Summer Reading: 1912: County Witnesses Royal Wedding (The End)

From my “Over the Hill” series.

Adeline Easton, Jennie’s grandmother, wore a lavender satin brocade gown and a matching lavender bonnet. She was accompanied by Templeton’s wife, Helene Irwin, attired in a turquoise satin gown with an ecru lace overdress and a blue satin hat trimmed with Paradise feathers. Eleanor Martin, leader of San Francisco’s social set, chose a black Chantilly lace gown worn over ivory satin with a black lace bonnet.

As musicians played Mendelsohn’s Wedding March, all heads turned to watch as Jennie, leaning on Templeton’s shoulder, walked down the center aisle. The bride looked over the sea of black-plumed straw hats, lace bonnets and flower-trimmed tulle hats for a glimpse of the altar decorated with more orchids, palms and tall ferns.

The bridesmaids wore white lace gowns and carried bouquets of white flowers.

Kneeling on a white satin pillow, with Malcolm at Jennie’s side, they listened as Bishop Nichols conducted the brief service.

Guests were invited to a wedding breakfast and reception at Uplands where workmen had constructed a huge canopied pavilion, with an ornate fountain in the center.

That afternoon the newlyweds boarded their private railroad car for the Del Monte Hotel at Monterey.

Later they sailed to Honolulu, with Jennie’s 63 dogs in tow.

The Whitmans divided their time between New York and Hillsborough, transporting their three children, maids and dogs back and forth.

In 1925, in Paris, the Whitman’s ended their marriage.

A year later both remarried at the same hour on the same day, but on different coats; she to the president of a cement company; he to an Italian opera singer. Neither ceremony was much like the glorious wedding held in San Mateo in the summer of 1912.

Malcolm Whitman died in 1931. Jennie Crocked lived a long life, passing away at age 85 in the early 1970s.

The End