Joan was married Nov. 18th, 1939 in St. Bartholomew's Church (Episcopal), corner 51st and Park Avenue, New York City, across the street from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Her parental father and his family retinue, large and small, married and unmarried, were hosteled on the 12th floor of the Waldorf. And you can imagine what a stir among the employees we simple country folks made. They had seen nothing like us in that place since its corner stone was laid, and they haven't since. . .
Dr. Oxnam's (now Bishop Oxnam, stationed at Boston) wife and daughter were to be our guests at the Hotel in our suite of rooms count them, 8 of them. The Bishop was to have been present to give a prayer—Joan had graduated at De Pauw when he was President there—but old St. Bartholomew said: "No. No Methodist, or other cult, can pray at an Episcopal Church wedding. We run the Church, and incidentally the wedding, and what praying is done, we'll do." So the Bishop got sort of miffed and went on to Arizona ahead of time.
The wedding was at 4 p.m., the reception immediately following. Joan was a feature writer on the Associated Press in New York City—a splendid job. Naturally her associates were newspaper folks and writers, mostly men, who knew Kentucky Tavern from Coca-Cola. The wedding reception was to be held in the New York Newspaper Women's Club in the Midston House (hotel near Rockefeller Center). It had a bar, and Joan somehow got the silly idea it was the duty of the bride's father, for this occasion, to stock that bar with tools having an alcoholic content. . . So we brought along the main feature of the reception refreshments: 8 quarts in my grips, 8 in Frank's, 4 in Munny's, 4 in Margaret's, and Sir Walter Scott Behmer brought 3.
Mrs. Oxnam was to know nothing about it. She didn't—until she stepped into the Club rooms. Then anyone would know it, unless he had spent a lifetime refereeing skunk-squirting contests.
Old man Thomas, I think his name is, formerly Editor of the New York Times, now a sort of newspaperman head of the Pulitzer School of Journalism, and who had Joan in his classes when she went to that school, got tight and went all around telling the guests his great grandpappy was half Indian. His good old wife stayed sober, and as a result sprained an ankle on the scuffed-up rug. The woman Editor of Vogue, or else one of its principal writers, kissed me because she said I looked like her cousin who had his leg shot off in the Spanish-American War. In the excitement I kissed Mary Beth Plummer—top woman writer on the Associated Press and incidentally about the best looking—just to show my good taste.
Early in the game, Munny saw what was coming. So she shepherded Mrs. Oxnam and daughter away early. They put the daughter to bed. Then went out on their own, and in some unaccountable manner got into the bar of the Hotel, saw what they had done—and ordered lemonade. All Munny needed to complete the picture was a basket of eggs on one arm and a fresh dressed chicken under the other.
My Gosh! But we had a time.
What with buying extra booze, taxi-cabbing everybody all over Hell's Half Acre, eating in the "Cert Room," which was named for some famous Spanish painter, or paperhanger, and tipping hundreds (it seemed), I thought I might run low in cash. So I slipped quietly around to a room labeled "Credit Manager," walked in and saw this woman sitting in the big chair. She saw the surprise on my face, smiled and said: "I am the Credit Manager. Are you looking for me?"
"My name is Durham. I live in Indiana, and they're taking it away from me around here faster than they do back home on Thursdays at the main gate of our County Fair. I may run out of money, and I want to know how I'd go about getting a draft cashed, if I had to."
"May I see the draft?"