FEMALE WONDERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 70, 23 March 1940, Page 12

FEMALE WONDERS.

THE "GIRLS" AT TEA

CAN STILL STAND ON HER HEAD. ANOTHER VIEW OF HITLER. (By CHARLES ESTCOURT.) XKW YoriK. Great houses, they say, make great stories, and here is Uncle Charlie tiptoeing into one of the town's great houses, just oIT Fifth Avenue, to listen to what the girls talk about when they get together over tea.

The girls arc Airs. Harrison Williams, whose third husband once admitted that he ran 2,072,000 dollars up to 080,000,000 dollars between 1012 and 11120, and Mrs. Ector Munn, who, as a daughter of the late Hodman Wanainakcr, owns a slice of one of the world's largest department stores. They talked about war and knitting and people they know; among them, the Duke of Windsor and his Duchess, and Adolf Hitler.

The house, where Mrs: Munn live?, is one of those million-dollar affairs, and lias a footman with silver buttons on his uniform to open the door. Uncle Charlie was invited, but he tipfocil in nevertheless, on the theory- that there must, have been some mistake. He doesn't remember how he got upstairs. The chances are he used someone else's feet. At the head of the stairs was Mrs. Munn, a pale, frail, rather bird-like woman with n ball of grey yarn in one hand and knitting needles and an unfinished sweater, lor a French soldier, in the other.

Behind Mrs. Munn was a statue of a hen, done in the modern manner, in black metal, looking cold and formidable. Uncle Charlie asked if she had it in the house to grow her own hard-boiled eggs. Mrs. Munn looked startled, but she led him fearlessly into the library.

After that the girls did the talking, sitting hunched eozily before a big log fire. Eventually the ten came—like an nnnv with banners. It marched up the wide, stonc-walled stairs on silver trays that were more than a yard long, and behind and under the ica, as a kind of convoy, were a plump little butler and two footmen. Best-dressed Beauty. Airs. Williams is one of the beauties of the earth. She was born Alona Stradcr in Louisville and her father managed a horse-breeding farm for Harry Schlcsinger, of the Milwaukee brewing familv. \She married her father's boss in 1 OlT,'divorced him in 1010, after they had had a son, and two years biter married .lames Irving Bush, a vicepresident of the Equitable Trust Company. That lasted three years and then again two years later .-he married Harrison Williams, an Elyria, Ohio bov who once played baseball barefoot for his grammar school team and then went into public utilities. He was well started on his first million before she was born.

she married Air. Williams she acquired the largest private yacht in the world (a ,'i,tloo,ooo-dollar item, 42U feet long) and commuted to shopping in town from a Glen Cove, L.T., mansion in a speedboat that averaged bettor than .10 miles an hour. Her shopping sprees earned her the title of ''best -dressed woman in America," a blue ribbon that costs 20,000 dollars a year to maintain. Her town house on Filth Avenue has HO room-, among them an all-white drawing room carpeted in white velvet. In it only while flowers arc permitted to bloom in white Chinese vases.

To-day. 13 years after her third marriage, she U -12, a tall, supple woman with a pink cameo face, made startling bv large blue eves shaped like grapes. Iter hair is grey and cut short. It. swoops and swirls upward so that she looks plumed. She moves cndlesslv about the world, and Xew York is only a junction for the ships and trains and 'planes that carry her from setting to setting. As settings she lias, in addition to her homes here, a white Spanish plaster house in Palm Beach with a turquoise-tiled pool, another house in Paris and a live-acre estate oil the Island of Capri. There arc two guest, houses on this estate, but only one guest suite in the main house. This is reserved for the exclusive use of her husband, so that he may come unannounced. The place was built originally as a fortress by the Roman Emperor Tiberius. Airs. Williams says she grows her own l'ortino wine there and her own peasants pre-s the grapes with their own feet. She drinks it herself and calls it very good. Wallis Windsor and Elsie Mcndl. The burning logs gave oIT soft, furry sound-. There was present in the room — in spirit at lca-t and in their own handwriting—two other of the Americanborn female wonders of the world. They signed themselves to a letter as Wallis Windsor and Elsie Alendl. The Duchess, of course, is the heroine of a fairy tale romance for which a king recently gave up the world's greatest throne. Lady Alendl, better known as Elsie De Wolfe, is 82 years old and is known for her great, parties and her ability to stand on her head. Elsa Afaxweil" (how that boy gets around!) told me that the war has ended the parlies, but Elsie can still stand on her head.

The four have banded together to form an organisation called ''Le.s Colis dc Versailles-Trianon"' and arc soliciting funds and articles to make up "surprise boxes" for French residents of the Alaginot Line this winter. As planned by the Duchess of Windsor, the box will include, various knitted articles, nntilicc powder, one pencil and anti-chilblain paste. Contributions gratcfullv received by Airs. Munn al KE, 90th Street.

Airs. Munn said she was going to trv lo turn all her friends toward knitting this year, and Airs. Williams said, "My slogan is. keep America neutral, but don't wish Hitler anv luck."

Mrs. Williams speaks without any trace of Louisville or Milwaukee in her accent, with tin "a" iu broad as a prairie. She said she had met Hitler once. "It was one of those "Hcrr 'Hitler, moot Mrs. Williams' things. He shook hands and hurried away as if he were afraid of women.'' She heard him speak. "The chief impression he made on me," she said, "was his amazing insignificance. There seemed to be absolutely nothing to him except the devotion of his followers. The delivery of his speech was distinguished by its monotony. He spoke like a drum. Beat, heat." beat! Hour after hour. It got into your ears and your brain kept shutting it out and shutting it out until finally the sound sank down through your ears into your heart. It was shuddcry to listen to him."

C'e&t La Guerre. Mrs. Munii spoke of Frenchwomen she knew. Some had husbands who had fought in the last war and were now lighting in this one. In one case a man ' who had fought in the last war now had his son with him somewhere on the Maginot Line. ''It doesn't sceni fair,'' she said, "to have to live all over again a horrible part of your life with which you had thought you were done." So that's the way the afternoon was. exciting and a littie sad. Your Uncle Charlie went up there in the subway. He came back in a Hoik Koycc behind a uniformed chauffeur. He had a onedollar cigar in his vest, a fur robe on his lap and Mrs. Williams alongside him. making memories. Woo, woo! C est la guerre.—(N.A.N.A.)