“CODS OF ILL WILL”

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 11833, 14 January 1933, Page 9

“CODS OF ILL WILL”

OR-ASHE'D INTO SOCIETY DEATII OF TITANIC. HEROINE. Airs Alargnrot Tobin Brown—‘‘Tim Unsinkaldo Mrs Brown”—a. lmroi.no of tho Titanic disaster. wlio lias just ■died in Now York, was for more than ,-jO years oik* of the most spectacular and turbulent- figures in international society.

With a fori line ol C 7,0110,000, which her husband, ‘Leadville Johnny” Brown, wrested from the gold mines, of Colorado, she blazed acourse through the capitals of .Europe, spending lavishly arid iantasLically wherever she went. She met her hsbaml, a miner, at the bottom of a. shaft, and married him ill three weeks. Although she bad started life as a waitress in her litther,’s boardingho.se, she foughj. in l way to the top of Continental society. while, mailing a, resounding name by . her prodigal philanthropy and her bizarre clothes and unconventional file.

In the Titanic disaster, where site lost her jewels, she was lowered into a boat with 18 other women and mto man, and took her turn at the oars for seven hours. Her courage kept the other women calm, and gained her the name of “The Unsinkable.” In 1927 Airs Brown attended a freak religions service in Denver, where she made a sacrifice to the

“gods of ill will." She displayed her amazing wardrobe on. an altar, declaring .she had incurred ‘‘tlio. wrath of llif' gods.” “Bishop” Frank Rice preached on a text from Carlyle's “Sartor Resiirtus,” while the congregation were permitted to examine her rare laces, silk frocks, sables, jewellery and other finery. A squad of detectives kept watch over the property. She had lived in quiet seclusion in recent years, indulging in litigation which established her claim >m her husband's estate. from which siie ]iad been cut off in his will, ft came to light in the course of one of her actions that Airs Brown had been estranged from her husband for some years before his death, and had entered- into a separation agreement renouncing any claim on his estate. Mr Brown bequeathed the remnant of his great fortune to :«o Cmighters ami a son by his first marriage, and ALs Brown brought an abortive suit against Iter son-in-law charging him with taking advantage of the mining king's enfeebled state of health and with “playing the stock market’’ with funds belonging to the osin te.