Autobiography of Mrs. Louise Carnegie
Autobiography of Mrs. Louise Carnegie
ANDREW CARNEGIE
By
BURTON J. HENDRICK
and
DANIEL HENDERSON
HASTINGS HOUSE
Publishers New York 22
COPYRIGHT, 1950, BY HASTINGS HOUSE, PUBUSHERS, INC.
436493
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CONTENTS
Page
FOREWORD ix
I. A CHILD OF OLD CHELSEA I
3· A TROUBLED CoURTSHIP 47
4· CRISIS 71
5· WEDDING TRIP ABROAD: BONCHURCH AND KILGRASTON 85
7· MOTHERHOOD 135
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ILLUSTRATIONS
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This story of Louise Whitfield Carnegie and the times in
which she lived began in her sitting room at No.2 East Ninety.
first Street, New York, on a sunny winter morning in 1943.
Mother was kept from her usual busy morning routine by a
slight cold, but was well on the way to recovery. Sitting before
the fire dressed in her lavender wool frock, she was happily
crocheting a blanket for her newest great-grandchild. "I am hav·
ing a holiday this morning," she said.
In this mood she enjoyed talking about her early days as a
girl in New York and, when it was suggested, readily agreed that
these recollections should be jotted down. "Tales of a Grand-
mother," she laughingly called them. Several pleasant mornings
were spent in this way. Then her cold disappeared and she was
again in the full swing of her active life.
Her own reminiscences were never resumed. But so many
diaries and letters were found among her papers that the advice
of Burton J. Hendrick, who knew her well and had written the
biography of her husband, Andrew Carnegie, was sought. Im-
pressed with Mrs. Carnegie's individuality and many-sidedness,
and with her background on two related continents, he was
zx
FOREWORD
glad to continue her life story. He was in mid-passage with the
work when his death occurred in March, 1949.
He spared himself in no way in the preparation of this story
of my mother, and I am grateful to him for his patient research
and for the skill he dedicated to writing these informal memoirs.
Not long before he died he told me that when the book was
finished it would be like parting with an old friend.
Fortunately there was available to carryon the biography-
with the same understanding spirit-Daniel Henderson, well
known for his work as a poet, and for informal biographies of
persons who in their times had made some impress on life. As
long-time Secretary of the Authors Club of New York, Mr.
Henderson knew Mr. Hendrick; they had much in common,
including a deep interest in the Carnegie family.
In taking up the work, Mr. Henderson was especially guided
by a remark made by a woman friend about my mother after
her marriage:
" ... To be the wife of a man who is not only rich in this
world's goods, but whom God endowed with a powerful brain,
a restless and untiring energy, and a sympathetic heart-why,
that is a sphere of life wherein most would fail." His search led
him to agree with Mr. Hendrick's conclusion, that Louise
Whitfield Carnegie did not fail; simply, graciously, high-
mindedly-her work controlled by fine executive ability-she
succeeded.
It is an intimate story you will read in the following pages,
because any true picture of my mother, Louise Whitfield Car-
negie, must show her as the center of her family. In both the
land of her birth and during her summers in Scotland she was
the true homemaker, and her human relationships-whether as
x
FOREWORD
daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, or friend-came first
with her always.
The book has been written for her grandchildren and great-
grandchildren, for her large circle of friends and, of course, for
any reader wishing to know what it meant to be the wife of
Andrew Carnegie. She shared to the utmost his ideals and pur-
poses, yet lived a life of individuality and independence, and
never ceased to make their home a place of warmth and kind-
ness where spiritual rather than material values were put first.
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Louise Whitfield Carnegie was born three days after James
Buchanan became President of the United States; her life from
March 7,1857, to June 24,1946, covered a span of almost ninety
years. It was a time of progressive movements and expanding
horizons, and in her quiet, womanly way she had a part in
them.
She saw the beginning and the triumph of the crusade to
give women the vote and grant them freedom to engage in
almost every class of endeavor.
Her growing interest in world affairs coincided with advance
in travel and communications. Concerned with human welfare
and international relations, as her life drew to a close she
pated with joy the meeting of the fifty nations at San Francisco
to form the charter for the United Nations Conference. This
convention and its prospects seemed to her to seal the ideal of
her husband for a harmonious union of all nations.
But now for the child that was mother to the woman:
It seems fitting that Louise Whitfield, one of whose
nant traits was a love of children, should have been born in
New York City's Chelsea, within a few hundred feet of the
spot where Clement Moore wrote his merry little poem:
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring-not even a mouse; ...
1
LOUISE WHITFIELD CARNEGIE
On Christmas Day, 1822, seeking to amuse his children and
put them in good spirits for the festival. Clement Clarke
Moore exercised his gift for light verse by scribbling the
universal classic of American childhood. A Visit from St.
Nicholas is more than a jingle; before its appearance, St. NichQ..
las had been a rather stodgy figure, who made his methodical
rounds with about as much imagination as a postman deliver-
ing mail; the lively laughing Santa Claus, whirling through
the air in a reindeer sleigh, entering the house via the chimney,
and stuffing the children's stockings with gifts, is the achieve-
ment of Clement Moore.
Significantly, among the treasures the child piously pre-
served is a copy of this poem, gaily illustrated in color, inscribed
on the flyleaf to "Louise Whitfield, teacher's reward." She was
then seven years old and the book was perhaps the first of that
long list of school prizes she was to obtain. She loved the little
poem and knew it by heart.
The Clement Moore house was located about where the
present Twenty-third Street meets Ninth Avenue. The Whit-
field dwelling was on Twenty-second Street, just east of Ninth
Avenue.
Louise Whitfield, the child, was growing into an attractive,
intelligent little girl with nut-brown hair and large blue, ani-
mated eyes. She gave promise of the distinctive features of ma-
turity-the long oval face, the determined mouth, the firmly
prominent chin. There is a striking resemblance, indeed, between
the childhood photograph and those taken many years after-
ward; the little girl of eight displays the same dignity and un-
ruffled poise that characterized the woman.
In this early time, she was quiet, almost demure, a little in-
2
A CHILD OF OLD CHELSEA
dined to keep herself apart, but she had her lively moments,
and found a zestful delight in children's games-a heritage from
youth that would long afterward send her into Schwarz's to
buy games for her daughter and later for her grandchildren.
Naturally, there was behind this happy child a pleasant home
and a fond mother and father. She was the daughter of John
William Whitfield, a progressive wholesale merchant, and
Fannie Davis Whitfield.
No family fitted better into the American
lation of Chelsea than Mr. Whitfield. His stock was thoroughly
"American" in the Colonial and Revolutionary sense of the
word. Making no pretence to exalted social status, still less to
wealth, it had those solid virtues of industry, public spirit, and
reverent living which laid the foundations of the nation. Louise
Whitfield, though she lived extensively on two continents, min-
gled on intimate terms with the great men and women in both,
and learned to love Scotland as her second home, was never at
base anything but an American; in fact, her fundamental alb
giance was even more restricted, for her first love was bestowed
on New York.
Her progenitors on her father's side were born on Manhattan
Island. Her mother, a native of Bridgeport, Connecticut, came
from a long line of New England ancestry; all of them had
played their part in Manhattan's development.
The birthplace of her paternal grandfather, George Buck-
master Whitfield, was on Cherry Street, close to the East River
-the same Cherry Street on which was George Washington's
Presidential "mansion" when New York was the Federal capi-
tal. Her Thomas Whitfield, is the first of the
American line of whom there is authentic knowledge. He was
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LOUISE WHITFIELD CARNEGIE
born in England, emigrated to America, and settled in New
York before the Revolution.
Thomas Whitfield, in the family record, figures as a "loyal-
ist," and, as such, found it comfortable to spend the period
of hostilities in Nova Scotia. When the war ended, Thomas
returned to New York and, a well-esteemed citizen, resumed
his prosperous career of shipbuilder.
Another branch of the American Whitfields, the celebrated
Henry, was in r639 one of the six founders of Guilford, Con-
necticut. The stone house which this evangelical pioneer built
is still standing, one of the three or so oldest'in the United
States; it is today preserved as a museum by the State of Con-
necticut.
The family did not lack Revolutionary antecedents, and
antecedents that admitted them to the order of the Cincinnati.
There was a generous French strain in Mrs. Carnegie, of which
she was extremely proud. It was a double strain, running back
to the Huguenot settlers of New Rochelle in the seventeenth
century and to that body of Frenchmen who came over in
r776 to fight side by side with the American patriots. From
both these ancestors the descent is direct. There is no more
authentic Huguenot name than that of Guion. The first of this
name in the family tree was Angelique, who was baptized in
the Episcopal Church in New Rochelle March 3r, r755.
This lady's son, John Stevens, born in New Rochelle-r783
-married Catherine Pariset, the daughter of a follower of
Lafayette. It was, indeed, at the invitation of Lafayette that
the girl's father, Nicholas Pariset, crossed the sea and joined
the American Army. He became a general, taking part in the
Maryland and Virginia campaigns; then he fell in love with
4
A CHILD OF OLD CHELSEA
the daughter of an American purchased a
plantation at the head of Elk River, Maryland, and reared a
family of four girls. One of these, Catherine, married the
going John Stevens, and her daughter, in turn, Elizabeth Guion
Stevens, married Louise Whitfield's grandfather, George
master Whitfield. Here was plenty of ancestry, French, martial,
adventurous, to add a touch of fire to the more stolid English
stock.
Around the corner from the Whitfield home was Chelsea
Square, the great block set aside for the Seminary. Its gray,