MILLIONAIRESS NOW

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 4 February 1930, Page 9

MILLIONAIRESS NOW

IMMIGRANT SERVANT

FRANK SAVIN'S FOURTH WIFE

EXTRAORDINARY MARITAL OARJBER

SAN FRANCISCO, Gili January. A fui'iner Czocho-Slovakiun immigrant cliambermaid, who was making bods and sweeping floors in the six million dollar mansion of Frank \V. Ravin, retired broker, at Portchester, New York State, three years ago, is now mistress ol his 20,000,000 dollar fortune as a result of his death from an appendicitis operation at the end of the year. > Mrs Savin, who left the servants quarters on Bth January, 1927, to become her employer's fourth wife, has at her command eight Rolls-Royces and two other expensive limousines, valued at 150,000 dollars; a stall' Of twenty servants, her former associates, with a monthly payroll of 3500 dollars, iffcd the right to call the palatial home her own. Hut. how long she will remain at case in this queenly stale is problematical, for the legal pot has started to boil with the claims of the numerous former wives, cast-off children, and others whom the old broker left in the wake of his kaleidoscopic 79 years of life.

COMPLEX TASK FOR COURT

The present Mrs Savin, formerly Anna Mary Scheis, 47. who became a domestic in the gable-towered mansion on Long Island Sound 17 years ago, and remained to become the bride of her "boss," has first claim to this vast estate. But before her proper heritage can be determined, the Courts probably will have to go back through the entire stormy history of .Savin and weigh also the claims of two disinherited natural children, two fosterchildren and the near kin of three former wives. Also a herculean task is believed to confront appraisers in determining the extent of the great fortune he left. Until a year ago last autumn Savin was the head of the brokerage company of Savin and Company, in New York City. More than thirty years ago he bought his seat on the New York Stock Exchange for 5000 dollars, and when ho retired he sold it for near top price of 475,000 dollars.

STARTED FROM SCRATCH

In addition to the millions he piled up during the palmy days of the stock market, Mr Savin held extensive tracts of Long Island real estate property, which doubled and doubled in value from the original price he paid for it. He started from scratcij, having been cut off with but one dollar by his father, a wealthy sea captain. But he quicldy built this up from real estate and stock investments, and when he married the beautiful Arriba Wheat, of New Haven, in 1871, Savin was reputed to be on the highway to wealth. His first wife obtained a legal separation in 1898, charging him with being "coarse, tyrannical, brutal and inhuman" after he had thrown out and disinherited their two children, Frank W. Junior and Joseph. It now transpires that Savin continued them on an allowance, and this fact may crop up as a basis for their claim on his estate, if they still survive.

VIOLENT QUARRELS

Savin next married Mrs Sarah Hamilton West. She died in 1911, he buried her in an unmarked grave beneath the tennis court on his estate, but his third wife compelled him to exhume the body and bury it elsewhere. The third Mrs Savin was, like the fourth, a servant in his house. She was Mrs Sarah M. Treadwell, the housekeeper, and died in 1925. During this union the broker adopted Muriel Elizabeth Whitnall, 4, an orphan, whom ho saw one day in an institute and took a fancy to. And he also adopted Clares Ely Monroe, the former Mrs TreadwelFs brother-in-law, who was 45 at the time.

Monroe, to whom Savin gave his own name and referred to as "my only son," and Muriel, who also took Savin's name, fived at Potchester throughout his fourth marriage until last autumn. Then the foster son is reported to have quarrelled violently with the successor to his sister-in-law as well as with his foster sister, and both left.