were initially declared accidental, but tales about a wild party raised suspicions that had to be investigated to rule out other incendiary causes. “I have reasons that lead me to believe that the Murphy hotel in Homestead was set afire,” announced the Allegheny County Fire Marshall on the pages of the Messenger on 23 January. By the time that Press orgy headline was published, Allegheny County authorities had already spent nearly two days trying to identify party-goers at the hotel, possibly including “three women from Hazelwood.” A phone number connected to that location had been retrieved somewhere, giving the investigation focus.

It was a blurry focus, at best.

Using a high-octane word like "orgy" certainly would have focused eyeballs on this story. Authorities likely hoped press coverage could help them find the partiers they wanted to question, and the Press was glad to cooperate. After all, a titillating front page headline would have helped sell newspapers! But such a story also reflected moralistic attitudes of the times, since readers intuitively understood that it was a cautionary tale about the dangers of excess and carelessness.

Front page headline, Pittsburgh Press, 24 January 1923

Never mind that there may not have been a party. James Guighan Winnie said he went to bed early that night, and he denied hearing any partying, phonograph music, women from Hazelwood, or (presumably) orgiastic shenanigans in the hotel. The Chief of County Detectives admitted he had “no concrete evidence” about any of the allegations. Still, all the local newspapers speculated about that “gay midnight party” (another word that hits differently today) and "lighted matches and partially smoked cigarets, carelessly discarded by women and men guests."

One month later when a coroner’s jury on 23 February reviewed evidence and testimony from seventeen witnesses, the deaths of the five victims of the Dickson Street fire were declared accidental. The Allegheny County coroner’s jury stated that the fire probably resulted from a gas stove "left burning in the kitchen." The Winnies had likely died of asphyxiation before the flames came near.

Headline, Homestead Daily Messenger, 23 February 1923

What changed?

No partiers showed up to testify.

Perhaps they never existed.

According to the Daily Messenger, “Sensational testimony by persons who are alleged to have been participants in a joy party which took place in the hotel previous to the burning, failed to develop when no one appeared on the carpet to give evidence.” With no witnesses and no evidence, the “general opinion that a joy party the night of the fire was responsible” could not be substantiated.

Several other revelations from the inquest were noteworthy. According to the local fire marshal, Thomas Davies had inquired a week earlier about legal requirements to build a fire escape on his three-story property. He never got the chance to follow through. It was believed by all that a fire escape would have saved five lives that night.

Rumors had floated that complaints had been submitted about certain fireman. Testimony before the coroner’s jury disclosed that a fight occurred at the fire scene between responding Homestead and Munhall fire departments. “Rivalry between the two companies when either of the departments go into each other’s respective territory was given as the reason. The chief declared the trouble did not start till the fire had been practically extinguished.” Regardless of whether it interfered with their duties, the Allegheny County coroner was not best pleased to learn that these fireman had acted like jagoffs. He rebuked Homestead Fire Chief Bryce.

For his part, Bryce, who had suffered burns when rescuing Davies, admitted in his testimony that he and his men did not search the premises once they removed Davies from the building. He claimed they learned about the presence of Mrs. Winnie and the children "too late" to do anything, as there was no way to access the family trapped by smoke, a burning staircase, and locked door on the third floor.

In light of departmental rivalry and overall unprofessional behavior, the coroner called for a reorganization to place Homestead’s “fire department on a plane that will be consistent with the practice of modern protection.” Chief Bryce later responded with a statement agreeing with that recommendation. He complained that he had twelve firefighters working three companies in a borough that could use nearly twice as much manpower. He also stressed the need for a hook-and-ladder truck but claimed that since Homestead council had done nothing with that request to date, the department was making do with an antiquated hose wagon.

Bryce nonetheless defended the work of his poorly staffed and equipped department, and claimed that “out of one hundred runs before the hotel fire the damage by fires was only $4,470.”

He did not mention anything about fatalities.

The Homestead newspaper seemed embarrassed on behalf of the community by the Allegheny Coroner's rebuke. The Messenger defensively noted that “attempts seem to have been made to make Fire Chief Bryce the “goat” in the matter.” The paper was also sympathetic to the obstacles Bryce faced in dealing with an incompetent and ineffective town council that operated with “rank indifference to the best interests of the community (and) utter disregard for the safety and comfort of the citizens.” But the paper insinuated that a better man could rise above the politics that handicapped his department to find solutions, noting that “….Chief Bryce may not be up to the mark held by his father as a Fire Chief.” The senior Bryce, revered in the community as founder of Homestead glass works, established the first independent fire company in Homestead in 1880 when the Borough incorporated as a municipality.

Lost in all of this? The Dickson Street hotel fire was chalked up as just one of those sad, sad things.

Coda

James Winnie, Jr. left Glasgow on January 27^th to join his family in Homestead. He traveled alone, arriving at Ellis Island on 5 February 1923. His reunion with remaining family members, possibly prior to the coroner’s inquest, was not covered by any press. Reporters were done with the Winnies.

But so, too, was the Winnie family mostly done with Pittsburgh. Three months later, James Guighan Winnie and his daughter Annie left New York to return to Scotland. James would marry for a third time and spend the rest of his life in Scotland. Annie, reunited with her firstborn, married in Scotland then briefly returned to Homestead a few years later, where a second son was born. Her branch of the family stayed in the United States. Although brothers James and Peter traveled back and forth to the USA and Canada, they made permanent homes in the United Kingdom. The USA seemingly held no attraction for two other Winnie siblings.

The building at 513 Dickson Street was demolished. Modern Allegheny County Housing Authority high rises stand there today.

31 December 2022

The Pittsburgh Society Scandal of 1907...That Wasn't


Three Elegant Ladies, Alice Barber Stevens, private collection

Gossip. Scold. Scandalmonger. Talebearer. Busybody.

History has given us plenty of words to describe someone who talks about somebody else. Most of those words are weighted with judgement, especially against women. Extreme measures and regulations have even been designed historically to shut women up.

But guess what – restrictions never work. People will always talk about other people. That’s because at its most basic, gossip is about communicating and connecting. Sharing information about other people creates a bond. Everyone talks about everyone else, in some way, at some time. We simply find each another too interesting not to do so.

Gossip by Randolph Caldecott in "North Italian Folk" by Mrs. Comys Carr, 1878

If knowledge is power, gossip is high voltage. And the Tesla coil of social currency is gossip revealing human behavior outside of accepted norms.

In late 18^th and early 19^th century America, an era known to us as the Gilded Age, society was thought to function best as a well-oiled machine operating according to complex social rules. It didn't always work that way, of course, given that this was an era characterized by extremes of both wealth and poverty.

Gilded Age rituals of female upper class Society (yes, with a capital S, for Self-importance) were especially conducive to telling tales on each other. And the more scandalous the story, the better!

The Débutante Season

“It’s odd, if you think of it,” pondered a syndicated columnist writing for the New York Tribune in November 1898:

Image from vintage postcard

“….that December should be the buds’ month – that the death of the old year should herald the beginning of the new life of the young girl. But so it has been for generations of buds and blossoms. From the 1^st of December to the 1^st of January the older women step back, postpone their entertainments and hold themselves in readiness to welcome the buds, that find in the chill of early winter the atmosphere to coax their flowering.”

In the 19^th and early 20^th century, when such things mattered to the self-defined People Who Mattered, the December holiday season was known as the débutante season. Young ladies of standing emerged from private life to be planted in the hothouses of Society, where they were expected to bloom.

America’s wealthiest were borrowing from British upper-class tradition in pushing their nubile daughters to make formal entrance into Gilded Age Society. The “bud” emerged after years of genteel schooling in which she learned enough to hold her own in polite, cosmopolitan conversation (though not enough to make her an unwedable intellectual). Once she was deemed to have mastered the era’s etiquette and manners, acquired householding and entertaining skills, and manifested the qualities of pure, chaste, refined and modest womanhood, a young lady was ready to “come out” and be fêted at myriad events throughout the winter holiday season.

Thus the bud was displayed, a blossoming rose in a crystal vase positioned to catch the light.

Which is to say: appearances mattered very, very much.

A débutante’s preparations began months in advance, for a glow-up of epic proportions. Her life was all about dress fittings, accessory purchases, and fastidious grooming. The era's standard of beauty centered around the glory of a woman's luxuriant long hair, dressed just so. She should also be blessed with bright eyes and clear pale skin, with the flush of youth upon her face (ideally tinted with innocence but, oh, let’s be honest. Subtle powders and cosmetic blushes were sometimes necessary). Rosy lips were only just pinked, as if bitten in tender excitement. Eyebrows were plucked to enhance a natural shape, and shapewear of the day manipulated figures to accentuate curves (or create them where none existed).

The “coming out” for a daughter of Society started with an event orchestrated by her parents or guardians in December. This was her official debut, but she then would be honored guest (either on her own or with other debs of that season) at myriad débutante galas, dinners, house parties, balls, Christmas cotillions, private club dinners, and at afternoon card and tea parties. There were also mixed group visits (chaperoned, of course) to the theater, opera, and art galleries.

Ballroom illustration by Alice Barber Stevens, The Ladies' Home Journal, January 1899

Not only was the young lady on display at such events but so, too, was her family demonstrating its wealth and social status within the community. With a daughter’s public emergence, the family signaled that the next generation was prepared to take up its gauntlet of pedigree and privilege.

So, yes, December was Débutante season. And it was one, long, exhausting performance.

Weary debutante in The Close of the Season, Charles J. Taylor for Puck Magazine, 1890

Marriage was a hoped-for goal of the process, to be sure. The coming-out season showcased a young lady's readiness to take on the tasks of true womanhood, even by those buds for whom no proposals were forthcoming, or who wished to be left alone to bloom as they chose.

A Bud Emerges

Gilded Age cities glittered with wealthy people flitting from one invitation-only event to another, from December through New Year’s week, all centered around the newest debutantes and encompassing their families and friends. On winter breaks from school, young ladies traveled to attend their friends’ débutante events, placing themselves on display in the process. Eligible gentlemen also home from school for the holidays were especially welcome at these gatherings, often scoring last-minute invitations with ease. Wealthy families made note of debuts elsewhere even if they did not attend, scouring the marriage markets for suitable prospects for their darlings. Top tier cities like Boston and New York were the renowned centers of American Gilded Age society, but Pittsburgh had its own close-knit social circle.

Probably more than one Pittsburgh family perused society column mentions in 1905 and read about a New York City débutante, Katherine Varnum Kendall. She came out in style on 27 December of that year, shining at an afternoon reception hosted at her family’s elegant brick townhouse at the southern edge of Manhattan’s posh Gramercy Park neighborhood.

Block of Gramercy Park containing Kendall home, mid-1870s, later remodeled.
New York Public Library, Miriam & Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints & Photographs

As part of the festivities, invited guests attended a theater party followed by dinner at the exclusive Sherry’s Restaurant at 44^th Street and Fifth Avenue.

Seventeen-year-old Katherine was considered a “great belle.” Her successful launch into society reflected well on her parents, Wall Street broker William Beale Kendall and the former Kate Varnum Whitney, both of Boston and both with impeccable pedigrees.

New York Times, February 1907

In looking back on the season just completed in January 1906, the New York Times singled out Katherine’s debut reception gown. It was described as an appropriately innocent frock made of “especially girlish white chiffon cloth.” The paper couldn’t let it go at that, however, devoting considerable space to Katherine’s fashionable confection:

Both the skirt and the bodice were so fashioned as to suggest the petals of a flower. The bodice had a round-necked, unlined yoke of Duchess lace, and from this a plain, ungathered flounce of white chiffon cloth, cut in deep, almost pointed scallops, drooped over the shirred bodice three-fourths of the way to the girdle, which was of white satin. Each of the scallops had an edge of white silk ribbon braid, and in the centre of each point a white rose was embroidered in silk. The sleeves were short, gathered puffs of the chiffon cloth, and over each drooped three of the embroidered, bordered, petal-shaped points of the cloth.

Not enough detail? Here’s more!

The skirt is shirred at the top every inch till it gets below the widest part of the hips. It is of round length, and opens at the side, to show a series of five lace flounces, varying from seven to four inches in width, set on to the yellow liberty silk foundation. At the sides of the skirt openings the yellow chiffon cloth is embroidered in silver scallops. The lower lace flounce runs all the way around the skirt. On the chiffon cloth front near the bottom is embroidered a cluster of roses and leaves in silver. There are yellow velvet roses, dewdropped with crystals, for the coiffure.

Katherine’s wardrobe created quite the sensation. In February 1907 the Times published a column about “Miss Kendall’s Silver-Spangled Frock” and another about her younger sister Marjorie’s golden gown.

The Kendall girls had drip.

An Uncomfortable Distraction

The Kendall family likely breathed a sigh of relief at this favorable, if over-the-top, publicity. Two years earlier the family had been tainted by association by gossip surrounding the tragic demise of the fiancé of Katherine’s aunt, Helen Whitney.

If that sounds convoluted, well, it was. But remember: even hints of impropriety could affect social standing.

Katherine’s aunt was Helen Whitney, sister of her mother, Kate Varnum Whitney. Helen didn't find love until her advanced years, becoming engaged at the ripe old age of 47. Her fiancé, 55-year-old Frank Griswold Tefft, was a divorced scion of a dry goods empire who had an adult son from his previous marriage. Frank divided his time between the Tefft family home in Gramercy Park and Griswold Lodge, a summer estate in the Berkshires. He was especially devoted to that country home inherited two years earlier from a brother. Spinster Helen mostly lived with the Kendall family in Gramercy Park but she took summer lodgings near Frank.

Alas for true love: like his brother before him, Frank Tefft had diabetes and Bright’s disease (an archaic term for what we know today as various kidney conditions). According to published accounts, Frank died at the Berkshire home in November 1903 on the day he was to announce his engagement to Helen. She had been with Frank in his final illness, and his will named her as executor and primary beneficiary.

That was a problem.

Adult son Erastus T. Tefft contested his father’s will, alleging that Helen Whitney’s “undue influence” had essentially disinherited him.

After the funeral Helen was comforted at Griswold Lodge by her Kendall sister and brother-in-law, all garbed in the era’s requisite mourning attire to honor their various tenuous relationships with Frank Tefft. But Erastus’ legal challenges allowed him to take possession of his father’s home. Helen, evicted, returned with the Kendalls to Gramercy Park.

Over the next 18 months the Tefft case was thoroughly covered in Massachusetts and New York newspapers. Matters were initially settled in Helen’s favor owing to revelations of long-time estrangement between father and son. Erastus appealed, and high-powered attorneys argued Frank’s mental competency before the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Frank’s mental status was dissected as Erastus’ attorneys argued that he was not “of sound and disposing mind” due to his failing health. Long-winded testimony from Frank’s personal valet even brought Katherine’s mother, Kate Kendall, into the fray with hints of possible inappropriate influence as a witness to Frank’s revised final will and testament.

Finally in May 1905 Helen Whitney prevailed, having been “a cool and businesslike witness for her case”. Frank’s finances had always been a mess, however, and there would not be much left from his estate once creditors made their claims.

Helen did little to sort matters before suddenly dying in November 1906.

Griswold Lodge was destroyed by fire in March 1907.

And that was the end of that.

Well, not quite. Society has the collective memory of an elephant. As it unfolded, this saga would have been passed from gossip to gossip, each probing and savoring the details with the intensity of a sommelier sloshing his wine. It wasn’t the kind of tale that could tank a family’s prospects, but it would have provided an uncomfortable distraction.

Unrelated but positive attention to Katherine Kendall’s debut restored luster to the family name and was a welcome return to sober respectability. Younger sister Marjorie Kendall’s debut came a year later in 1907, slightly delayed owing to a social pause for the requisite mourning following Aunt Helen’s untimely passing.

And in the midst of all that came the announcement of Katherine’s engagement to a Pittsburgh boy.

A Son of the well-known Pittsburg family of that name

Like every Gilded Age metropolis, Pittsburgh’s distribution of wealth was disproportionate to its population, even if not on the scale of New York or Boston. The upper echelon of Pittsburgh’s Society was smaller, but it hummed along to a tune with predictable rhythms, rules, and hierarchies. As in other cities, there was Old Money and New Money here – quite a lot of money, actually. While not ranged in opposition, with Old Money “silk hat millionaires” looking down upon New “shirt sleeve millionaires,” there were occasional side-eyes cast at the pretensions of Pittsburgh’s nouveau riche. Mostly, though, Pittsburgh’s monied class got around its differences through intermarriage, Old to New, thereby replenishing itself with cash-rich local blood. Everyone knew everyone, because everyone was pretty much related. If some of the Old blue blood was tinged with iron and steel from the fortunes of New money, well, that's what unspoken social hierarchies were for.

Founding families like Denny and O'Hara dominated Pittsburgh’s social hierarchy. Both descended from patriarchs who made names and fortunes during colonial frontier and Revolutionary eras, became major landowners, and took on civic, charitable, and business leadership roles in early Pittsburgh. Politics figured into this mix, but although James O’Hara was chief burgess of Pittsburgh in 1803 and Ebenezer Denny the newly incorporated city’s first mayor in 1816, political office was the least important ingredient in their recipes for success.

Simply put, Pittsburgh would not have developed into a 19^th century powerhouse of industry without the foundational influence of Denny and O’Hara visions, fortunes, and connections.

These two families were united in 1817 by the marriage of Ebenezer’s son Harmar Denny and James’ daughter Elizabeth O'Hara. While not all their dozen children survived into adulthood, those who did perpetuated family standing, both in deed and progeny.

They also reused names, in that charmingly confusing 19^th century way, which is how in subsequent generations one of Harmar’s grandsons was graced with the name Harmar Denny Denny (perhaps to distinguish him from an uncle, Harmar Denny, although that hardly seemed necessary since said uncle had become a Jesuit priest).

We will assume the reduplicated names did no lasting psychic harm, since Harmar Denny Denny named his eldest son Harmar Denny Denny, Jr. (The name lapsed in the next generation after infant Harmar Denny Denny III died).

His other son was mercifully called after his mother’s side of the family, named Archibald Marshall Denny. This was the lad who would win Katherine Varney Kendall’s heart.

The Denny boys were brought up in an atmosphere of privilege in a home on Ridge Avenue, which was the “millionaire’s row” of old Allegheny City, twin to Pittsburgh before it was annexed in 1907. A description of Archibald Marshall Denny’s catered third birthday party from Pittsburgh society columns gives a hint of his doted-upon upbringing:

….the children’s party will be a very pleasant affair for the little people. Archibald’s brother, Harmar, who is 4½ years old, also comes in for a share of the honor. A room full of interesting toys will be at the disposal of the little guests and a fish pond will furnish them a happy amusement. Each child has a hook and line and fishes over a screen for a toy. Supper will be served by Hagan at 6 o’clock.

Harmar D. Denny, Sr.’s lineage and assets were as representative of Old Money in 19^th century Pittsburgh as one could get. He spent his life managing family wealth and real estate holdings and serving various pillar-of-the-community roles. The Denny boys attended Allegheny Preparatory School, a short-lived private school for the monied set that their father was instrumental in founding. Both boys were active in sports, including swimming and diving.

Allegheny Preparatory Academy from 1904 yearbook

Each boy then boarded at the exclusive St. Paul’s School for Boys in Concord, New Hampshire. Harmar, Sr. had attended Pennsylvania Military Academy and actively served in the National Guard, which was sufficient in his era to give him respectable credentials. But as the world required more of young men in the waning years of the 19^th century, he and wife Elizabeth wanted their sons to received top notch educations according to East Coast Society standards. Oldest son Harmar was a stellar student at Yale, and younger son Archibald Marshall was expected to follow in his footsteps.

Various newspapers noted that in 1906 the Denny family summered in Maine. Coincidentally, the Kendall family also summered on the Maine coast's fashionable Gilded Age retreats for the wealthy.

At some point a summer romance bloomed between the girl from New York and the boy from Pittsburgh. Marshall, as he seems to have been familiarly called, was a tall, slender young man with grey eyes and brown hair. Katherine was described as a “vivacious girl, full of laughter and high spirits.”

On 12 December 1906, New York Times announced their engagement, publishing Katherine’s photograph a few weeks later in its pictorial supplement.

The announcement added that there were no immediate plans for marriage since Marshall was still a student at St Paul’s School, and that "he will probably finish at Yale before the wedding.”

Pittsburgh papers made no mention of the engagement but, no matter, New York had spoken. A suitable match had been made between two young people from respectable families.

Marriage, thought the parents, could wait.

Miss Kendall and Mr. Denny Thought Differently

Even after the Times announced his engagement, nothing seemed to interrupt Marshall’s fun in Pittsburgh. Local Pittsburgh papers still included him in attendance at holiday parties, charity balls, and other events for the “younger set” throughout the 1906-7 season.

Marshall attended this January 1907 "Fashionable Ice Cotillion" at Duquesne Garden, 5 January 1907. Pittsburgh Post.

He went back to school at St. Paul’s in mid-January 1907. The Kendall family launched younger daughter Marjorie as a late season débutante. Papers in their respective cities announced that the Dennys and the Kendalls were spending their summers in Maine again.

And then, on 28 September 1907, the New York Herald breathlessly announced a (gasp!) secret marriage.

New York, September 28 – New York society will be greatly surprised to learn of the secret marriage yesterday of Miss Katherine V. Kendall, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Beale Kendall, of No 12 Gramercy park, to Mr. Archibald M. Denny, the son of Mrs. and Mrs. Harmar D. Denny, and a member of a prominent and wealthy family of Allegheny, Pa.

To intimate friends of the families only Miss Kendall and Mrs. Denny announced their engagement more than a year ago, but it was not made publicly, and their parents had not favored an early marriage on account of the youth of both, Miss Kendall having been introduced to society only recently.

But Miss Kendall and Mr. Denny thought differently, and after a summer spent at York Harbor, Me., they could not bear the thought of a separation even for another winter. Mr. Denny only returned from Maine a few days ago and joined his parents, who are stopping at a New York hotel.

A member of the bride’s family said tonight that they would have preferred a handsome wedding for Miss Kendall, but that the more conventional way the young people had chosen was entirely satisfactory.

Thing is, there was nothing conventional about this, nothing at all.

Why would two young people with everything in their favor rush a marriage that would have united Pittsburgh and New York society like nothing previously?

Unless...unless...they HAD to get married....

Of course, nothing like that could be speculated upon in public. But the press scented a story and pursed it like bloodhounds at the chase, outdoing each other in reports about what was known and not known. Every article made sure to include some statement about the wealth and lineage of the families involved. If they didn't quite get the facts straight, well, that was all right. Readers were still hooked.

New York Tribune fleshed out the story a few days after it broke:

Miss Katharine Kendall and Archibald M. Denny were married on Saturday at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, in West 46^th street, shortly after the departure of the bride’s parents….for Lenox. Mrs. and Mrs. Kendall had wished to delay the wedding until the spring, owing to the youth of the bride, but the latter was unwilling to wait so long, and on Saturday evening dispatched a telegram to Lenox informing her parents that she had been married in the afternoon, receiving their forgiveness and blessing over the wire. Miss Annie Livingston Best and her fiancé, Elizur Yale-Smith, who are to be married on November 6, officiated as witnesses of the ceremony and as bridesmaid and best man.

Philadelphia Inquirer weighed in reprovingly (and misspellingly):

Special to The Inquirer

PITTSBURGH, Sept. 30. – Instead of going back to his studies, at Yale College, as he was supposed to do, Archibald M. Denny, son of Harmer Denny, of this city, eloped....Young Denny is 19 years of age, his bride, Catharine, is about the same age. They were married at a parsonage. The Dennys own the greater part of the lower section of Pittsburg. It has been announced that the young couple will take a wedding trip and have been forgiven. Young Denny had a military career cut out for himself, for his paternal grandfather, Major Harmer Denny, was a great soldier against the British and Indians in 1812. His entry into West Point as a student is blocked.

What did Yale think? Well, New Haven's Morning Journal-Courier tsk'd over the groom's rejection of a Yale education, and implicated stalwart brother Harmar, Jr. by association.

Archibald M. Denny of Allegheny, PA., will not follow in the footsteps of his brother, Harmar Denny Denny, who is a prominent member of the academic senior class at Yale, for yesterday the news of his elopement with Miss Katherine V. Kendall of New York leaked out. Young Denny has given up the idea of coming to college, and will go to work in Pittsburg. He is only nineteen years old, and his bride a year younger.

Fearing that they could not obtain their parents' consent to their marriage on account of their youth, the young couple slipped out of Miss Kendall’s home in New York last Saturday and were married by the Rev. Dr. Wilson of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin.

A telegram to the bride’s parents, announcing the marriage, brought a reply with the parental forgiveness. When Miss Kendall made her debut last winter Mr. Denny was studying at St. Paul’s school preparatory to entering Yale.

Mr. Denny is descended from one of the wealthiest and most famous families of Pittsburg. His ancestors went to Pittsburg when the place was a wilderness and acquired great tracts of real estate, much of which the family still holds.

Everyone loves a scandal. News traveled far and wide, with extra-value drama like Meadville Evening Republican's attention-grabbing headline and get-away vehicle:

Pittsburgh, Pa., Oct 1. – All efforts of the parents on both sides to check the courtship of Archibald M. Denny, of Pittsburg, and Miss Katherine V. Kendall, of New York, proved unavailing as it is given out here at the home of the wealthy young groom that the couple eloped in an automobile to the residence of a minister last Saturday afternoon in New York and were married instead of going to school as had been ordered. Young Denny is heir to a vast fortune and a Yale student with a career at West Point ahead. The young lady was the daughter of William Beals Kendall, of No. 12 Gramaroy [sic] Place, New York, and it was in the absence of her parents Saturday afternoon that Denny in his big touring car came and took her away.

Even the Washington Post got in on the action, albeit with a more sympathetic report:

The marriages in society that have resulted most unhapily [sic] were those performed with the greatest pomp. Without wedding cake, stiff satin, and the reception ordeal, Miss Katherine Varnum Kendall and Mr. Archibald Marshall Denny were married on Saturday afternoon with two sympathetic witnesses, Miss Annie Best and Mr. Elizur Yale Smith, whose wedding will take place on November 6.

Miss Kendall is a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W. Beals Kendall, of Gramercy Park. Her great-great-uncle was Ger. James Varnum, of revolutionary fame. On the paternal side she is a granddaughter of the late Isaac Kendall and a great granddaughter of the late William Beals, owner and editor of the Boston Post for about forty years. Her mother, Mrs. Kendall, was Miss Kate Varnum Whitney, of Boston. Mr. Denny is the younger son of Mr. and Mrs. Harmar D. Denny, and a member of one of the oldest and wealthiest families in Pittsburg. The Denny home is on Ridge avenue, the fashionable residence district of Allegheny. They have a country residence at York Harbor, Me., where Mr. and Mrs. Kendall also spend their summers.

There was certainly no way Pittsburgh papers could ignore all this. On 29 September 1907, headlines blaring, the Press reprinted the Tribune’s breaking story. By contrast, the Post printed a sedate version on 1 October, the day the Denny parents were expected back in Pittsburgh:

Pittsburgh Press, 29 September 1907

Putting Out Fires of Inflamed Passion

So how do you get ahead of such drama?

Well, first you hide. If indeed the newlyweds took an impromptu wedding trip, they did so discreetly. It was probably a relief to their families to have them out of sight for a while.

Meanwhile, New York papers officially published the marriage notice.

Someone from one of the families, presumably in New York, poured their version of the truth into a sympathetic ear at the New York Times in an attempt to take control of the story. The following was accordingly published in a Times column on 13 October 1907:

Mrs. Archibald Marshall Denny….was Miss Katherine Beals Kendall, and her romantic elopement with Mr. Denny was told in THE TIMES of the morning after it occurred. A lot of nonsense was written about this elopement. As a matter of fact, the couple, who were very young, had been engaged three years, and, while their engagement was mentioned in these columns about a year ago, no formal announcement was to have been made by the Kendalls until much later. Mr. Denny had left St. Paul’s School to go into business, and, being tired of waiting for parental consent to an early wedding, the two seized the opportunity afforded them by the absence of Mr. and Mrs. W. Beals Kendall from the city to get Miss Annie Livingston Best and her fiancé, Elizur Yale-Smith, who are to be wed Nov. 6, to accompany them to the church, where they were married. This was at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, and a dinner followed, telegrams announcing their wedding having been sent to Pittsfield, Mass., where the Kendalls were, and to Allegheny, Penn., where Mr. Denny’s parents reside, and forgiveness having been wired back, all went well. There was no running away from school, as Mrs. Denny had made her debut eighteen months before. The Dennys are among the best-known and richest people of Western Pennsylvania, and had no more objection to the match than the W. Beals Kendalls had, both, however, thinking the two too young.

Mrs. Denny, through her father, is a granddaughter of the late Isaac Kendall, a prominent shipping merchant of Boston, and a great granddaughter of the last William Beals, for many years publisher of The Boston Post. Her mother, before her marriage, was Miss Kate Whitney of Boston. She is about nineteen and Mr. Denny is about twenty-one.

Taking control of the narrative was critical as another débutante season loomed. Its myriad Society gatherings could mean a potentially unchecked wildfire of gossip raging about both families. Newspapers around the country were still publishing wire service reports well into December 1907 about how the "son of Horner Denny" engaged in a "furious automobile drive" for his "runaway wedding", detailing how "young Denny dashed up in an automobile to the school his sweetheart attended in New York. In a jiffy she was out and speeding away with him. Before the spin was finished they were man and wife."

The families did not dignify any of that with responses, choosing to ignore rather than protest. The newlyweds quietly moved into the Denny family home on Ridge Avenue, far from sister Marjorie Kendall's upcoming Christmas season in Manhattan. It was bad enough that Marjorie's debut had been postponed due to Aunt Helen's untimely death. Having the unconventional Denny bride crossing paths in New York with her sister the budding deb simply wouldn't do!

With the newlyweds on a wedding trip (or at the very least hiding out from Society), controlling the narrative meant holding heads high. It must have been decided that to douse the flames of gossip, Katherine needed to be boldly and conspicuously present. So the Dennys closed ranks and likely called in favors. By December, a concerted effort was underway to introduce and welcome young Katherine as the newest member of this storied Pittsburgh family. There were daily press mentions throughout the 1907 Pittsburgh débutante season showcasing luncheons, card parties, receptions, and galas, all organized for the new Denny bride.

Pity the poor Pittsburgh débutante of 1907, forced to compete with Katherine Kendall Denny, whose presence would have sucked up all the oxygen in the room! Anyone who was anyone in Pittsburgh society turned out to meet and greet Katherine, driven as much by solidarity with the Denny clan as their own curiosity.

The grandest event among dozens was a high profile reception given by Katherine's new mother-in-law, doyenne of Pittsburgh society Elizabeth Marshall Denny. This was a "charmingly appointed" and "very beautiful affair...with the environment of one of the most attractive homes on the North Side" where "all society stirred itself to make her welcome and to do honor to the new member of one of Pittsburg's oldest families."

Finally, after a whirlwind introduction to Pittsburgh, in February 1908 Katherine went back to New York to visit her family. She came back a few weeks later but since the Pittsburgh social scene was always quiet in spring, she remained out of the news. The couple then joined Katherine's family to get away in early summer, not in Maine per usual but at a resort town on the New Jersey shore.

And then in August came the announcement that everyone must have been waiting for.

Did you do the math? You can bet everyone else did.

According to the birth announcement, baby Archibald Marshall Denny, Jr. was born fully eleven months after his parents eloped.

So...they didn't HAVE to get married?

For all the tongues that wagged in multiple cities, for all the scrutiny that must have been directed at Katherine's waistline when she walked into those endless social events in Pittsburgh, for all the whispered suspicions about, well, just how old was that baby REALLY (because honestly, who knew for sure?)....nothing happened.

So there's no real kicker to this story. We can wonder if Marshall and Katherine had regrets about their early start, about their impetuous courtship and marriage, but the public record is silent about that. It does reveal that their 43 years together seem evenly divided between, first, Pittsburgh, and then, Massachusetts. While Marshall may have intended to enter business when he disdained college, it's not clear that he ever really settled on what that was supposed to mean. Katherine, at least, maneuvered and bloomed in Society circles wherever she was planted. Two more children would follow: Katherine in 1910 and son Kendall in 1912. The couple watched their children grow, tragically lost their youngest son at 25, and knew their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Descendants of all three children are alive today.

That unconventional marriage decision, whether for love or necessity or a little of both, paused Society for the briefest of moments. It was a scandal, and then...it wasn't. Society continued to spin smoothly on its axis, at least for a while longer. The challenges of the modern era fragmented those old world values and ways of reacting.

But one thing hasn't changed. We still like to talk about each other.

High Tea and Gossip, Delphin Enjolras, before 1945, private collection