Katherine Boyce Tupper

Molly Pender Brown and Her Descendents

April 6, 2015 in Tupper Family, Uncategorized Tags: Andrew Moore, Clifton Stevenson Brown, Ellene Mobbs, Genealogy, James Julius Winn, Katherine Boyce Tupper, Katherine Winn, Kitty Winn Elizabeth Kokerot Lacy, Leenie Mobbs, Michael Hall Mobbs, Molly Pender Borwn

Molly Brown

The first child born of the marriage of Clifton Stevenson Brown and Katherine Boyce Tupper was Molly Pender Brown (1912-1997). She was my wife’s third cousin, one removed. She was sixteen was her father was murdered, and eighteen when her mother married George Marshall. Molly married James Julius Winn (1907-199) and had three children, James Julius (1942), Katherine (1944), and Ellene (1949).

Molly’s godmother was Mrs. William Randolph Blanchard. It was she whose home they visiting when Katherine was invited to the dinner where she met George Marshall. Molly was at school in Florence in 1930 when her mother was married to Lt. Col. Marshall.

A 1925 graduate of Marion Military Institute at Marion, Alabama and a 1929 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, James Julius Winn was a career Army officer with over 30 years of active duty. Shortly after his commissioning, he was assigned as a military aide to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House Winn states that he was a student at Ft. Benning in 1929. He recalls the party Mrs. Marshall gave at Ft. Benning for her daughter Molly in 1930 or 1931. He was assigned to Ft. Myers in 1937 and was there when the Marshalls came in 1939.

Quarters Number One, Fort Myers

Residence of the Joint Chief of Staff

Oval Dining Room

Site of Brown-Winn wedding

In 1940 Molly married Captain James Julius Winn. Katherine recounts

Molly’s wedding on Christmas Day in Quarters Number One at Fort Myer was the first wedding, I believe, ever to take place in that house. She came down the stairway on George’s arm, followed by her maid of honor, Mary Winn. They passed through the drawing-room and were met by Captain Winn and his groomsmen at the altar which had been constructed at the far end of the oval dining room. The bride’s path was flanked on each side by white chrysanthemums and tall standards holding white candles. Her gown was of cream satin with an extremely long train, and her cap and veil were of Rosepoint lace. She kept her eyes steadily on Captain Winn and his were on her. She said afterwards that this was pre-arranged to keep her from trembling. After the ceremony they walked out beneath the crossed swords of the groomsmen, while the orchestra played Lohengrin’s Wedding March. As soon as the reception was over, they left for Panama and I did not see Molly again until she came home a year and a half later with her baby son.

He and Molly were at Ft. Rucker, Alabama in May 1944 when they got word that Molly’s brother Allen Brown had been killed. Assigned to 1st Army Artillery, Winn was ordered to the European Theater after the Normandy invasion. On June 30, he arrived in Normandy and was at Le Bourget at the time of the liberation of Paris.

James Julius Winn

James Julius Winn

In 1946-47 Winn served as American liaison officer to the British Army in India. He saw combat during the Korean Conflict, when he served as an artillery adviser to the Republic of Korea’s First Field Army. In 1954-55 Colonel Winn served in Japan as deputy operations officer, US Army Forces Far East. His last active duty assignment was as commanding officer of Fort Ritchie, Maryland. He died on Sunday, December 30, 1990, at the age of 83.

The children of Molly Pender Brown and James Julius Winn are my wife’s fourth cousins.

Molly Winn with her children and the Marshalls at Dodona

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James Winn, Jr.

Jimmy regards Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau dubiously

James Julius Winn, Jr., (1942- ) married Elizabeth Kokernot Lacy (1946-) of Texas. He worked as an attorney in Baltimore, starting in the firm of Piper and Marbury.

Elizabeth Kokernot Lacy

The Kokernot family owns the Kokernot O6 Ranch in Texas.

KOKERNOT RANCH. The Kokernot Ranch, branding O6, covers some 500,000 acres in Jeff Davis, Pecos, and Brewster counties. The O6 brand was registered in Calhoun County as early as 1837 and was purchased by John W. Kokernot in 1872. In 1883 Kokernot and his brother, Lee M. Kokernot, leased grazing land from the state and began running cattle on the open range in the Trans-Pecos area. The brand was registered in Jeff Davis County in 1889 and transferred to L. M. Kokernot in 1896. Settlers began to move into the area; so in 1912 Herbert Lee Kokernot, son of L. M. Kokernot, began purchasing the land and continued to add to his holdings up to 1938. H. L. Kokernot, Jr., took over the ranch management in 1920. In 1939 ranch holdings stood at 300,000 acres. The rough terrain of the ranch necessitated use of the old-time mule-drawn chuck wagon, so that the O6 retained much of the traditional ranch atmosphere.

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Kitty Winn

Katherine (Kitty) Winn (1944- ) had an extensive career as an actress before she married Morton Winston in 1978.

She studied acting at Centenary Junior College and Boston University, graduating from the latter in 1966. During her college years Winn acted in student productions at Centenary Junior College, Boston University, and Harvard College and summer stock for two summers at The Priscilla Beach Theatre south of Boston. Shortly after college she joined the company at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco where she remained for four years under the artistic direction of William Ball.

She has (secumdum Wiki) appeared in

Motion Pictures

Year	Name of Film	Role	Other Actors
1971	They Might be Giants	Grace	Joanne Woodward, George C. Scott
1971	The Panic in Needle Park	Helen	Al Pacino
1973	The Exorcist	Sharon Spencer	Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair
1973	Message to My Daughter	Miranda Thatcher	Martin Sheen
1976	Peeper	Mianne Prendergast	Michael Caine, Natalie Wood
1977	Exorcist II: The Heretic	Sharon Spencer	Linda Blair, Richard Burton
1978	Mirrors	Marianne

The Exorcist

Movies for Television

Year	Name of Film	Role	Other Actors
1970	The House that Wouldn’t Die for ABC		Barbara Stanwyck
1972	The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe for NET	Harriet
1974	The Carpenters for KCET	Sissy	Vincent Gardenia
1975	Miles to Go Before I Sleep
1977	The Last Hrrah for Hallmark Hall of Fame	Maeve Skeffington	Carroll O’Connor
1983	The Tragedy of King Lear for KCET	Cordelia

Series for Television

Year	Name of Series	Role	Other Actors
1973	The Streets of San Francisco for ABC	Barbara Talmadge	Michael Douglas, Karl Malden
1975	Beacon Hill for CBS	Rosamond Lassiter	Nancy Marchand, Beatrice Straight
1977	Kojak – “Kojak Days: Part 1”	Carla Magid	Telly Savalas, Kevin Dobson, Dan Frazer,George Savalas
1977	Kojak – “Kojak Days: Part 2”	Carla Magid	Telly Savalas, Kevin Dobson, Dan Frazer,George Savalas

Awards

Cannes Film Festival

Year	Performance	Award
1971	Helen in The Panic in Needle Park	Best Actress Award

Kitty as Helen in Needle Park

Rob Boylan writes of her acting in that film:

Kitty Winn won Best Actress at Cannes in 1971 for playing Helen, an innocent girl from the Midwest who comes to New York and ends up a junkie, in The Panic in Needle Park (streaming on Netflix). Co-written by husband-and-wife duo Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, and starring the then little-known Al Pacino as the charismatic hustler Bobby, Panic is a stark, withering account of drug use that remains just as relevant 40 years later. Though she starts out straight, curiosity finally gets the best of Helen and she sneaks a hit while Bobby is out cold. There is a devastating moment later in the movie as they walk the streets together. He cradles her face and sees the drugs in her eyes. “When did that happen?” he asks sadly, but she can’t answer. The line may be Pacino’s but the scene’s disquieting heartbreak is all Winn’s.

She has recently returned to the stage as Carol in The Last Romance for the San Jose Repertory Theater (2011).

Kitty Winn and Will Marchetti

Charlie McCollum writes of that play

The early moments of “The Last Romance” echo the sentiments of “September Song,” that pop standard from the late 1930s by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson.

An older man sits alone on a bench in a park ablaze with the colors of fall. He is clearly waiting for someone — perhaps anyone — to enter his life. You can almost hear the song’s lyrics in the background: “When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame, one hasn’t got time for the waiting game.”

“Last Romance,” which opened Wednesday at San Jose Repertory Theatre in a regional premiere, is all about romance and whether you can find it again in your golden years after losing the one you love. It is also a work you end up liking more than loving.

Ralph Bellini (Will Marchetti) is a blue-collar kind of guy, who has worked all his life for the railroad, though he was once a talented opera singer. After the death of his wife, he lives with his younger sister, Rose (Sharon Lockwood), who becomes almost a surrogate mother to him.

Then one day, he sees Carol Reynolds (Kitty Winn), an elegant and reserved woman who lives in an upscale apartment building nearby and walks her dog in the park. There’s a spark in Ralph’s heart, something he hasn’t felt in a while.

It turns out that Carol may be lonelier than Ralph. She has just gotten her dog because she is afraid of growing old completely alone.

This odd couple gets off to a stumbling start since neither has done this dance in some time. He makes inappropriate jokes and lies about things. She is reserved and, it turns out, also lying about things.

But somehow, it all starts to come together, and Carol and Ralph find themselves falling into a romance, if not precisely love. Then things get complicated, and it is, as Ralph suggests early on, like opera.

“The thing about opera, see, is all the lovers want to do is be in love,” he says. “But it ain’t ever that simple. Something always gets in the way.”

Kitty

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Ellene at VMI in 1979, unveiling the statue of her step-grandfather, Gen. Marshall

Ellene Winn (1949 – ) married Michael Hall Mobbs. He represented the Secretary of Defense at the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks in the 1980’s. It appears they are divorced and he has married a Russian attorney.

Their children are Michael Hill Mobbs, Jr. and Ellene Glenn Mobbs (my wife’s fourth cousins, once removed).

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Michael Hall Mobbs Jr.

Michael was a neighbor of ours in North Baltimore and has followed the family military tradition. The community paper in 2006 reported

Cadet Michael Hall Mobbs Jr., son of Ellene Winn of Roland Park and Michael Mobbs of Washington, D.C., has been named to the Cadet chain of command at the U.S. Military Academy. Mobbs was chosen as the brigade command sergeant major, the third highest rank in the Corps of Cadets.

When he was at in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in 2013 he and Scooter engaged in the Spur Ride:

Captain Mobbs and Scooter

— The annual spur ride is a tradition which tests the best of the best within the U.S. Army’s cavalry career field. Capt. Michael Mobbs and his dog, Scooter, recently proved just how far they would go to earn the honor of becoming spur holders–an honor bestowed upon those troopers who complete a spur ride.

Mobbs, an infantry officer and company commander of Charlie Troop, 3rd Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, in the 82nd Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, strived to set the example for his paratroopers by participating in his squadron’s spur ride, Oct. 6. In a move rarely undertaken, Mobbs invited Scooter to participate by his side in the grueling, team-building event here.

About three years ago Mobbs took in Scooter, a puppy who escaped from a dog fighting circuit, and welcomed him in as part of his family.

“I’ve always had a lot of respect for Scooter,” said Mobbs. “He’s been a great family dog [and has been] protective of my girls and our home.”

Mobbs said inviting Scooter to participate in the event was a practical matter. The commander said he takes care of Scooter while his wife takes care of their two daughters and second dog in Washington, D.C.

This year’s spur ride was particularly intense because all the events, which included tasks ranging from ruck marches to paddling boats, were packed into a 24-hour time span. There was no opportunity for rest, and the candidates were pushed to their limits to earn their spurs.

Mobbs said he was very impressed with Scooter’s performance during the spur ride, and he believes that Scooter probably motivated several candidates who saw him driving on when things got particularly tough. He said that Scooter’s reward for participating was the honor of becoming an honorary spur holder, a steak at the end of the spur ride, and the 48-hour nap he took after it was all done.

“I think in another life he would have made an outstanding service dog,” said Mobbs. “He’s clearly demonstrated that he has the mental and physical stamina required.”

Mobbs set out to inspire his troops and take part in a tradition that spans back to the early 1700s. He did just that by earning his spurs, and along the way he introduced the cavalry to Scooter, its newest honorary spur holder.

Michael is married and has two children.

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Andrew and Leenie

Ellene (Leenie) Glenn Mobbs married Andrew Moore in Pittsburgh on June 7, 2014. Ellene attended Carnegie Mellon (like her cousin my son Thomas Podles, who was there at the same time) and graduated with a degree in creative writing. She has published several poems:

“Before the House Wakes” appeared in the Blast Furnace Press 1.2 (2011).

Before the House Wakes

Bayberry leaf air, the porch.
I lie, while quiet the wooden chairs and benches, tearing warm
Portuguese bread, soft under my fingers. Not far
from ocean pines that grow from salt water sand,
I think of midnight
and spread the pear jam,
eyes bruised and losing sleep.

The mist will seize before the oven sun, pots and cups,
swollen pines take the air and I will track
its dampness onto linoleum and buckled
sheets. But now, bluebirds
through brush and scented water, hushed, stir
the leaves, the bayberry, the pine.

Katherine Boyce Tupper: Wife of a Murder Victim and Wife of a General

April 4, 2015 in Tupper Family, Uncategorized Tags: Clifton Stevenson Brownm George C. Marshall, Elizabeth Coles, Genealogy, Katherine Boyce Tupper

Katherine Boyce Tupper (1882-1978), the daughter of Henry Allen Tupper, Jr., and Marie Louise Pender, was the second cousin, twice removed, of my wife. Katherine graduated from Hollins College in 1902 and then went to study drama at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. She then went to London with her sister Allene. But Katherine’s American accent was a major obstacle, and her father cut off her allowance as soon as she joined a cast. Allene, however, continued getting her allowance and supported both of them while Katherine tried to get rid of her accent. Katherine played various parts, but became ill. In Baltimore she was diagnosed with exhaustion, and sent to the Adirondacks to recuperate. There she again met a childhood friend, Clifton Brown; he fell in love and proposed. She turned him down because she wanted to be an actress. But her pain and paralysis returned, and she decided to give up the stage.

Mrs. Clifton S. Brown

Katherine as a young bride

She married the Baltimore attorney, champion tennis player, and president of the Whist Club Clifton Stevenson Brown at her parents’ house, 34 Gramercy Park, in New York, on September 30, 1911. They returned to Baltimore, and lived at 1015 N. Calvert St.

1015 North Calvert St.

They had three children, Molly Pender (1912-1997), Clifton Stevenson, Jr. (1914-1952), and Allen Tupper (1916-1944). Katheryn had some money, and decided to buy a summer cottage on Fire Island. On June 4, 1928 she called her husband’s office to inform him the final papers for the purchase had arrived, but there was no answer.

Clifton Brown represented Louis Berman in the matter of settling the $300,000 estate of Philip Berman, Louis’s father, from which Louis received $36,000. Brown charged Berman a fee of $2,500 for this work. When Berman refused to pay, Brown sued him.

On June 4, 1928 Berman lay in wait for Brown at Brown’s office on the seventh floor of the Calvert Building. Berman shot Brown twice; Brown tried to flee down a corridor, but Berman pursued him and shot him three more times. Brown was taken to Mercy Hospital, where he died minutes later. Katherine was left a widow with three children: thirteen, eleven, and nine.

Berman was indicted and tried in September 1928. Berman’s attorney had “alienists” examine Berman for an insanity defense, but the defense’s own witnesses said Berman was sane and knew right from wrong. The defense attorney then tried to discredit his own witnesses. Berman was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, There he filed a habeas corpus appeal every time a new judge was installed in Maryland on the grounds that his hour and a half psychiatric examination had not been adequate. He did this over a hundred times and taught other inmates how to do it. Berman had to be transported to courts all over the state for his hearings. Finally Maryland passed a law that once a judge had finally ruled on a point it could not be raised again.

The two Mrs. George Catlett Marshalls

The infant George

George as VMI cadet

The First Mrs. Marshall

Elizabeth “Lily” Coles

Mrs. Coles was concerned. Her daughter Lily was a VMI widow. That is, she had dated many cadets, but nothing had come of it. But then…

While a cadet at VMI, George Marshall met his future wife, Elizabeth (“Lily”) Carter Coles. “She was a very lovely looking woman,” said Marshall. “I guess you might call her a beauty.” Lily lived with her mother in a house just off of the campus. She was “the finest amateur pianist” Marshall had ever heard, and her music and charm so captivated him that he routinely “ran the block” to see her. These visits were against school regulations and would be dismissal offenses if discovered. Because Marshall was the senior military officer of his class, he gambled that he was above suspicion. Moreover, he was in love. The young couple were married on February 11, 1902, in a simple Episcopal ceremony inside the bride’s home. The somber-looking wedding party pictured here on the Coles’s front porch was not entirely a harbinger of things to come. The marriage was an extraordinarily happy one for twenty-five years.

Coles-Marshall Wedding

Left to right:
Marie (Marshall’s sister), Lily, George,
Stuart, Mr. and Mrs. George C. Marshall Sr.,
and Mrs. Walter Coles

Elizabth Marshall in China

Lily in China

Lily died in 1927 of a heart condition that had prevented her having children.

The second Mrs. Marshall

Katherine as widow

George as Widower

After her husband’s murder Katherine stayed with her sister in Connecticut for eight months; she and Molly then went to Hawaii and stayed in a cottage in Waikiki for several months. On the way back to Baltimore she stopped off in Columbus to see Molly’s godmother Mrs. William Blanchard when they was invited to a small dinner at Tom Hudson’s house. Mrs. Hudson was a freind of Katherine’s from Hollins College. Lt. Col. George Marshall was there. Katherine recounts:

When he first arrived the Colonel was standing by the fireplace. My first impression was of a tall, slender man with sandy hair and deep-set eyes. He refused the cocktails when they were served and this attracted my interest, for it was in prohibition times when the main topic of conversation was, “How do you make your gin?”

I said, “You are a rather unusual Army officer, aren’t you. I have never known one to refuse a cocktail before.”

He asked agreeably how many I knew.

“Not many,” I confessed.

“This certainly was someone different. At dinner he told amusing stories….

When Molly started to leave with a young escort, Colonel Marshall asked to take me home. Now Columbus is a rather small place and after driving around for an hour I asked, “How long have you been at Fort Benning?”

“Two years.”

“Well,’ I said, after two years haven’t you learned your way around Columbus?”

“Extremely well,” he answered, “or I could not have stayed off the block where Mrs. Blanchard lives!”

The next summer I told my sons that I had asked Colonel Marshall to visit us at Fire Island as I wanted him to know them. Clifton suspected something at once and said, “If it makes you happier, Mother, it is all right with me.” But Allen, then twelve, sad, “I don’t know about that, we are happy enough as we are.” Early the next morning he came to my room. “It is all right, Mother, about your asking Colonel Marshall.” That summer George told me that Allen had written him a most amusing letter in which he said, “I hope you will come to Fire Island. Don’t be nervous, it is OK with me. (Signed) A friend in need is a friend indeed. Allen Brown.” And they were friends until the end.”

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Baltimore

They were married in the chapel of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Baltimore on October 2, 1930. Marshall’s best man was General Pershing, whose aide-de-camp he had been. Pershing had known tragedy also; his wife and three of his daughters had died in a fire at the Presidio in 1915.

Pershing and Marshall

In 1938 Katherine and Molly were at the cottage on Fire Island when the great New England hurricane hit. Their house survived, but they had to flee through waist-deep water.

Fire Island, 1938

George and Katherine on Fire Island

Katherine had to deal with the problems of life in an underfunded peacetime army, and then the problems of a nation that saw a looming war. After Pearl Harbor she knew that the United States was losing the war and all that the loss would mean for her nation and her family. Later when the tide turned her own children were in peril on the battlefields. Amidst all this were the practical problems of being wife of the Chief of Staff. Even she couldn’t get all the food she needed, and tried to raise chickens at their place in Leesburg. After a traumatic experience with the chickens, she resolved never again to complain how much they cost at the butcher’s.