Monday, Dec. 29, 1924
Born. To Jackie Coogan, famed cinemischief, a baby brother, Robert Anthony Coogan (eight pounds); in Hollywood.
Engaged. Rupert Hughes, 52, novelist, cinema director, to Elizabeth Patterson Dial, cinema actress; in Los Angeles. His first wife, Adelaide Mould Hughes, last year committed suicide at Haiphong, Indo-China.
Engaged. Miss Emmeline M. Grace, daughter of Eugene G. Grace of Bethlehem, Pa., President of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, to Captain Sir Michael William Selby Bruce, late of the Royal Artillery, who traces his descent direct to Robert Bruce, erst King of Scotland.
Engaged. Vance C. McCormick, onetime chairman of the Democratic National Committee, to Mrs. Gertrude Olmsted. widow of Representative Marlin E. Olmsted of Pennsylvania.
Married. Ruth Chatterton, 28, famed actress, to Ralph Forbes, 24, Britisher now playing as her leading man in The Magnolia Lady.
Married. Miss Eleanor Sears, daughter of the late Commodore James H. Sears, U. S. N., to Baron Francesco Barracco; in Rome. She is not to be confused with Miss Eleanora Sears, famed Boston sportswoman, national women's doubles tennis champion in 1915-16-17, national mixed doubles champion in 1916.
Married. Miss Abigail Victoria Harding, sister of the late U. S. President, to Ralph T. Lewis, real estate operator; in Marion, Ohio.
Married. John Drinkwater, famed British poet-playwright, to Miss Daisy Kennedy, violinist; in London. Mr. Drinkwater was divorced by his first wife on statutory grounds (TIME, Jan. 28).
Separated. Lieut. Osborne C. Wood, son of Major General Leonard Wood, from Katherine Thompson Wood. He is in Paris, she at her father's home in Greenville, Del. Said she: "We are separated and have been for several months. I shall start suit for a divorce." He recently achieved the attention of the U. S. press with stock operations by which he was reputed to have made $2,000,000.
Divorced. Barney (Bema Eli) Oldfield, onetime racing-car driver, by Mrs. Rebecca Oldfield; in Los Angeles. Charges of desertion and infidelity were uncontested.
Retired. Sir Bertram Fox Hayes, 60, famed White Star Steamship captain. In Sussex, England, he will live ashore with his two sisters, write his memoirs. For 43 years he has commanded great ships. In the Boer War, on his ship, the old Britannic, he carried 37,000 men to Africa. As skipper of the Olympic, converted into a transport during the World War, he carried 30,000 troops and "never lost a soldier." He sank one submarine by gunfire, another by ramming its stern, for which exploits he was knighted. A famed Indian chief who crossed with him on the Olympic made him a chief also, conferred on him the title of Tah-nya-di-yes--"the man who crosses great waters."
Died. Julius Kahn, 63, Congressman from California; in San Francisco, of cerebral hemorrhage.
Died. Sir George William Buchanan, 70, onetime British Ambassador to Petrograd (1910-18) and Rome (1919-21); in London. Holder of many diplomatic posts, recipient of many orders, Sir George was the author of a translation of Goethe's Faust and, last year, of a book of memoirs.
Died. James E. Campbell, 81, one-time Governor of Ohio; in Columbus, of heart disease. He got his first education in a log-cabin schoolhouse, served in the Civil War on the Mississippi gunboats Naida and Elk. He was elected Governor over Joseph Benson Foraker in 1889, causing a nation-wide sensation; was defeated for reelection at the end of his term by William McKinley who had just been dropped from the House of Representatives by a Democratic gerrymander*. As leader of the Ohio delegation to the Democratic Convention in 1920, he is credited with having secured the presidential nomination for James M. Cox.
Died. Alvin Sherman Wheaton, 85, "one of the three surviving men who witnessed the assassination of Abraham Lincoln"; in North Cohocton, N. Y. The two witnesses who still survive are Hickson W. Field, and W. J. Ferguson, both of Manhattan.
*Gerrymander (after Elbridge Gerry, one-time Governor of Massachusetts, and salamander) is an arbitrary redivision of a state into voting districts, so as to break up the voting strength of the opposition party. Sometimes, in their zeal for suppressing the oppo- sition, the politicians in power are obliged to allot the districts weird shapes; a district in Massachusetts divided under Gerry's regime was said to have had the shape of a salamander.