Huguettes Last Wish

Huguette Marcelle Clark was America's richest little girl. She was born in Paris, France, in 1906 to one of the richest men in the world, William Andrew Clark (think Clark County, Nevada aka Las Vegas). Aside from building the Southern Pacific Railroad with his own cash from his copper mines and establishing the town of Las Vegas, Mr. Clark built many mansions. Huguette and her mother loved Santa Barbara, California, and Bellosguardo was their ocean front estate. When her mother died in 1964, Huguette became a recluse in a hospital room with her precious dolls, in New York City.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Janet Maslin, The New York Times • St. Louis Post-Dispatch When Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed in 2009 a grand home for sale, unoccupied for nearly sixty years, he stumbled through a surprising portal into American history. Empty Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the Gilded Age opulence of the nineteenth century with a twenty-first-century battle over a $300 million inheritance. At its heart is a reclusive heiress named Huguette Clark, a woman so secretive that, at the time of her death at age 104, no new photograph of her had been seen in decades. Though she owned palatial homes in California, New York, and Connecticut, why had she lived for twenty years in a simple hospital room, despite being in excellent health? Why were her valuables being sold off? Was she in control of her fortune, or controlled by those managing her money? Dedman has collaborated with Huguette Clark’s cousin, Paul Clark Newell, Jr., one of the few relatives to have frequent conversations with her. Dedman and Newell tell a fairy tale in reverse: the bright, talented daughter, born into a family of extreme wealth and privilege, who secrets herself away from the outside world. Huguette was the daughter of self-made copper industrialist W. A. Clark, nearly as rich as Rockefeller in his day, a controversial senator, railroad builder, and founder of Las Vegas. She grew up in the largest house in New York City, a remarkable dwelling with 121 rooms for a family of four. She owned paintings by Degas and Renoir, a world-renowned Stradivarius violin, a vast collection of antique dolls. But wanting more than treasures, she devoted her wealth to buying gifts for friends and strangers alike, to quietly pursuing her own work as an artist, and to guarding the privacy she valued above all else. The Clark family story spans nearly all of American history in three generations, from a log cabin in Pennsylvania to mining camps in the Montana gold rush, from backdoor politics in Washington to a distress call from an elegant Fifth Avenue apartment. The same Huguette who was touched by the terror attacks of 9/11 held a ticket nine decades earlier for a first-class stateroom on the second voyage of the Titanic. Empty Mansions reveals a complex portrait of the mysterious Huguette and her intimate circle. We meet her extravagant father, her publicity-shy mother, her star-crossed sister, her French boyfriend, her nurse who received more than $30 million in gifts, and the relatives fighting to inherit Huguette’s copper fortune. Richly illustrated with more than seventy photographs, Empty Mansions is an enthralling story of an eccentric of the highest order, a last jewel of the Gilded Age who lived life on her own terms.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Janet Maslin, The New York Times • St. Louis Post-Dispatch When Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed in 2009 a grand home for sale, unoccupied for nearly sixty years, he stumbled through a surprising portal into American history. Empty Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the Gilded Age opulence of the nineteenth century with a twenty-first-century battle over a $300 million inheritance. At its heart is a reclusive heiress named Huguette Clark, a woman so secretive that, at the time of her death at age 104, no new photograph of her had been seen in decades. Though she owned palatial homes in California, New York, and Connecticut, why had she lived for twenty years in a simple hospital room, despite being in excellent health? Why were her valuables being sold off? Was she in control of her fortune, or controlled by those managing her money? Dedman has collaborated with Huguette Clark’s cousin, Paul Clark Newell, Jr., one of the few relatives to have frequent conversations with her. Dedman and Newell tell a fairy tale in reverse: the bright, talented daughter, born into a family of extreme wealth and privilege, who secrets herself away from the outside world. Huguette was the daughter of self-made copper industrialist W. A. Clark, nearly as rich as Rockefeller in his day, a controversial senator, railroad builder, and founder of Las Vegas. She grew up in the largest house in New York City, a remarkable dwelling with 121 rooms for a family of four. She owned paintings by Degas and Renoir, a world-renowned Stradivarius violin, a vast collection of antique dolls. But wanting more than treasures, she devoted her wealth to buying gifts for friends and strangers alike, to quietly pursuing her own work as an artist, and to guarding the privacy she valued above all else. The Clark family story spans nearly all of American history in three generations, from a log cabin in Pennsylvania to mining camps in the Montana gold rush, from backdoor politics in Washington to a distress call from an elegant Fifth Avenue apartment. The same Huguette who was touched by the terror attacks of 9/11 held a ticket nine decades earlier for a first-class stateroom on the second voyage of the Titanic. Empty Mansions reveals a complex portrait of the mysterious Huguette and her intimate circle. We meet her extravagant father, her publicity-shy mother, her star-crossed sister, her French boyfriend, her nurse who received more than $30 million in gifts, and the relatives fighting to inherit Huguette’s copper fortune. Richly illustrated with more than seventy photographs, Empty Mansions is an enthralling story of an eccentric of the highest order, a last jewel of the Gilded Age who lived life on her own terms. Praise for Empty Mansions “An amazing story of profligate wealth . . . an outsized tale of rags-to-riches prosperity.”—The New York Times “An evocative and rollicking read, part social history, part hothouse mystery, part grand guignol.”—The Daily Beast “Fascinating . . . [a] haunting true-life tale.”—People “One of those incredible stories that you didn’t even know existed. It filled a void.”—Jon Stewart, The Daily Show “Thrilling . . . deliciously scandalous.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

From New York Times bestselling author Meryl Gordon, the definitive biography of Huguette Clark, who went from being one of the wealthiest and most famous Jazz Age socialites to spending the last twenty years of her life hiding out in hospitals. Born in 1906, Huguette Clark grew up in her family's 121-room Beaux Arts mansion in New York and was one of the leading celebrities of her day. Her father William Andrews Clark, was a copper magnate, the second richest man in America, and not above bribing his way into the Senate. Huguette attended the coronation of King George V. And at twenty-two with a personal fortune of $50 million to her name, she married a Princeton man and childhood friend William MacDonald Gower. Two-years later the couple divorced. After a series of failed romances, Huguette began to withdraw from society--first living with her mother in a kind of Grey Gardens isolation then as a modern-day Miss Havisham, spending her days in a vast apartment overlooking Central Park, eating crackers and watching The Flintstones with only servants for company. All her money and all her real estate could not protect her in her later life from being manipulated by shady hangers-on and hospitals that were only too happy to admit (and bill) a healthy woman. But what happened to Huguette that turned a vivacious, young socialite into a recluse? And what was her life like inside that gilded, copper cage?

In the search for meaning, we often travel through the inner caves of being to discover the true value of in our lives. When at last the search turns within, it is there that we find the real guide, and then we can travel the road to mastery. Autumn Leaves Dancing in the Wind is a collection of personal reflections written at a time of search for meaning. There are times in our lives when we search for truth and must delve deeply within to find the true value of life. May the inner wisdom be of assistance to others in times of doubt, of search and uncertainty. If we let our inner wisdom guide, we learn that we already know the source of truth.

This collection presents an innovative series of essays about the medieval culture of Feud and Violence. Featuring both prominent senior and younger scholars from the United States and Europe, the contributions offer various methods and points of view in their analyses. All, however, are indebted in some way to the work of Stephen D. White on legal culture, politics, and violence. White's work has frequently emphasized the importance of careful, closely focused readings of medieval sources as well as the need to take account of practice in relation to indigenous normative statements. His work has thus made historians of medieval political culture keenly aware of the ways in which various rhetorical strategies could be deployed in disputes in order to gain moral or material advantage. Beginning with an essay by the editors introducing the contributions and discussing their relationships to Stephen White's work, to the themes of the volume, to each other, and to medieval and legal studies in general, the remainder of the volume is divided into three thematic sections. The first section contains papers whose linking themes are violence and feud, the second section explores medieval legal culture and feudalism; whilst the final section consists of essays that are models of the type of inquiry pioneered by White.

May you paint a portrait of who you see Or write some words of what you hear. Do not allow yourself to be judged by the thoughts in your head, Nor hang on your walls slanted biases. This collection of free verse poetry explores the versatile expression of the arts. Its depth, richness, colour, and style reach out to everyone trying to preserve culture and art and who wants to present their style to the world. Today's young adults are trying to achieve change on a different level—this book guides that transformation. Poems You’ll Love are divided into themes, allowing readers to first dig into the topics that capture their attention. The simplicity of the collection’s structure also encourages readers to create their interpretations of the poems and to try their hand at the art of writing poetry. This collection was inspired by the themes and prompts assigned by the Passion of Poetry team as part of their twenty-four-hour challenges. Many poems were judged by professional judges, teachers, doctors, social workers, and others. One set of poems written during a twenty-one-day streak even won the Emily Dickinson Award.

Obituaries published in the New York times of notable individuals who died from August 2010 through July 2011.