Marion Graves Anthon Fish (nickname, "Mamie"; June 8, 1853 – May 25, 1915), often referred to by contemporaries as Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish,[1] was an American socialite and self-styled "fun-maker" of the Gilded Age. She and her husband, Stuyvesant Fish, maintained stately homes in New York City and Newport, Rhode Island.[2]
Early life
Marion ("Mamie") Graves Anthon, as she was called, was born in the vicinity of Grimes Hill, New York, which at the time may have been known as Castleton Heights, in Castleton, New York. At the time this was a town in Richmond County, New York, the area along with the rest of Richmond County of Staten Island later became part of New York City. She was the daughter of Sarah Attwood Meert and the General William Henry Anthon (1827–1875),[3] a successful lawyer and Staten Island assemblyman.[4][5] Her paternal grandfather was the jurist John Anthon (1784–1863).[4] Mamie was of Dutch, English, French and German ancestry.[6] She grew up on Irving Place in Manhattan and received only a rudimentary education and, by her own admission, could barely read and write.[7]
Fish ruled as one of the so-called Triumvirate of American Gilded Age society, known as the "Four Hundred", along with Alva Vanderbilt Belmont and Tessie Oelrichs.[8] She became a notable leader of high society (in New York City at her townhouse at 25 East 78th Street, at her stately home Glenclyffe in Philipstown, New York, and at her mansion Crossways in Newport, RI) by virtue of her quick wit and sharp tongue. Grandees attending her dinner parties would be greeted with the occasional insult, "Make yourself perfectly at home, and believe me, there is no one who wishes you there more heartily than I do." One man was greeted with "Oh, how do you do! I had quite forgotten I asked you!"[9]
In collusion with her antics, Harry Lehr often served as a co-planner of outrageous parties. A widely repeated story says that one was given in honor of "Prince Del Drago of Corsica", who turned out to be a well-dressed monkey introduced by Joseph Leiter. Given too much champagne, the monkey proceeded to climb the chandelier and throw light bulbs at the guests.[10] But Lehr "denied that he had ever given such a dinner",[11] although in 1905, it was said to have taken place the year before.[12] At another of her parties, dancers holding peanuts would feed an elephant she rented as they danced by it.[13]
Fish's cattiness respected no rank, for when Theodore Roosevelt's wife Edith sought to keep a frugal household, Fish was quoted as condescendingly saying of Mrs. Roosevelt "It is said [she] dresses on three hundred dollars a year, and she looks it."[14]
Personal life
On June 1, 1876, Mamie married Stuyvesant Fish (1851–1923), the director of the National Park Bank of New York City and president of the Illinois Central Railroad. He was the son of Hamilton Fish (1808–1893).[15] Together, they had four children, three of whom lived to adulthood:[16]
Livingston Fish (1879–1880), who died at six months[3]
Marian Anthon Fish (1880–1944),[17][18] who married Albert Zabriskie Gray (1881–1964), the son of the Judge John Clinton Gray,[19] on June 12, 1907.[20] They divorced on December 5, 1934.[21]
Stuyvesant Fish Jr. (1883–1952),[22] who married Isabelle Mildred Dick (1884–1972), daughter of Evans Rogers Dick, in 1910[23]
Sidney Webster Fish (1885–1950),[24] who married Olga Martha Wiborg (1890–1937), daughter of Frank Bestow Wiborg, in 1915.[25] In 1939, he married Esther Foss, the daughter of Gov. Eugene Noble Foss. She had previously been married to George Gordon Moore, a polo player whom she divorced in 1933, and Aiden Roark, another polo player whom she married in 1934 and divorced in 1937.[26][27][28]
^"Wife Divorces Aidan Roark". The New York Times. December 23, 1937. Retrieved 2011-04-07. Mrs. Esther F. Roark, formerly of Boston and Pebble Beach, Calif., won a divorce today from Aidan Roark, film executive and polo star. She testified that he was rude and brusque.
