Smithtown Dish - Small Bites Of Foodie News 12/11/13

Smithtown Dish – small bites of foodie news

By Nancy Vallarella

Nancy Vallarella & Chef Tom ColicchioBing Food and Drink App – (application not appetizer) for Windows 8.1 is a free foodie tool. It features a hands free mode that allows users to navigate with the wave of a hand making surface tablets a better kitchen companion over the ipad.  Other features include: meal planner, shopping list, extensive wine guide, instructional videos and recipes from world renowned chefs such as Tom Colicchio – Top Chef lead judge, spokesperson for the Bing Food and Drink App and a recent acquaintance!  Tom’s favorite feature is the ingredient search. Type the ingredients you have on hand and the Bing Food and Drink App will list recipes that feature those ingredients.

Jamie Oliver’s 15 Minute Meals is a new cooking show airing locally on CBS, Saturdays at 10:30a.m. This is one of the best cooking shows I have viewed in the last 20 years.  Just by the title alone he has Rachael Ray beat by 15 minutes and his accent is hands down, a ton sexier.  Fresh ingredients inspire refreshingly new dishes and will make you think, more please!  Here is to hoping that the new year will bring more episodes or the ability to binge watch past episodes on a cold winter morning.

News of Long Ago - "Evelyn Nesbit Becomes Mrs. Harry K. Thaw, The Biggest Mistake Of Evelyn Nesbit's Life"

News of Long Ago by Bradley Harris, Smithtown Historian

(I have been writing about Evelyn Nesbit and her involvement  with Stanford White and Harry Thaw.  Last week’s article dealt with the “two worst mistakes” that Evelyn made in her life – the fateful decision Evelyn made in the spring of 1903 to travel to Europe with Harry Thaw, and her decision in the spring of 1904 to let Harry Thaw back into her life following his brutal assault and rape of her while on that trip to Europe.  Evelyn made a third mistake when she agreed to marry Harry Thaw.)  

“Evelyn Nesbit becomes Mrs. Harry K. Thaw, the biggest mistake of Evelyn Nesbit’s life….”

Once Evelyn Nesbit agreed to a reconciliation with Harry Thaw, her fate was sealed since Harry was determined to get Evelyn to be his wife, and Harry always seemed to get what he wanted.  But Harry had a number of obstacles to overcome before that happened.   He first had to convince Evelyn to be his wife, and more importantly, Harry had to gain his mother’s consent to make Evelyn his bride.  Harry’s mother presented the biggest problem.

Mother Thaw knew about Evelyn’s affair with Stanford White because Harry had written to his mother from Paris, the day after Evelyn had confessed all to Harry.  Harry had told his mom about “the ‘pathetic events of poor Evelyn’s life which had culminated in her cruel defilement by Stanford White.’”  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, Riverhead Books, New York, 2008, p. 240.)  So Mrs. Thaw was aware of Evelyn’s past and she “resisted Harry’s pleas to marry Evelyn.”  She felt that if Harry married Evelyn, “it would be the ruination of the family name.”  She absolutely refused to consider the marriage until Harry managed to wear down her resolve over the Thanksgiving holiday of 1904.  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., p. 241.) 

For that holiday, Harry travelled to the Thaw family mansion, Lyndhurst, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania .  Once there, Harry persistently and relentlessly badgered his mother about his desire to make Evelyn Nesbit his wife.  He sobbed in church, he withdrew into a depressed funk and threatened suicide, all the while sharing with his mom his efforts to get Evelyn to give up her life as a show girl to become his wife.  He eventually wore down his mother’s opposition and she “gave Harry her reluctant approval to pursue his fallen angel.”  But Mrs. Thaw made it abundantly clear that Evelyn would have to give up her life as a showgirl and would be expected to come live in the Thaw family home in Pittsburgh.  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., p. 242.)  With his mother’s blessing, Harry returned to New York to actively woo the woman he loved.

Harry began a “campaign of penitent courtship; he sent gifts and the contents of an entire florist’s shop with notes indicating that he had changed and that he still wanted to marry her.”  But Harry’s lawyers had advised him to stay away from Evelyn until her eighteenth birthday, and he did so, impatiently waiting for her birthday to arrive on December 24, 1904. “The overwrought Harry waited like an excitable child for Christmas Eve,” and on the morning of December 24^th, “Harry sent all sorts of gifts to Evelyn’s hotel,” including some miniature bonsai trees.  That evening, after Evelyn’s performance at the Madison Square Garden theatre was over, Harry and some friends called for her and took her to dinner at Rector’s to celebrate her 18^th birthday.  Apparently in doing so, Harry thwarted Stanford White’s plan to help Evelyn celebrate her birthday at a Christmas Eve party in his tower apartment at Madison Square Garden and this fact led to further antagonism between the two men.  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., p. 242-243.)

Throughout the winter and spring of 1905, Harry pursued Evelyn, avowing his love, swearing to her that he had become a changed man, and repeatedly assuring her that his “violent behavior had been the vile product of temporary insanity and would never, ever happen again.”  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., p. 238.)  “Weakened by Thaw’s relentless pursuit of her, compounded by the fact that her options were severely limited, that the theater world under” Stanford White’s patronage had lost its luster, “and that Harry … professed to be madly in love with her (and only her), even though he knew ‘the Horrible Truth,’ Evelyn finally relented” and agreed to marry Harry Thaw.  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., p. 254.)           

“On April 5, 1905, twenty-one year old Evelyn Nesbit married Harry K. Thaw in a private ceremony at the house of Reverend Dr. McEwan” in Pittsburgh.  “The only people in attendance were Mother Thaw; Josiah Copley Thaw, one of Harry’s brothers; and Frederick Perkins, the man who could claim to be perhaps Harry’s one and only genuine friend from the days of his youth.”  Evelyn “had asked that her mother be invited.  So, against Harry’s and his mother’s wishes, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Holman,” Evelyn’s mother and her new husband, attended the wedding.  “The young bride wore black (with touches of deep brown), the bridal outfit having been handpicked by Harry himself.”  Since Evelyn and Harry intended to leave immediately on their honeymoon, “it was more sensible for her to wear the travelling outfit,” but a black wedding dress turned out to be “an unhappy omen” for the young couple.  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., p. 254-255.)

Following their honeymoon, Evelyn and Harry returned to Pittsburgh to live in the Thaw family mansion of “Lyndhurst.”  In the mansion, which looked more like a “Teutonic fortress” than “an English manor house,” the newly-weds occupied an entire wing, “maintaining separate bedrooms as was the custom for married couples of the time.”   Living with the Thaw family, who were devout Presbyterians, was not easy.  “Evelyn’s daily routine was always the same.  Lunch and dinner with the family in the main dining room, often minus Harry, who was inexplicably absent for both meals with increasing frequency.”  It must have been terribly difficult for Evelyn to be seated at a table constantly surrounded by the Thaw family members who “looked down their pug noses” at the former chorus girl who was now a member of their immediate family.  Mother Thaw squashed any discussion of Evelyn’s former career on stage and “demanded that” her past “should be forgotten.”  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, p. 256-257.)

“When Harry was at home,” he was “extremely patient and tactful” in dealing with Evelyn and his own siblings “and whenever possible, he even shielded her from oblique attacks on her character from other family members.”  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit, p. 256-257.) But when he wasn’t there, Evelyn must have been vulnerable to their sniping and keenly felt that she had been locked away in an asylum.  Her social life with the Thaws involved attending “insipid and uninspired parties, receptions, and ‘at homes,’ which generally ended by seven, with only the crumbs of crustless tasteless deviled ham sandwiches as a memory.”  After a year of socializing with the Thaws and being sequestered in the Thaw family mansion, Evelyn was “beyond the edge of boredom toward the catatonic.  Evelyn was becoming convinced that marriage to Harry Thaw had been a mistake.  “As each dulling day crusted over, the younger Mrs. Thaw (or Mrs. Harry, as she was referred to when at home) began to harden into resentment at the moldy holier-than- thou types she was forced into contact with nearly every day.”  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., p. 260.) 

Harry too began to change and began to revert to behavior patterns he had exhibited before they were married.  He once again became fixated on Stanford White and “began an impressive campaign” to prove to all that Stanford White was “the blackest of sinners whose evil influence upon” young women “needed to be exposed.”  Harry became convinced that his efforts in this campaign led White to hire thugs who were out to “fix him.”  He began to carry “a revolver for his own protection.”  Harry’s family became aware of this when he spent one cloudless day “taking pot shot target practice” behind the “carriage house on the property.”  Harry was now an armed menace.   What made things worse for Evelyn was that “each night, he would come into her bed where he goaded and wheedled and bullied Evelyn into repeating the details of the day she first met White, of her modeling sessions, of her nakedness and horrible discovery that the Beast had violated her sanctity and girlhood.”  Harry “issued” an edict that Evelyn “could never speak White’s name again” and that she must refer to him as the Beast.  “Harry insisted that Evelyn dress in white, preferably in ermines or starched white shirtwaists  and skirts that made her look more like the innocent schoolgirl she had once been rather than a twenty-one- year-old despoiled former mistress turned repentant wife.”  And when Mother Thaw was not around “at breakfast, lunch or dinner,” Harry “interrogated Evelyn about her past.  He began waking her up in the middle of the night, sobbing himself into dry heaves and demanding from her details he thought he had forgotten, which she was ‘loath to give.’ The subject of Evelyn’s undoing was never ‘absent from his mind,’” and Evelyn began to fear for Harry’s sanity.  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., pp. 261-263.)

Then “in March of 1906, much to Evelyn’s delight, Harry announced that a trip to England was in the offing. “  Harry suggested that “he, Evelyn, and his mother sail together, and proceeded to make the preparations.”  A week later, Mother Thaw announced that “she would go ahead on a different ship” giving Harry and Evelyn some needed time to be together.   June 28^th “was finally set” as the “date of departure” for their voyage to England and the young couple was looking forward to their European holiday.  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., p. 266.) 

Evelyn and Harry decided to spend a few days in New York City before their departure.  “As they had numerous times before,” the Thaws decided “to go to dinner and a show” on the evening of June 25^th, an “unseasonably hot day” that was cooling down into “a sultry June evening.”  Harry had suggested that they eat at Sherry’s a block from their hotel, and when Evelyn met up with him there, they were joined by Truxton Beale, a journalist, whom Harry had befriended.  Since Beale was “’not dressed’,” the trio “decided to go to another less formal restaurant,” the Café Martin.  There they were “seated in the main dining room, where they were joined at around eight o’clock by Tommy McCaleb,” an old family friend.  The diners were working their way through their main courses when Evelyn suddenly caught sight of Stanford White who had come to the same restaurant with his “nineteen-year-old son, Larry, and a friend of Larry’s, Leroy King, both of whom were in town for a visit from Harvard.” Fortunately, Harry whose back was to the entrance did not see Stanford White and his sons enter the restaurant and they were seated out of his sight on the restaurant’s terrace.  Somehow the Thaws and their guests finished their meal and departed the restaurant without confronting Stanford White and his sons.  Evelyn Nesbit felt a huge sense of relief that this had not happened, but then she asked Harry where they were going.  “Harry said he had procured tickets for the opening night of a new musical, Mamzelle Champagne.  The color drained from Evelyn’s cheeks.  She knew that this particular show was opening at the rooftop theater of Madison Square Garden,” the building that Stanford White had designed, and “she knew that, until that night, Harry had petulantly and defiantly refused to set foot in any building connected with White.”  She knew that Stanford White would be in attendance at this show sitting at the table that was “reserved for the creator of the Garden.”  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op.cit., p. 276-277.)   

“The foursome strolled the single block to the Garden, and Evelyn felt light-headed from the combination of heat, wine, and general nerves.  As they took the elevator to the rooftop, Evelyn asked Harry if he wanted to check his overcoat.  He said no, and smiled in the same disconcerting way he had the day they first met.”  It seemed strange that Harry wanted to keep his overcoat on the hot sultry evening, and Evelyn should have known that he was wearing it to conceal the revolver he had shoved into his belt.  When the elevator reached the rooftop theater, “the party was shown to a table about three quarters of the way back from the stage.”  There the party settled in to watch the musical, Mazelle Champagne, play out on the stage before them.  Evelyn was relieved to discover that the table reserved for Stanford White was “empty” and Stanny was nowhere in sight.  The show turned out to be a spectacular bore and “some of the patrons” who were drinking champagne took to “booing and hooting.”  Harry and his companions ordered champagne as well.  Then suddenly, Harry “left the table and was instantly hidden from Evelyn’s line of sight by one of the large, leafy plants” that were spaced throughout the theater.  When Harry came back to the table a few minutes later, Evelyn discovered that he had just gone off to say hello to James Clinch Smith who just happened to be sitting by himself at a table at the back of the theater.   Harry took “a few sips from his glass of champagne, then left again and disappeared just as quickly as before into the crowd.”  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., p. 278-279.)  

Evelyn remained at the table listening to “McCaleb’s critique of the uninspiring performances and music,” and “she watched Harry fade into the glare of the stage lights” as he once again disappeared into the crowd.  “A little before eleven o’clock, with the show nearly over,” Stanford White  suddenly stepped out of the elevator and made his way to his reserved table where he “took his customary seat five rows from the stage” and “began to watch what was left of the performance.”  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., p. 279.)  At that point, “Harry abruptly reappeared at their table” and sat down.  He “began fidgeting in his chair.”  Suddenly he stood up and “perched over the table like a huge, distraught crow,” his attention seemingly riveted on the stage.  It was at that point that Evelyn “suggested in a somewhat faint and strained voice that they leave.”  As they all got up to go, Harry “helped Evelyn with her wrap” and “the four began walking toward the elevator.”  Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., p.280.)

“It wasn’t until” Evelyn “was nearly inside the elevator” that she realized that “Harry had once again vanished” and doubled back into the theater.  He had worked his way to “within a few feet of the unsuspecting architect.”  Evelyn was frantically looking for Harry, standing on her tiptoes trying to look over the crowd around her, scanning the audience.  “Seconds later, a startlingly loud gunshot pierced the torpid night air.  The musicians faltered.  Evelyn recoiled and stared stricken in the direction of the sound.”  She knew immediately what had happened.  “Two more shots followed in searing rapid succession” and “Evelyn looked up at McCaleb” who was by her side and cried out:  “He shot him!” (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., p. 281.)

Harry, standing over White’s body, “his own face deadly white, held the barrel of the gun over his head and let the unused shells fall with a brassy click to the floor” as he “shouted to terrified witnesses:  “I did it because he ruined my wife!  He had it coming to him.  He took advantage of the girl and then deserted her!” 

Op ED - D.A. Spota "A Frightening Trend Has Emerged..."

Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota:

As District Attorney, I have aggressively prosecuted drunk and drug impaired drivers who kill and seriously injure other drivers, cyclists and pedestrians on our roads.

While much of my success is due to   the difficult and painstaking work of police investigators, crime lab analysts and the prosecutors who handle these cases in court, significant changes in state law have given us the tools we need to charge, convict and send these dangerous offenders to prison.

Unfortunately in the past year a frightening trend has emerged that presents an equally serious threat to our County. Drivers are fleeing the scenes of crashes in alarming numbers leaving vulnerable cyclists and pedestrians alone to die without medical intervention or assistance. This past weekend one innocent pedestrian was killed and another seriously injured sustaining fractures and internal injuries, by drivers who fled the scene of each crash.

Sadly, today it actually benefits a driver who may be drunk or impaired by drugs to leave the scene.  Why? Because a drunk or drug impaired driver who kills someone may face up to 25 years in prison.  Fleeing allows a driver to either sober up before they are apprehended or to argue they consumed alcohol after a crash. Under current law any driver who flees where there is no proof of driving while intoxicated faces a maximum prison sentence of only seven years even when someone dies. 

This profound encouragement to flee the scene must be eliminated.

Preston Mimms, a driver with a long history of alcohol abuse and two prior felony convictions for Robbery struck and killed a young woman and left the scene. When he was arrested, long after the crash, there was no evidence that he was intoxicated.  He was charged with Leaving the Scene of an Accident with a fatality and faced a maximum punishment of seven years in prison. What’s more, the sentencing Judge could not enhance his sentence because of his prior robbery convictions. 

If Mimms had stolen a package of Twinkies after breaking into a 7-11 he would be facing a much longer prison sentence, perhaps even a life sentence.  There is something wrong with a criminal justice system that punishes a defendant more harshly for stealing a package of Twinkies than for stealing a life. This is unacceptable and the law needs to be changed.

Our friends, neighbors, co- workers and family members going about their daily routine have been killed and seriously injured by drivers who have no concern but to avoid criminal liability for drunk or drugged driving.

I call upon our state legislators to immediately act to protect their constituents. The incentive for fleeing the scene of a crash must be removed so that drivers face the same penalty they would if they stayed at the scene and were intoxicated or impaired by drugs. The law must also be changed to allow judges to enhance a defendant’s sentence for fleeing the scene of a crash when they have a prior felony record.

Members of the New York State Legislature, I implore you to change the law now.  The fix is simple. It may save a life.

News Of Long Ago - "Evelyn Nesbit Makes The Two Worst Mistakes Of Her Life..."

News of Long Ago by Bradley Harris, Smithtown Historian

(I have been writing about the story of the descendants of Judge J. Lawrence Smith and of the story of his daughter Bessie who married Stanford White.  Last week’s article was about the murder of Stanford White and the events that led up to that fateful night of June 25, 1906. This article tries to answer the question of why Harry Thaw murdered Stanford White in cold blood five years after White seduced Evelyn Nesbit in the fall of 1901.)

“Evelyn Nesbit makes the two worst mistakes of her life….”

One of the most bizarre events in the saga of Evelyn Nesbit’s life took place on April 5, 1905 when Evelyn married Harry Thaw, the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania millionaire whom she heartily disliked.  Evelyn had first met Harry Thaw while having tea at Reckler’s in January of 1902 when he attempted to impress Evelyn with his money and devotion by sending her flowers, notes, and cash. When she met him, Evelyn would later recall, “he appeared to be in his thirties” and “he was tall, with coarse black hair combed almost straight back, and he was clean shaven.  He had a short, wide nose, and Evelyn thought his eyes had a wild look – ‘he glared’ – she said.  There was something about him that was frightening.”  She didn’t want anything more to do with him, and yet three years later she became his wife.  (Michael Macdonald Mooney, Evelyn Nesbit and Stanford White , William Morrow and Company, Inc., New York, 1976, pp. 78-79.)   

Harry Thaw managed to weasel his way into Evelyn Nesbit’s life following the seven months she spent in seclusion at the “DeMille School” in Ramapo Hills, New Jersey.  Stanford White had arranged for Evelyn’s enrollment in the exclusive school for 15 girls in October of 1902 when he discovered that Evelyn might be pregnant.  She remained at the school – out of sight and out of mind – until she had an operation for appendicitis seven months later.  The doctors who attended her, at Stanford White’s request, all agreed that Evelyn experienced an attack of ‘acute appendicitis’ and none of them recalled the birth of a child. It took a long time for Evelyn to recover from the operation and Stanford White had Evelyn moved to a private sanatorium in New York City.  Throughout her ordeal, as she was recovering in the hospital and at the sanatorium, Harry Thaw who had won his way into Mrs. Nesbit’s good graces by insisting that he was “madly in love” with Evelyn, visited her faithfully.  He was always kind and solicitous, and saw to it that her every wish was granted.  When she was well enough to leave the sanatorium, Harry suggested that she take a trip to Paris to recuperate fully, and when she had regained her strength, he would take her on a grand tour of Europe.  Harry would pay for everything.  (Michael Macdonald Mooney, op. cit., pp. 93-94.)

Evelyn convinced her mother to accompany her on the trip and so in May of 1903 the two women sailed for London aboard the “S.S. New York.”  Harry followed on another liner but arrived in London in time to secure hotel accommodations.  After spending several weeks in London, Evelyn and Harry, with Mrs. Nesbit in tow, went on to Paris where Harry booked them into an apartment on the Avenue Matignon.   In Paris, Evelyn and her mother enjoyed touring and seeing the many attractions that Paris had to offer.  They went shopping in the finest stores in Paris, buying whatever they wanted and Harry picked up the bills.  They visited the Louvre, and took drives through the Bois de Boulogne, and ate at the best restaurants, eating the finest cuisine, and Harry paid the tab.  When they tired of Paris, they went back to London to enjoy the sights and attractions that London had to offer.  In London, Evelyn and her mother argued over continuing the trip with Harry and Mrs. Nesbit decided to stay in London.  Harry assured Mrs. Nesbit that when he and Evelyn got back to Paris, he would find a chaperone to accompany them on the rest of their trip.  Of course that never happened, and when Evelyn and Harry returned to Paris, Harry arranged for them to stay in adjoining suites at the Ritz Hotel.  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, Riverhead Books, New York, 2008, p. 207-211.)    

It was while they were staying in the Ritz that Evelyn “made the worst mistake of her life.”  Harry had been badgering Evelyn to marry him, and she had turned him down.  In Paris, away from “the unreasonable Mamma,” Harry pressed his suit.  One evening, Harry simply stated “I want you to marry me!”  And when Evelyn refused to answer him immediately, he insisted that he “must know the truth.”  To which Evelyn replied, “I cannot marry you.”  “Why not?”  Harry wanted to know.  “Do you not love me?” he asked.  “Evelyn hemmed and hawed and hemmed, then began slowly and deliberately, saying, ‘Because.’”  This of course sent Harry into orbit and he “ran his hands violently through his hair” and waited.  “After months and months of Harry’s hounding and challenging her to explain her stonewalling,” Evelyn gave in and she proceeded to tell Harry “everything” about Stanford White.  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., pp. 213-217.)

“Once she started, she found she could not stop: ‘I told him all that had happened since the very beginning.’“  And “the tale of her ruination” took her most of the night to tell since she told it “slowly and with great deliberation, unintentionally fanning Harry’s already smoldering torment.  It was a difficult story to tell, not only because she remained with White after his disgraceful seduction of her, but she feared what Harry’s reaction would be after she confirmed his worst fears.”  And Harry’s reaction proved to be truly meteoric.  He “sobbed hysterically,” he “began to paw at his cheeks,” he “walked up and down the room, gesticulating as he muttered,” he began “to wring his hands,” gnash his teeth, and pull his hair.  He berated “Evelyn’s mother of horrifying negligence and sinful abuse” and damned Stanford White for being a vicious sexual predator.  Throughout this tirade, Evelyn held he breath, “waiting instinctively for the sword of Damocles to come down on her pretty neck in retribution for her own shameful behavior in her affair with Stanny.”  But that retribution did not happen that night. (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., pp. 217-221.)

Mrs. Nesbit, “stranded” in London for “almost a week,” decided to take “matters into her own hands” and “she cabled Stanford White for money to come home.”  He wired her the funds to return to New York and “so Mama Nesbit left her teenage daughter” in Europe “in the hands of a man she knew could easily come unhinged and was prone to violence.”  Evelyn, now completely dependent upon Harry Thaw, “decided to make the best of the situation” and she continued on Harry’s frenetic and expensive tour of Europe.  They went to “the birthplace of Joan of Arc” at Domremy, France, then to Holland, “up the Rhine to Munich,” then on to Innsbruck, Austria, and then “to a bona fide castle in Tyrol.” (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., pp. 219-221.)  

“Wherever they travelled, Harry maintained separate rooms, in accordance with proper custom and a show of respectful decency.”  He did this until he rented a castle, the Schloss-Katzenstein, in the Tyrolean Alps for three weeks.   There they each had separate rooms in the huge Gothic castle of cold stones and dimly lit passageways.  They had been there several days, when after a day spent in strenuous sightseeing, they returned to the castle.  Harry dismissed the serving staff for the night and the young couple had the castle to themselves.  After eating a dinner that had been prepared for them, Evelyn said that she was retiring for the night and went off to the room that had been prepared for her.  Exhausted, she climbed into bed, tucked her head under her pillow, and fell asleep almost immediately. (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., p. 222.)  

Evelyn was awakened fifteen minutes later, when a  “bug-eyed, seething, and startlingly naked Harry,” exposed in the bluish white light cast into the room from her open door, came up to the bed, “threw the pillow and covers aside and woke Evelyn with an angry, slashing blow across her legs with a leather riding crop.  A startled Evelyn sprang up with a scream, whereupon Harry tore furiously at her nightgown.”  Then he ripped off her underclothes with one hand while he whipped her repeatedly with the riding crop. “Evelyn pleaded with Harry to stop, but the more she protested and tried to fend off his blows, the harder he came at her, railing about sinfulness and shameful indecency.”  He kept on attacking her until suddenly he stopped, perhaps to catch his breath.  Then he flipped Evelyn on her back, held her down with the riding whip across her shoulders and proceeded to rape her.  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., p. 223.)

The entire assault was over in the span of seven minutes, and after shouting incoherently at her for several more minutes, “Harry turned and left the room as suddenly as he had entered, without saying another word.”  He “locked the door behind him.”  This was the man who professed to be madly in love with Evelyn and wanted her to marry him.  He was mad alright. “The next day and for the next two weeks, Evelyn simply sat pale and still in her room, as if turned into a pillar of salt.” (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., p. 224-225.) 

“At the end of the third week, a desolate Evelyn was informed they were leaving the castle.”  Harry then loaded Evelyn and her luggage into a car and they continued on his planned European tour.  “Harry took her to Zurich, where she immediately asked to see a doctor.”  Harry obliged and took her to see a doctor he obviously used in the past, and the doctor found that she was recovering satisfactorily from her appendicitis operation.  He said nothing about the ugly bruises, cuts and welts that covered her legs and back.  The tour went with stops in Zurich, Bern, Lucerne, and finally back to Paris.  “A solemn and at times virtually catatonic Evelyn spoke very little” during the trip.  “She was only half-aware of the magnificent scenery that passed before her eyes from a string of carriages, railroad cars, and rented autos.”  She spent much of the time crying.  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., p. 226.)

When Harry and Evelyn returned to Paris, they paid a call upon Elizabeth Marbury who had an estate in Versailles.  By an incredible stroke of luck, Evelyn encountered several people she had met back in New York.  When Evelyn “broke down and told them her mortifying story of Harry’s sadism,” they came to her rescue and took her with them on the ocean liner back to New York.  Harry provided money for her ticket and accommodations.  She had, at long last, escaped his clutches. (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., p. 227.)

When Evelyn arrived back in New York on October 24, 1903, there was no one there to greet her and she disembarked and found a room at the Savoy which she paid for using money that Harry Thaw had given her.  Evelyn didn’t know what to do and she realized that she needed to go back to work.  “Within a week of her return, while riding down Fifth Avenue in a hansom cab,” Stanford White passed Evelyn.”  Shortly after that “chance passing,” White called her and Evelyn “agreed to meet him at her hotel.”  As soon as he entered her room, “Stanny grabbed her face and tried to kiss her.”  Evelyn “rebuffed him.”  Making him sit down, Evelyn asked him about her mother and whether she was ill since White had told her that he needed to talk to her about “a life and death situation.”  It turned out that the situation he was concerned about was Harry Thaw.  “‘Don’t you know he takes morphine?’ White asked her.  ‘Why would you go around with a man who is not even a gentleman?  You must have nothing more to do with him.’”  Evelyn certainly didn’t need to be told that.  Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., p. 231.) 

“White told her in no uncertain terms that she needed to hide from Thaw and cut all ties” and she did that finding ways to elude Thaw and his hired detectives.  White helped Evelyn find a way to return to the stage and set her up for auditions in “a new Shubert production, “The Girl from Dixie,” and “she was offered a minor but featured part” in the show.  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., p. 231.)       

“Little by little, Evelyn began to learn disturbing things about Harry that she had not known before” her experience with Harry had given her intimate knowledge of “his perverted propensities.”  To protect her from further harassment by Thaw, Stanford White arranged for Evelyn “to swear to Thaw’s cruelty in an affidavit” that she made in the offices of a lawyer named Abe Hummel.  Hummel also gathered up some of Harry’s love letters that he had written to Evelyn and these documents gave Stanford White all he needed to keep Harry Thaw away from Evelyn, and all he needed to keep Harry from revealing all that Evelyn had told him about White’s own rape of Evelyn.  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., pp. 232-233.)    

Harry Thaw continued to pursue Evelyn months after he returned from Europe.  She managed to hide from him for a while, “but inevitably, with the help of his ubiquitous private detectives, Harry was able to discover her whereabouts and he asked over the phone to meet with her.”  Incredibly she agreed to meet with him in her hotel room, but she refused to meet with him alone.  When she met with him, Harry brought along a lawyer named Thorton Warren, who simply vouched for everything Harry said.  Evelyn was understandably cool to Harry and wouldn’t let him touch her.  She looked up at him. “’I don’t know what to say to you,’ she said, her voice breaking with distress.  ‘I have heard such dreadful, dreadful things about you that I feel I can never speak to you again.’”  She then proceeded to tell Harry “about going to Hummel’s office” and “the statements she had made about their time in Europe.”  She went on to tell him the dreadful things she had heard about him “beating young girls, scalding them in tubs, and taking cocaine and morphine.”  Harry listened attentively.  Then he stood up “shaking his head” and said to her: “Poor little Evelyn.”  He went on to say “that everything she heard was a lie.”  Harry went on to question Hummel’s motives in getting Evelyn to make an affidavit and noted that “it was well known that any woman who wanted to initiate “’a blackmailing suit against some rich man always went to Hummel.’”  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op.cit., p. 236-237.)  

By the time Harry left, Evelyn was totally confused and she began to question everything she had been told about Harry.   In the weeks that followed his visit, Harry “used ‘every subterfuge’ to get back into Evelyn’s good graces.”  He called to “check on her health,” he suggested she give up her acting career, and he agreed to pay any salary she was receiving if she did so.  He was “so solicitous of her welfare” that it led “’seventeen-and-three-quarters-year-old’ Evelyn” to make “the second biggest mistake of her life.  She began a tentative process of reconciliation with Harry, in spite of his atrocious sexual assault of her, his bouts of uncontrollable wrath, his awful battery, and all the reports she had heard about his most vicious proclivities.”  (Paula Uruburu, American Eve, op. cit., pp. 238-239.)      

Evelyn’s reconciliation with Harry led inevitably to her marriage to the playboy millionaire of the Pittsburgh Thaws, but that is more of the story that will have to wait until next week….

Smithtown Dish - Small Bites Of Foodie News

Smithtown Dish – small bites of foodie news

By Nancy Vallarella

Stop in at Great Hollow Middle School, 150 Southern Blvd., Nesconset this Saturday for the 6^th Annual Holiday Breakfast & Boutique sponsored by Maureen’s Kitchen. Visit with Santa, have breakfast and get some holiday shopping accomplished. Holiday multitasking at its finest! Hosted by The Smithtown Children’s Foundation the event will run from 9am - 1pm.

On Sunday, buffet style brunch is available at The Garden Grill in Smithtown; free gift and picture with Santa.  Adults are $26 which includes unlimited mimosas.

December 15 – February 23 the Winter Farmer’s Market goes indoors at the Suffolk YJCC in Commack. It will be open on Sundays from 9am to 1pm.  If you have a local product you would like to sell at the market contact Bernadette Martin @ligreenmarket.com.