MARCH 13, 2020 PART 2 OLGA DREXEL DAHLGREN AND HER FAMILY

 ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL
100 YEARS LATER
by Doug Capra © 2020

Part 2: Olga Drexel Dahlgren and her Family
March 13, 2020

INTRODUCTION

This journey into Olga Drexel Dahlgren and her family has several purposes. There is a connection between Olga and Rockwell Kent that involves his second wife, Frances, and perhaps even his first wife, Kathleen. I will cover this in the last entry of this series. On our way there, I want to introduce the family as portrayed by press coverage. To a significant extent, this will be a skewed perspective, as is all media coverage. I don’t have access to letters and diaries that would certainly present a more nuanced narrative. The Drexels, the Dahlgrens, and the Drexel-Dahlgrens represent a prominent, visible, wealthy, Roman Catholic family – a combination of old and new wealth – that emerged after the American Civil War during what has been called the Gilded Age. The Drexel-Dahlgren children reached maturity during a period of rapid and radical social change – especially for women. As I discussed in the previous entry about the Bachelor Girls, the new woman of the late 19^th and early 20^th century wanted more freedom – and the wealthy young had more opportunity to challenge the status quo. Two of Olga’s sisters show this rebellion, and Olga herself strikes out on her own as well. Having said all that – the main reason I’m pursuing this story is because it fascinates me personally. I hope you, too, find it interesting.

Sister Maria Lucia

 and

 "Katherine the Madcap" Harum-Scarum Auto Speeder

According to the most accurate sources I can find, Olga Drexel Dahlgren was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on February 19, 1898. Her father was Eric Dahlgren, the son of Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren who had made a fortune by patenting the Dahlgren gun used during the Civil War. Her mother was Lucy Drexel Dahlgren whose father, Joseph Drexel of Philadelphia, headed the firm Drexel, Morgan & Company. Through her mother’s side of the family, Olga traced her ancestry directly to Col. Thomas Willett residing in 1650’s New Amsterdam (New York) which entitled her to membership in the National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York. (Special thanks to that organization for sending me a copy of Olga’s application which traces her ancestry back to Col. Thomas Willett.)

One of the first references I find to Olga with is in the Aug. 2, 1905 New York Tribune. Olga is seven years old. She is in Lenox, Massachusetts with her sisters Lucy, Madeline, Katherine and Ulrica assisting in a fair to raise money for the NY Tribune Fresh Air Fund – a charity created to give poor city children a two-week vacation in the country with volunteer families. I mention this because Rockwell’s first wife, Kathleen, was from the Berkshires, and he spent time there off and on. Kathleen was a talented musician, and it’s within the realm of possibility that they have known the musically inclined Drexel-Dalghren family. The next significant reference I find is in 1912 when Olga is fourteen years old. Her mother sues her farther for divorce, and the newspapers cover the case extensively. The event represents the kind of scandal the press loves to cover, especially when it involves a wealthy, society family. The fact that the Drexel-Dahlgrens were Roman Catholic most likely also played a role in media interest. A public divorce within a prominent Catholic family would be big news in 1912, especially since Lucy and Eric’s marriage ceremony in 1890 was officiated by Archbishop Augustine Corrigan who served New York from 1885-1902. Add to this that the proceedings lasted a year, ending in an especially dramatic event. 

BELOW – From the March 25, 1912 Pittsburgh Press

BELOW – A year later, after fourteen hearings, a referee tries to end the proceedings.

 BELOW -- From the March 20, 1913 Los Angeles Times

I want to make it clear that I’m not posting these articles to gloat over the Drexel-Dahlgren’s misfortunes. Most likely this event had significant influences upon all the children – Lucy, 20; Madeline, 19; Katherine, 18; Ulrica, 16; Olga, 14; Eric, 11; Joseph, 9; and Eva, 8. The next year Olga’s 21-year-old sister, Lucy, entered the convent of Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament at Cornwells, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Lucy had made her debut into New York society only two years earlier. You can read more about this BELOW in the December 24, 1914 Washington Post. Notice that the article says that Lucy is following the example of a member of her family… This refers to Mother Katherine Drexel (1858-1955) who was canonized in the Catholic Church in 2000 and in 1914 headed the convent Lucy entered.

BELOW -- From the Aug. 18, 1916 Bristol Courier (PA)

In 1915 Olga – now 17 – purchases a new Scripps-Booth automobile, which adds number five to the family’s fleet. The Sept. 8, 1915 Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, MA) commented: Each of the Misses Dahlgren now has an automobile, the fleet headed by Miss Katherine Dalgren’s {sic} famous racing car. We learn in a June 12, 1915 issue of the same newspaper that Katherine is driving a 120 horse-power racing Mercer automobile, the highest power automobile driven by a woman in the hills. A feature article about the sisters in the Nov. 21, 1915 Oregon Sunday Journal (Portland) notes that she is known as “Katherine the Madcap,” and while her older sister Lucy was meditating about entering the convent, Lucy was setting all the countryside about Lenox, Mass., agog with her wild automobile escapades. The village constables grew frantic at her defiance of all the laws and regulations. They arrested her for speeding no less than six times, fined her often, warned her again and again, and finally had to take her license away. Once they got wind of her proposed race with a motorcycle speed fleet and dragged her to court again to receive an official threat. To all of these admonitions, fines and restraints of the law Katherine laughed. At her mother’s pleadings she laughed, too. At public indignation she laughed…Once the Drexel reputation of freedom from divorce or scandal was broken Lucy Dahlgren went into a convent and Katherine became a harum-scarum auto speeder…Futhermore, Katherine has developed a peculiar fondness for eccentric and bizarre clothing, affecting flowing Grecian robes and a jeweled fillet about her brow that in marked contrast to the Quakerlike demurity of her family’s traditional attire.

The Nov. 21, 1915 Oregon Sunday Journal (Portland) wonders whether their parents’ divorce caused this change in the young women. The family has become a mystery to the country’s followers of American aristocracy. Sensation played no part in the annals of the Drexels until Lucy Drexel Dahlgren suddenly sought divorce from her husband Eric R. Dahlgren. The complaint came like a clap of thunder to society, accustomed as it was to holding up the Drexels as the paragons of modesty and as exemplifying the blessings of seemly demeanor. All the world knew that the Drexels’ proudest boast had been that it had never had a divorce among its members. 

Was it the divorce that made Katherine Drexel Dahlgren say “I don’t care”? Did she suddenly develop “speed” mania and dashing daredevil manners because the century-old habits of the Drexels were removed? And what about Katherine’s sister, Lucy? She is now Sister Maria Lucia. Until the summer of 1912, when she suddenly took her vows, she was looked upon as one of the most brilliant of society girls of New York and Philadelphia. Scandals happen every once in a while among the famous 800 familes – those elites on the social register – and there’s usually a rational explanation, the newspaper concludes. But in the case of the Dalhgren girls, however, the time-worn ready answer cannot be given, and so society knits its brow in perplexity.

 So – here we have two society sisters: Lucy, who renounced the world to become a nun, and Katherine who shocked her aristicratic antecedents by her wild antics in a high-powered motor car. The glaring discrepancy between the cloister and the speeders’ court has set all the East asking why.

BELOW is that feature article I quote above from the Nov. 21, 1915 Portland Oregon Sunday Journal

NEXT ENTRY

PART 3

OLGA DREXEL DAHLGREN

AND 

ROCKWELL KENT