PEERAGE ROMANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 306, 26 December 1924, Page 3

PEERAGE ROMANCE.

MARRIES AMERICAN TYFISTE. HEAD OF YESTEY'S LIMITED. (Fro.ii Our Own Correspondent.) SAN FRANCISCO, December 3. Twenty years of thrills, during which she rose from a Nebraska country girl and small-town stenographer to be one of the highest salaried women in all the world, has culminated in the marriage of Miss Evelyn Brodstone of Superior, Nebraska, to Lord William Vestey, British peer, head of the Vestey I'nion Cold Storage Company of London, I largest stockholder in "the Blue Star Steamship Company, making all the j ports of the world, and "Meat King" of the British P'mpire. They were married very quietly in New York recently and are now en route to India on a honeymoon trip. The "thrills" came to Miss Brodstone when, as the auditor of the great business house of which her husband is head, she braved revolutions in Russia, in China, in South America; wars in the Balkans, in Mexico, in Turkey; floods in Australia, pestilence in India and business troubles from one end of the earth to the other. "He's marrying mc just to keep mc in the business,'' Miss Brodstone laughingly told her mother in Superior several weeks before tho wedding. At that time Miss Brodstone had come from her headquarters in London to see her mother settled in tbe finest house in Superior, which she had recently purchased for Mrs. Brodstone. Evelyn Brodstone was a typical smalltown girl. She passed through the Superior public schools and then studied stenography. After that she worked round Superior as a stenographer. Then she went to Chicago and obtained a position with Lord Vestey"* company as a stenographer. Later she was trans- ■ ferred to the New York office of the same company. She made so good that she eventually was taken over to London in the general offices of the Vestey concern. Her judgment was found so good that she rose from position to position. She was sent into different countries to settle matters of business arising in branch offices of her company. Then it was proposed that she become travelling auditor and spend all her time travelling. She agreed to accept only on condition that her mother accompany her. Her employers agreed to the extra expense and Sor eight years Mrs. Brodstone went Irom country to country with her daughter. Has Wide Commission. But the old lady subsequently grew tired of travelling and said she desired to return to Superior, in Nebraska, to live permanently, and Miss Brodstone resigned. The resignation was promptly i declined. "Stay another five years and we will pay you a big annuity all the balance of your life," she was told. At the same time her salary was raised until it equalled, if not surpassed; the salary of any working woman in the world. iMiss Brodstone returned to Superior, built a new home for her aged mother, saw her settled in it, and then went back for five years more. Then she went back to Superior to live. But scarcely had sh? settled in Superior when the Vestey Company implored her to go to China to straighten out its affairs over there. She consented and went. Having completed her work in' China, she was induced to return via Siberia and attend to some business matters in that country. When she reached London on her return home the Vestey people made her such an attractive offer to j remain with them until spring that she consented. When spring came she just kept on at work and stayed with them until she left the pay-roll to marry the proprietor. Before her marriage Miss Brodstone went back to Superior some months ago and bought a new home for her mother, who was eighty-two years old by that time. From -.Superior she went to NewYork, where the marriage was performed. Then she and Lord Vestey , started for India. A week after the ( marriage Mrs. Brodstone died at her •' home in Superior. Some Adventures. When civil war broke out in China, several years ago, Miss Brodstone, then in London, was hurried to Hankow, where is located one of the largest establishments of the Vestey Union Cold Storage Company. It was Hankow that was captured first by the rebels, but . Auditor Brodstone fearlessly went about her work and soon had the establishment on its feet again. In Russia on one trip it took a fortnight to get a train into Moscow because of fighting. She was delayed at the Moscow station two hours and when she reached her hotel, she found ' it had been destroyed half an hour earlier. She completed her business ■ there and then waited a month to get a train to Southern Russia on another job. A branch manager in Morocco disappeared, taking company funds with him. s Miss Brodstone followed him to French Indo-China and had him arrested and ' punished. Incidents like these were all in the day's business. They were the usual, not the unusual, with "Miss Brod- ' stone. When she was sixteen. Evelyn Brod- ' stone was just finishing school in Superior. When she was seventeen she was a stenographer. 'When she was eighteen she entered the servic of the : . Vestey Company, and when she w-as thirty-eight she married Lord Vestey: == —