Everything seemed to be going according to plan. At 17, Gwynneth Woodhouse, daughter to Rebecca Kruttschnitt, received a carefully orchestrated introduction to San Francisco society—a gala dance on January 17, 1930, at the Burlingame Country Club hosted by her wealthy Grandmother, Mrs. Julius Kruttschnitt. Gwynneth, who lived with her grandparents in New York as a little girl, had returned to the States at the end of her Grandmother’s vacation the year before. By all indications, the event was a smash success.
“The debutante, who is an exceedingly charming and gracious girl, wore an exquisite frock of white chiffon and silver lace made with a tight-fitting bodice and long full skirt … banded with silver lace ruffles,” the San Francisco Examiner breathlessly reported. “Three lovely camellias were fixed on the shoulder strap and one was arranged at the point of the back. Miss Woodhouse carried a bouquet of lilies of the valley… Mrs. Kruttschnitt received in an apricot chiffon velvet gown.”
The debutante ball capped a full day of festivities. “Before the ball, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Oliver Tobin entertained at a dinner party at their home in Burlingame in honor of the bud and their guests included a group of the debutantes and their escorts. The debutantes later assisted Mrs. Kruttschnitt and her granddaughter at the dance.”
Gwynneth, warmly welcomed by her grandmother’s friends during her winter stay, followed in her lovely mother’s footsteps. “Rebecca Kruttschnitt,” the paper noted, “was one of the prettiest and most delightful girls of San Francisco society twenty years ago.” It was there that Rebecca met her husband, Henry de Clifford Woodhouse, no one knows why the wealthy Canadian was in Northern California at the time. The couple married in New Orleans and, after a short stint living in the United States, long enough to have two children, retired to England.
In her teens, Gyn bounced “from one European convent school to another for several unhappy years,” according to her daughter, Susanne O’Donnell, who kept a website that celebrated her mother’s writing and art. “In one, she was taught by the inspiring Monica Baldwin, who later lept over the convent wall and wrote a famous book about it. In another, she had to wear a Muslim shift while bathing. She was kicked out of a convent in France for spreading heresies to her fellow pupils. She was particularly adamant that animals had souls.”
Despite her teenage shenanigans, Gynneth was welcomed into England’s high society. Gwynneth presented to Queen Mary at the English court on June 10, 1931, a year and a half after her debutante ball in Burlingame. The San Francisco Examiner duly covered the event, the traditional way for aristocratic families to introduce their daughters to upper-crust society. The coming out, abolished in the 1950s, marked the start of a season of parties and galas debutante balls, polo matches, concerts, charity events, and lavish dinner parties and cocktail parties that Gywnneth doubtless attended. Back in the day, “The Season” included formal events such as the Royal Ascot, the Proms (a series of classical concerts), and the Henley Royal Regatta.
Even after coming out in the old country, Gwynneth attended events in the States. Gwynneth and her close friend Sallie Virginia Fairfax, daughter of Lieutenant Colonel John Fairfax of San Mateo, were on their way to a party when they were cut and bruised in a car accident. The car, driven by their cousin Ted Kruttschnitt, Jr., 18, “collided with another machine” driven by William Pyne, who escaped injury. Kruttschnitt was slightly bruised.
Gywnneth lived with her grandparents while she attended art school in the States, the one-room Rogers School. In the words of daughter Susanne, Gwyn was “marking time against the onslaught of a fate she ultimately dodged.” In the fall of 1933, she exhibited her pastels for two weeks at the Dorothy Crawford Studio on Primrose Road in Burlingame, according to the Nov. 1, 1933, San Franciso Chronicle. She took a break from the showing to attend a box party given by her cousin, Mrs. Whiting Welch at Le Coq-D’Or, an event covered by the newspaper. It just so happened that Mrs. Welch, three years older than her cousin, was featured in one of the watercolors.
The exhibition delayed the formal announcement of Gywnneth’s wedding plans, according to friends who gossipped with newspaper reporters. (So had a three-week stay in Lake Tahoe that Gwynneth took with her grandmother.) Finally, very late in 1933, The San Francisco revealed the scoop: Gwynneth was engaged to Hugh Montgomery, Jr., a lawyer from Portland whose mother often visited Northern California. Lady Teazle reported the exclusive in the December 29, 1933 edition of The San Francisco Chronicle. The Teaze noted that Gwynneth had made her social debut at the country club a couple of years before. “Miss Woodhouse is an artist with an exceptionally bright future, and recently exhibited some of her water colors and sketches at a studio in San Mateo.”
The columnist seemed to approve of the match, though she said little about the groom-to-be’s father. “The young man is the son of Mrs. Dorothy Gill Montgomery of Portland, with whom Miss Woodhouse is at present visiting and where she will remain until next month. Plans for the marriage of the young couple will be made shortly after the new year.” Another newspaper reported that Montgomery planned to build a home for his bride in Portland, where he planned to practice law. It’s not known whether the idea of living in Portland appealed to the young artist.
Shortly thereafter the wedding date was set: Woodhouse would marry at her Grandmother’s San Mateo house on July 17, 1934, in a small garden ceremony. The only attendant would be Miss Sally Virginia Fairfax, Gwynneth’s friend from art school. Mark Mark Gill, the groom’s cousin, would come down from Portland to be the best man. Friends and relatives announced plans for parties to honor the couple. It was going to be quite the festive occasion.
The first sign of trouble surfaced when the papers carried a notice that the marriage had been postponed by two days. Then, on July 11, the Chronicle announced the wedding’s “indefinite” postponement, based on engraved cards circulated by Mrs. Kruttschnitt. The note did not rule out the possibility of a later marriage between the couple. But Lady Teazle wasn’t buying it one bit. She wrote that “young Mr. Montgomery has decided to go on to Harvard to continue his studies in law,” caustically adding, “and maybe later, etc.”
Little did the society reporter know that Gwynneth had flown to Carson City, Nevada—not exactly a spot frequented by the rich and famous—in the days before her society wedding to marry one Foster Olroyd. Olroyd, 20 years her senior, was a very suspect choice for a husband; he had been married twice before. When reporters finally learned about the elopement, they covered it pretty matter-of-factly. They noted that “the couple planned to leave for Santa Cruz to spend their honeymoon” without much embellishment.
They reminded readers that “[i]t was only last week that Mrs. Kruttschnitt announced the postponement of her granddaughter’s marriage to Hugh Montgomery…which was to have taken place on Thursday. As a result, many parties, which had been planned in honor of the young couple, were postponed.”
The Examiner noted that while honeymooning in San Mateo, Gwynneth sent a wire to her grandmother asking her forgiveness. The paper added that Mrs. Kruttschnitt would be sailing shortly for London with her granddaughter Mrs. Welch in tow, presumably to inform Gwynneth’s parents, Cliff Woodhouse and Rebecca Kruttschnitt, of the unscripted event. Though Grandmother Kruttschnitt ultimately forgave her, Gwynneth’s parents disowned her, according to daughter Susanne. The marriage had other unwanted side effects.
“Mother’s surprise marriage at 21 to 40-something Fred Olroyd, a man already twice-wed, essentially ended her artistic output,” O’Donnell wrote. “Unhappy in a long engagement to a rather predictable young man who planned to enter law school, Gwyn eloped with dog-in-the-manger Olroyd on the eve of her society wedding extravaganza… The elopement took place during the depths of the Depression, and Olroyd in the best of times had proved dependable neither as a husband nor breadwinner. Gwyn endured a miserable hand-to-mouth existence with this spouse in the successive slums of Houston, New Orleans and Jacksonville.”
Newspapers didn’t make Olroyd out to be a completely worthless catch. They noted that the groom, part of an old New Orleans family, did business, though unspecified, in San Mateo. The papers reported that the couple planned to make their home in Florida. But that didn’t happen, at least immediately. The newlyweds wound up taking an apartment on Lordon Avenue in Burlingame, California. They didn’t stay long.
“Gwyn’s lifeline was her grandmother Kruttschnitt, who, along with her beloved brother Paddy, secretly kept in touch. She had the courage and good sense to divorce Olroyd in 1939, and returned to England to live with her parents, who perhaps forgave but were loath to forget.”
A prolific writer, Gywn left behind one letter — “an unsent memory” as described by O’Donnell — that contained details of a life-defining event that occurred while she was staying with her grandmother. The story spoke to Gwyn’s bohemian inklings, a lifestyle preference that perhaps should have been given more attention before a big society wedding was planned.
The story begins when Gywn “accepted a date” from one of her cousin’s friends, Leslie Scalley, who quickly got drunk out of his mind. “I had no idea that after only a few Scalley became paralyzed. We had stopped off for a drink and a dance at one of those places on the highway that not only served drinks but had a tolerable band and a good dance floor. Only a few miles from San Mateo and home.
“Scally had passed out in the mens’ room for some time and I was feeling a bit frantic as weird characters were “coming on to me.” (I believe that’s the state-of-the-art expression.) It was too late at night to call a cab and besides, I had no money. I felt like a lone survivor in a leaky life-boat surrounded by sharks — I think I tried to pretend I was asleep — when I heard a kind of voice above me. I’m not sure I even recognized the speaker — who was one of the boys in the band.
“I’m Douglas the voice said. You know me from the Rogers art school. From art school? I stupidly said I know most of the students in Rogers one-room art school but drew a blank with Douglas. I model there some times,” Douglas added.
“Rogers’ models came and went from time to time — male and female — clothed for afternoon classes — nude for night classes. (It was during the Depression and young people then picked up a bit of cash wherever they could.) Good heavens Douglas I said — I’ve drawn you dozens of times — but I never saw you with clothes on before! And I never knew you played in a band…
“Douglas scooped up the inert “Scale” out of the men’s room, drove both of us to San Mateo and between us we managed to heave Scalley onto grandmother’s sofa.” Gwyn’s uncle, the infamous John Kruttschnitt, who had invited madames to his sister Rebecca’s wedding, was living with his mother at the time.
“Uncle John’s room was next door to the living room. Exhausted, I went to sleep upstairs in my room and forgot all about Scalley and slept late. It was next morning hell broke loose when Uncle John, [an early riser found him passed out in an alcoholic state] and immediately told grandmother he’d found a strange man passed out on her sofa.
“It was almost impossible to explain to my grandmother how he had got there — and why. A friend of Tito’s (my cousin) was not sufficient.”
The drinking binge was not an isolated event. Another Gwyn missive, “The Devil Laughs,” a short story written for her friend Sally, documents a memorable night of mischieve that also began in a blind pig. And yet another letter fragment, entitled “Stray Drunks,” details a dramatic “ending” to Gwyn’s halcyon days of art and roses.
They should have seen it coming.