“Chock full of stranger-than-fiction moments … Pataki’s story doesn’t skimp on Post’s dazzling adventures — there’s big money, big houses, and big jewelry at almost every turn — but it takes pains to present a private side of Post and establish her as more than just an heiress. … Post’s not just any historical titan. She was larger-than-life in her own time.” —Town & Country
—∞—
Pushing a cart along the cereal aisle in the supermarket, the average shopper does not know the story behind the Grape Nuts boxes up on the shelves. Grape Nuts’ inventor, C.W. Post, revolutionized prepared breakfast cereal in America. Ultimately the company he founded would diversify with such acquisitions as Hostess, Jell-O and Maxwell House. In 1929, it was renamed General Foods and in 1985, was sold to Philip Morris for $5.6 billion.
But in the dark winter of 1891, C.W. Post was a frail, sick man stepping gingerly off a train in Battle Creek, Michigan, headed to the renowned Kellogg sanitarium, accompanied by his kvetchy wife and adoring four-year-old daughter Marjorie. Within months, C.W.’s robust health would return, no thanks to Kellogg. However, the bland pap served at the sanitarium inspired C.W. to create the crunchy whole-grain wheat and barley Grape Nuts.
Launched into wealth, determined to manage her vast inheritance, Marjorie Merriweather Post is the subject of a bright new novel, The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post (Ballantine Books) by Allison Pataki. A bestselling author of historical fiction, Pataki skillfully conjures the world of the famous socialite. Blessed with beauty, charm and pluck, Marjorie would encounter tragedy, bad luck and fair-weather friends. But she never lost hope, right up until her death in 1973 at the age of 86, that true love would come her way.
FROM HEARTACHE TO HEARTACHE
Ever-conscious of being “new money,” Marjorie grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C. — the latter chosen by her father because he sought connections in turn-of-the-20th-century politics. Inevitably, her parents divorced. Marjorie’s mother Ella slid further into depression and invalidism while C.W. got remarried to an office assistant, Leila, who Pataki implies was a gold digger.
It was to escape Leila, in part, that Marjorie, fresh out of Mount Vernon Seminary and decidedly not on her way to college, entered into her first ill-conceived marriage — to Edward Close, descended from “old money,” in 1903. Eddie would turn out to be an alcoholic and playboy. The couple’s daughters, Adelaide and Eleanor, were sent off to Mount Vernon Seminary while Marjorie began her lifelong peripatetic existence, moving between the Northeast, the South, and anywhere her yacht could take her. In 1916 she finally left Greenwich, which had largely brought her unhappiness including the news of both parents’ deaths. C.W. committed suicide; the story quickly made the papers and created a scandal.
After Eddie returned from the Great War, the rift between him and Marjorie grew. Reflecting the mores of the time, he objected to her social activism and wish for greater influence in the company that was, after all, hers. Marjorie divorced him and moved on, professing no desire to remarry. It would not be long, however, before she met the millionaire stock broker E. F. “Ned” Hutton in Palm Beach in 1919. As he courted Marjorie aggressively, she insisted that he divorce his wife, from whom he was estranged. After that, in Pataki’s telling, Marjorie had no compunctions about sex before marriage.
Despite her daughters’ disapproval, Marjorie agreed to marry Ned. It was an auspicious start to the 1920s, which became one of Marjorie’s busiest decades. In 1923, along came Marjorie and Ned’s daughter, who would grow up to be the Hollywood actress Dina Merrill. Marjorie built a new mansion, “Hillwood,” on the North Shore of Long Island and subsequently renovated an Adirondacks camp in Upper St. Regis Lake. Then she began the process of designing Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, insisting that the esteemed architects Joseph Urban and Marion Wyeth combine several international styles to create a uniquely beautiful estate bordered by a lake and the ocean.
A WOMAN AHEAD OF HER TIME
Proving herself an astute businesswoman, Marjorie made the bold move of purchasing Clarence Birdseye’s frozen foods company for $22 million. Ned and her directors predicted that the acquisition would fail, but Marjorie understood the future and it turned out to be a brilliant move. Alas, her personal happiness was too good to last.
During a visit to Havana, Ned pushed Marjorie to the edge of her tolerance. Drunk, defiant and full of insults, he gambled away $50,000 in one night. Before long, she uncovered evidence of his affair with her lady’s maid. It is here that Pataki reveals Marjorie’s toughness:
But I was not a fool. At least, not any longer. I squared my shoulders and stared him directly in the eyes as I went on: “I don’t do anything by half measures, Ned Hutton. You should know that by now. When I set out to discover if you were an adulterer, I did the work, and now I have proof.”
Two more marriages would end in divorce. Marjorie’s third husband was Joseph Davies, a diplomatic advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt who gave her one of the great adventures of her life when he was appointed Ambassador to Russia. They moved to Moscow in 1937 as Hitler tightened his grip on Germany and threatened war.
You could look up the rest on Wikipedia, but why do that if you can read Pataki’s intriguing, poignant novel? Marjorie Merriweather Post deserved greater happiness, but she sure had fun setting trends and racking up her social triumphs in a life well-lived.
https://booktrib.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/allison-pataki300.jpg
About Allison Pataki:
Allison Pataki is the New York Times bestselling author of The Traitor’s Wife, The Accidental Empress, Sisi, Where the Light Falls and The Queen’s Fortune, as well as the nonfiction memoir Beauty in the Broken Places and two children’s books, Nelly Takes New York and Poppy Takes Paris. Allison’s novels have been translated into more than 20 languages. A former news writer and producer, she has written for the New York Times, ABC News, HuffPost, USA Today, Fox News and other outlets. She has appeared on Today, Good Morning America, Fox & Friends, Good Day New York, Good Day Chicago and MSNBC’s Morning Joe. Allison graduated cum laude from Yale University, is a member of the Historical Novel Society, and lives in New York with her husband and family.
