The Oregon daily journal., September 21, 1919, Page 66, Image 66

THE OREGON SUNDAY JOURNAL, PORTLAND, SUNDAY HORNING, SEPTEMBER 21, 3 919.
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Famous
Interesting Manifestations
of Heredity in the
Family of the
A 1 -KTMV
American iriuiionaire
Wko Married Nine
Wives Before
Hi
IS
Own Romantic
Spirit Died
A Profile
of Mfc-s.
Frederick
Singer
and a
Photograph
of Herself
and Her
Husband.
Widow of
the French
Poet,
Andre Puget,
the New
Mr. Singer's.
Romance
Is One of
the Late
War's Best,
1 TO
T1
Mi Isadora Duncan, the Di-tin-
fitiahed Dancer, Who, It Wa
xpected, Would Be Mr. ParU
SinKer, But Who, A. He Ha
Now Married an English Woman,,
of Course, Cannot.
PARIS, Sept. 7.
'HE Singers, descendants oi the late Isaac Singer
wlio had nine wives, seem to be undergoing
an extraordinary outbreak of the spirit ot ro
mance they inherited from tbat famous American an
cestor. Within the week smart society in England
and France and, of course, in "the States," has had
three marriage announcements from notable members
of the always interesting and Impressionable family.
The most spectacular Singer at this moment is, of
course, the genial and . enormously wealthy Paris
Singer, who gave his English castle at Paingnton over
to British and American wounded soldiers, and whose
contributions to French and American war funds have
run into huge sums.
Mr. Singer was married several yearaago to a beau
tiful Australian lady who has become one of the great
hostesses of the Riviera. She divorced him last Win
ter, and for several months he has been constantly in
the company Yf a very beautiful English woman, who,
society now says, is really his second wife. This report
has made quite a bit of excitement wherever the name
of Singer is known, for, frankly, everyone in the know
fully expected that Isadora Duncan would become the
second Mrs. Singer. But of that later.
The second interesting announcement concerns a
niece of Paris Singer and a granddaughter of old Isaac-of-the-nine-wives.
the Princess de Broglie, a charming
young widow, who Is to marry an equally young Eng
lish army officer, Captain the Honorable Reginald Fel
lowes, son and heir of Baron de Ramsay, of Ramsay
Abbey, Huntington, England. This 13" a really truly
war romance and has as many thrills as a movie. Of
these, also, later.
Third and last is the announcement that Frederick
Singer, of the same generation as the Princess, has
already married Madame Simone Puget, young and
lovely widow ot the French poet, Andre Puget, and is
spending his honeymoon in the south of France.
As may be supposed, these three romances have
provided French, English and American society with
some rare and racy titbits of ossip, for the Singer
men. and women, too, are internationally famous and
of great social prominence.
There, too, they ha,ve a very picturesque , back
ground, for are they not descended from the founder
of the Singer Sewing Machine, the
man for whom the giant Singer
Building is named, and who col
lected wives as Intensively as men
of the A. E. 'F. collected German
war helmets?
Isaac Singer did not always make
machines. We first hear of him as
a strolling actor. Back in the early
thirties, with Mary and Olive Lo
gan and their family, he travelled
from State to State. Down in Vir
ginia he met a pretty
Virginian named Mary
Eastwood. He became
jengaged to her, but in
travelling around forgot
to marry her for ten
years. In the meantime,
as it happened, he
had married two other
wives, but being of an
Impressionable nature
and of the marrying
habit he was on the
lookout for a third Mrs.
Singer when he ran across his very first sweetheart
In New York, ten years after becoming engaged to
her in Virginia.
For tfbme unexplained reason he married Mary
Eastwood under the name of Merritt, his, middle
name, and she lived and died under that name. It
is impossible to give a detailed account of Isaac's
various romances. His nine wives presented him
with twenty-four children, but we are concerned
chiefly with the three descendants on which our tale
is founded. We must however devote a little space
to- summing up the marital experiences of the amor
ous Isaac-of-the-nine-wives.
When he had accumulated six made-ln-America
wives an unkind government called him to account
for alleged irregularities in his several divorces, and
the much married gentleman betook himself to France,
where, speaking of love and matrimony, they do such
things much better.
Taking his impetuous heart with him Mr. Singer
speedily fell in love with a pretty French girl whom
he married. Unluckily she soon tired of her elderly
husband and ran away from him. In despair, for
Mr. Singer was more used to running away himself, he
called on his wife's French maid to find the lady and
bring her back to home anahusband. .During the
search it fell out that the chagrined and heartbroken
husband fell in love with the maid! Presto, she be
came the eighth Mrs. Singer!
She, too, passes from our story and her hus
band's life, and the next thing we know there is a
ninth, and, as it proved, a final Mrs. Singer, who was
destined to become the grandmother of the Prince de
Broglie, who figures in our present romance.
The ninth wife was the daughter of a small pen
sionkeeper in Paris. When the shop-worn American
millionaire caBt eyes at the pretty French girl her
mother engineered a marriage in very shor order.
He died shortly after the marriage, leaving his
widow an enormous fortune and a steadily increasing
Income and, incidentally, one daughter. Before long
the widow showed signs of being the marrying kind by
taking as husband a young singer in a cafe, a former
sweetheart whom she had discarded for the American.
He, too, died, and almost overnight the widow mar
ried one Jean Paul Sohege, from whom she got a very
sudden divorce.
In passing, this lady was very beautiful, and at the
height of her beauty a noted French sculptor used her
for the model of a statue which is in the Capitol at
Washington. Fortunately, her beauty descended to
-Jier daughter, Isabelle, who at the age of twenty was
married to the Due Decazes, a nobleman of great
lineage but no money at all. The bride's mother paid
all of the Due's expenses and settled a large fortune
on her daughter. It is said that she even paid for the
bridegroom's wedding clothes!
It was worth the money, however, to have the
daughter of Isaac Singer and the granddaughter of the
French pensionkeeper made a real duchess of France!
The Dowager Queen Isabella of Spain and her two
daughters were present at the wedding, and so was
all the high nobility of France.
Here finished, in a way, the matrimonial adventures
of the amorous Isaac, and we now come to the present
generation and the present romances. As Paris Singer
is the head of the family (although even he has never
been able to straighten out his father's wives and
twenty-four offspring), let us hear what society has
to say of him. During the early years of his first mar
riage he lavished a fortune on his handsome wife, pro
viding her with a pink marble villa on the shores of
the Adriatic and a white marble castle in the south of
England. Her Jewels equalled those of an Egyptian
queen.
Society said that all these gifts were to make his
wife forget how deeply in love he had been with
Isadora Duncan. Well, there was no denying the
fact that he had long worshipped at the dancer's
shrine and that he had begged and pleaded with her
to marry him. He backed her in several of her
dancing enterprises, solely because of his interest
In art, because all the time he wanted her for his
wife. .
All her world knows Miss Duncan's theories as
to love and marriage and even M, Singer came to
realise finally that she would not then become Mrs.
Singer. He married the Australian lady but kept a
friendly interest in Miss Duncan's esthetic projects.
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In 1914, when war broke out and
and his wife turned her Riviera
villa into a hospital for French
wounded and the marble castle
at Paignton was turned over to
the Red Cross, Mr. Singer's
wealth was at the disposal of all
war charities.
When America went into the
fight he returned to his native
land and poured his wealth out
on his fellow countrymen. The
biggest thing he planned for
American wounded was the mar
velous country club near Palm
Beach for the benefit of shell
shock patients. When the armsi
tice was signed this project had
cost Mr. Singer $750,001). His
wife, left In France, secured a
divorce, and Isadora Duncan
again appeared as a possible
successor. But Mr. Singer sud
denly betook himself to Palm
Beach, where he spent much of
his time overlooking his club
colony, and It was noticed that
a handsome English woman was
his constant companion. Society
said then and says to-day that
this lady is Mrs. Paris Singer.
Neither the lady nor Mr. Singer
denies it.
What a romance this is! It
combines mystery with love and
beauty and great luxury. The
impression is that Singer is
merely having fun with his
friends. Society reasons in this
way. A well-known dowager
who has buried three husbands
and married off six daughter
says:
i-ans singer at heart Is
great romanclst. He knows that
pitiless publicity robs marriage
of all charm, and so he marries
nis lady on the quiet, hies him
self to beautiful Florida for a
secret honeymoon among the
palms and roses, and cares not
a whoop what we say or think!"
"That's right, I am sure," re
sponds a cynical bachelor. "Paris
was never so happy in his life
as he Is to-day while he Is keen
ing us al guessing."
And so we, as well as the
world, will leave him en route
to-day for California to continue,
society says, his honeymoon by
the shores of the golden Pacific.
Let us now see how the sec-
T"nce had lts being.
When ar broke out the Prince
and Princess de Broglie were
living in the beautiful old family
chateau on the banks of the
Loire near Tours, once the home
of Diane de Poiters, favorite of
Ug .Henrr IL The prince died
and the young widow, grand
daughter of old Isaac and only
daughter of Isabella Duchesse
wort68' gaVe herself UD t0 war
One day, while working in a
hospital then under bombard
ment, she was rescued from a
serious position by a bonny Eng
lish officer, later presented as
Captain Fellowes. For months
the Princess, in her nurse's garb,
worked in the most dangerous
places, and always the English
man bobbed up at just the right
moment. Paris says that the
two lovers missed being hitby
bombs no less than thirteen
times :
Peace came and the. English captain had not told
his love. He knew of the widow's large fortune, also
of her sorrow. He met her at the victory ball in Paris
and urged her to go to London for the victory ball
there. She went, and it was there that the captain
told his love and was accepted.
When she marries the captain the Princess will
lose her title and become Mrs. Fellowes, with the pos
sibility later of becoming the Baroness de Ramsay.
Her lover's family is connected with the house
of Marlborough and other distinguished families,
which recalls the amusing episode that happened jearn
ago to the Princess's grandfather. Having taken a
fine old manor-house for a season, Isaac Singer issued
Invitations to all the surrounding gentry for a gar
den party. No one came. He then invited the ser
vants of the gentry and every one camel And how
the old gentleman did laugh!
At this moment the future looks indeed happy for
the -little Princess. We can therefore leave her and
turn to our third and last tale of Singer love. In the
early days of the war, the French army would not
permit wives to visit their husbands in camp. Andre
Puget, poet and newly made bridegroom, was liter
ally driven away from his. lovely bride Simone. When
word came that Andre had been wounded, the bride
-wept no more, but, disguised as a peasant girl, made
Princess de Broglie, Ro
mantic Widow and Half a
Singer, Who Is to Marry
the Son and Heir of Baron
de Ramsay, of England.
her way toward her husband's camp. She was sus
pected and would have been turned back but for
the kindness of a young American wearing the French
uniform. She told Lieut. Singer her tale and he se
cured a soldier's uniform for her and put her In a
train as his orderly. And sc she reached her bus-
band's post and saw him once more.
Alas, a few days later Puget was killed. His
widow turned to nursing to hide her grief and in ono
of the hospitals was given charge of Lieut. Singer,
who had been 'terribly gassed. WeH, they fell In
love, but Simone would not marry until peace was
declared.
Their engagement was announced and she came
to this country to meet his family. With peace here,
there was nothing to prevent a marriage and the
cables brought word a few days ago that the last ot
the marrying Singers had captured the beautiful
Simone Puget.
And so ends the tale of Isaad Singer's descendants.
The three are all headed toward happiness and the
smart world wishes them well.
-!Kv;