A Jilted Wife, A Gay Husband, And A Flawed Memoir

thefootloosescribbler

The 1935 memoir King Lehr And The Gilded Age by Elizabeth Drexel Lehr (Lady Decies) is definitely worth reading, though at times it left me frustrated.

I first became interested in Elizabeth after viewing her 1905 portrait and hearing a portion of her sad story. Her portrait hangs on the ballroom wall of the Elms Mansion. Elizabeth did not live in the Elms, but her rented mansion, called Arleigh, used to stand opposite the Elms on Bellevue Avenue at the corner of Parker Avenue. Unfortunately, the Arleigh mansion burned down in 1932.

(Note that on page 116-117 of King Lehr, Elizabeth mistakenly refers to The Elms as Elm Court and vice-versa.)

Elizabeth’s Sad Story

In 1901, Elizabeth Drexel, a young widow and mother, married Harry. Harry Lehr was the influencer of his day, at least to upper-crust society. According to Elizabeth’s acquaintance Edith Gould, Harry was “the most amusing man in New York.” You could not have a party without him.

Harry didn’t earn an income and he had no inheritance, yet because of his flamboyant personality and discreet talent for dropping names, noted fashion houses gave him the latest styles in clothing and jewelry. Restaurants like Delmonico’s were glad to give him and his friends free meals, because, Elizabeth wrote, “management was perfectly aware that no better advertisement could exist than Harry Lehr’s patronage.”

As Harry said, he made “a career of being popular.”

Elizabeth fell hard for Harry and agreed not only to marry him, but have her lawyers arrange a marriage settlement on him of $25,000 a year (nearly a million today), plus their life expenses.

Now here is the sad part: on their wedding night, Harry told Elizabeth he would have nothing to do with her privately. “Our marriage will never be a marriage in anything but in name. I do not love you, I can never love you.” Harry explained that he had married her for her money and to keep his mother in comfort. He said a lot more, including that “there is no romance, and never can be any between us . . . you are actually repulsive to me.”

Elizabeth, and the society of women Harry was popular with, did not realize that he was gay. Indeed, they would have been shocked at the whole concept of homosexuality. But modern readers know Harry was gay and can perhaps understand his motivations for keeping it secret. In my view, this makes Harry a more sympathetic person. I first thought Harry was a sociopath, but after reading Elizabeth’s memoir with her many recollections of Harry’s words and deeds, I changed my mind. What he did to Elizabeth was unforgivable, but I think he actually cared about people, and about Elizabeth, though he didn’t often show it. Other readers may come to different conclusions; it’s nice that Elizabeth lets the reader decide.

Elizabeth’s Frustrating Memoir

As much as I loved reading Elizabeth’s memoir, it frustrated me. For one thing, the subtitle says, “With Extracts From The Locked Diary Of Harry Lehr.” So I was expecting intrigue and secrets! But Elizabeth included only the most boring extracts: Harry’s feelings about the weather, or his activities that day, about being bored, and occasionally, empathy for friends. There is absolutely nothing about his secret love-life (I assume he had one), his true desires, his real feelings about Elizabeth, friends, or society. And I saw no traces of his trademark wit. His “locked diary” was definitely a let-down.

Second, Elizabeth writes about her first marriage to John Dahlgren but leaves out some important facts. (I found out more about her life through online research.) It sounds like they were very much in love. Elizabeth writes as if their marriage lasted only a few months before he died. Actually, they were married for ten years before he succumbed to tuberculosis. They also had two sons. The first son, Joseph, died at a year old. But Elizabeth writes nothing about their first son, even though she led the architectural design of the chapel they built in his honor. (The chapel is at Georgetown University where her husband John studied.) They had a second son, John, yet Elizabeth barely mentions him in her memoir. Harry actually mentions John more than Elizabeth does!

My last frustration is that Elizabeth does not seem to be completely honest. She says she stayed married to Harry because of her pride and mostly because she thought a divorce might literally kill her mother. But after reading her memoir, I think she also didn’t want to lose her standing in society. With the exception of Alva (Vanderbelt) Belmont, women could not get divorced in those days and retain their social power. Being married to Harry put Elizabeth at the pinnacle of society. She regularly socialized with the four queens of The 400 (the number of people who could fit in Mrs. Astor’s ballroom):  Mrs. Astor (Caroline), Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish (Marion), Mrs. Hermann Oelrichs (Tessie) , and Mrs. Oliver Belmont (Alva). I believe Elizabeth did not want to risk losing her status or the social lifestyle she had grown accustomed to.

The Gay Life (no pun intended)

Reading Elizabeth’s memoir was eye-opening for me. I felt like I was given a real glimpse of The 400’s crazy lifestyle. Because the wives did not have a career, nor a place in society beyond their family status, Elizabeth’s memoir made it seem like they mostly filled their time with  extravagant parties. And they were always trying to out-do each other.

Their wealth was unbelievable, but to me, the ladies lives seemed sad and empty. Perhaps if Elizabeth had written more about raising her son, or about the other ladies and their families, I would have had a different impression. Assuming, that is, those mothers actively raised their children! They may have farmed them out to staff and boarding schools.

Now the Newport Mansions app says that Gilded Age society wanted to show the rest of the world how far the United States had advanced. Their goal was to showcase American superiority through the wealth and grandeur of their homes. Unfortunately, Elizabeth’s memoir offers no insight about the politics of their lifestyle. Her memoir makes it all seem rather shallow.

Do Read The Book

Despite my frustrations, I am so glad I read King Lehr. Elizabeth’s memoir is an inside look at Gilded Age society. It is filled with amusing anecdotes and juicy spats. It is a lifestyle that no longer exists and that most of us cannot relate to. Yet, we can all empathize with the basic human emotions on display in her memoir.

If you love visiting Newport mansions like I do, I highly recommend reading King Lehr and the Gilded Age by Lady Decies.