South Bend News-Times, Volume 39, Number 22, South Bend, St. Joseph County, 22 January 1922 — Page 9

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By Betty Van Benthuysen

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ALICE DREXEL BARRETT, heiress to the John R. Drexd millions, has come home after a two-year experience in the leading role of The Prodigal Daughter In real not reel life, and so far as Papa and Mamma Brexel are concerned, she may have the whole veal output of the Chicago stockyards, if it will help any to blot out the memory of a debutante's broken heart. With the return is to come a divorce from "Diamond Bill" Barrett, who played the other side of the sketch in Bocicty's most astonishing heart tragedy. Following the divorce, as "Mrs. Alice C. Drexel," the young woman is to resume her place in the society of New York, Newport and Europe. Such is the latest chapter in the peculiarly sad, and at

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The Palatial Drexe! Home at Newport Where the Returned Daughter Will Again Receive Her Old Friends.

Mrs. John R. Drexel, Whose Sternness Toward the Eloping Daughter Was Softened by the Stork.

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tlrr.c, remarkable story of the young

ro3?, who has crowdeJ the joys and the sorrows

cf life ir.to two years that left little alor.s the route cf experience to be shaded into the picture. Alice Drexel was enc cf those girls who, from childhood, might not. She might not do any of the things she pictured in advance, and under the watchful eye of a mother who was accustomed to rule in her cwn way, she came to the estate of ycur.g womanhood under the tight rein of authority. Marriage especially seemed to bo the cr.e thing that the mother sought to delay, and it was through the upsetting cf the mother's plana by Fate that all the tragedy of the giri's life came. Carefully planning aair.at Fate, Mr. DrexU

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consigned her daughter to the ehoolroom for a couple of years more than the other girls of her ?et, and th?n delayed her debut by rending her abroad, and sho was well over 20 when a ball of great fame introduced her to New York society, and formed the prelude to numerous entertainments in neighboring cities at which the formal presentation was continued in lesser form. Rut nobody on earth can keep a young girl, pretty, heiress to millions, and holding the privileges of the most exclusive circle3, from attracting beaux. Attract them she did. Four swains appeared en the horizon of whom society thought well, but none of them seerued to find favor with the mother. In fact, when Mrs. Drexel found that the young men were making progress toward the family dinner table, she formed the notion that another trip to Europe might serve as a deterrent, and gave orders for the journey. It happened that among the young men sh had met was a young army captain, little known to fsnciety, but coming at a time that the warsoftened the social situation for shoulder straps, and presented by the Princess Rospigliosi. He was a sturdy youth, with an open, frank countenance, a pleasing smile and what politicians call "mixing ability." William Barrett, the young captain, came from Washington. He knew the ropes at London, and was no stranger in Paris. Before anybody dreamed that he had aspirations in the Drexel direction, the couple might have been found at times, had any cne known them in that region, wandering together in the shady spots of Bronx Park, where they met and coced as the days went by. Planning the Elopement When she told the captain that the plans of the family called for a trip to Europe, he urged marriage. "But," said the girl, "I have no means of my

All that I have is a little personal allow-

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Capt. Wm. Harrett.the Vanished Husband. Whom the 'prodigal" Would Divorce.

"It is not your money, it !5 you.

pleaded the captain. The idea appealed to the girl. She listened to plans for an elopement that would supersede the lone voyage abroad. Mies Drexel went hom and packed her belongings or so much of thera as time and secrecy would permit into suitNewppr Feature SerI r, 1012.

cases and a steamer trunk. She bundled the baggage into an automobile and went whirling, one June day, up the Bronx Park, where the courting had been done, and there met her waiting lover. They drove to a little church near New Rochelle, and were married. That afternoon the telephone bell in the Drexel borne rang. When Mrs. Drexel answered she found that Alice was calling from a Fifth avenue hotel where she had taken quarters, and that while the voice was that of Alice, the registry at the hotel was that of "Captain and Mrs. William Barrett." A very much surprised, and a very much shecked, mother heard the story of the elopement ever the wire. The couple were ordered to the family home for a talk. Just what th talk brought nobody ever knew. But the next chapter in their story, shows them on board an ocean linsr, bound for Paris, with no financial resources other than an army captain's pay and what little change she had frcm her allowance. Tho Drexel checkbook was not financing the trip. That much was certain. Over on the south side of the Seine arc several quarters in which persons who have small means may find accommodations in keeping with the purse. Small hotels of ancient type, and pensions that have no f.cquaintance with the smart world shelter many a traveler who would see the world on a shoestring. Into these surroundings went the girl of millions and the lover who had told his love in the shady nooks of Bronx Park. Once in a while they ventured out. Once, during the time when the Paris police still had the war lid on gayety, they gave a dancing party at the Ritz to which all of the Who's Who of tho American and English set were bidden. Little Alice and her so'.dier husband received the congratulations as hosts and, as an especial concession, the hotel got the police to relax the closing order so that dancing might continue to the then impossible hour of 1 o'clock in the morning. That of itself, meant some influence at court the influence of what one is supposed to possess. But time went along ard the biil for the affair was unpaid. ' The Barretts were not receiving gUcits at whatever home they afTccted. Money went, love went, and then one day Alice found that Barrett hi.J deserted her. He left her with

s. Alice Drexel Harrett, th

Beautv Who Will Again Shine

That Differences with Her

'arents Are Smoothed.

never a ücu. and with the prospect cf a ' member of the family to add to the terrors of the situation. It seemed that the young mother must g- t a public hospital and have her child first see day in a charity ward. But right there the savin? chapter that always comes in good plays and ! ooks, opened itself with Father Drexel. in far America, hearing of the distress of hh daughter. True, the family had been or. very bad term"? with the Barretts after the elopement; true, the hrcaeh had undergone no healing, but Father Drexel i? human and good-natured, and he gava certain orders, and then took the first boat. In pursuance to his orders, a nursinc: home in N'ormandie took the place of the dreaded public hospital, and when Father Drc.xcl arrived, he was iust a lap behind the stork hearing a grandson. There was precious little time lost in bringing father and daughter together. No such easy route was before those who wished to appease Mr-. Drexel. Her pride had been sorely wounded, and it took many wreks to bring her to a position where she was willing to forgive the Prodigal Daughter. But in cou.s3 of time the news cams that Mrs. Drexel was sailing to join her hushand in Franco, and then the time arrived when it became known that a truce had been patched up between the mother and daughter. Two iron-clad conditions were placed on her forgiveness: William Barrett's name must never be mentioned to her. Alice would immediately divorce him and take the name of "Alic C. Drerel." The Prodigal Returns So, fulfilling the pact, Mr. and Mrs. Drexel are bringing the Prodigal Daughter back to NewYork and the winter entertainments will find her again in the favored set, with no fear that a cheap hotel in a strange quarter of a strange land will be her lot. Instead, she will have her eld place in the New York mansion, and in the great Newport estate. And what, you ask, became of Barrett? Nobody seems to know. He came back from Paris and was lost to tha set that had known him in the East. All of a sudden one night the wires from Los Angeles told that he had been arrested. The police only knew that the arrest was made at the request of Scotland Yard and that the charge was the taking of a string of pearls, worth $100,000, from Mrs. John D. Spreckels, Jr. Mrs. Spreckels was or.ee a stage dancer in San Francisco. She married young Spreckels against the wishes of h i 3 family, and went tLondon. It seems that Barrett wa3 also in London in the days before his marriage- to M;s3 Drexel and that he was much in the society cf Mrs. Spreckels while her husband was away on a business trip to Norway. ' During that time, Mrs. Spreckels charged that she entrusted the pearls to Barrett and that he disappeared with them. The Los Angeles police heard all of the facts and then reported that they did not justify holding Barrett. Ho was released and dropped out of sight. In the mean time, Tiffany came along with a suit against Mrs. Spreckels for 50,000 alleged to be due on the missing pearls. The suit is now pending. Spreckels, who bought the gems in London from the Tiffany branch, di'-d last August a3 the resuit of a motor accident. But that much cf the story no longer interests the Drexels. They have washed the family hands of him, and it remains to be seen what the Prodigal Daughter, who crowded a whole if3 story into two chapters cf one year each, will do once she is fairly launched upon the social oce&a which she once left for love.

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