Evalyn Walsh McLean
Encyclopedia
Socialite
A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....
who was famous for being the last private owner of the 45 carats (9 g) Hope Diamond
Hope Diamond
The Hope Diamond, also known as "Le bleu de France" or "Le Bijou du Roi", is a large, , deep-blue diamond, now housed in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington, D.C. It is blue to the naked eye because of trace amounts of boron within its crystal structure, but exhibits red...
(which was bought in 1911 for $180,000 from Pierre Cartier
Pierre Cartier (jeweler)
Pierre Camille Cartier was a French jeweler. He was one of three sons of Alfred Cartier and the brother of Jaques Cartier and Louis Cartier...
) as well as another famous diamond, the 94 carats (18.8 g) Star of the East
Star of the East
Star of the East may refer to:* Barney Aaron, English lightweight champion boxer* The Evening Star newspaper, which had this title between 1885 and 1893* Umm Kulthum , an Egyptian singer...
. She also was the author, with Boyden Sparkes, of a memoir, Father Struck It Rich.
She was the only daughter of Thomas Walsh
Thomas Walsh (miner)
Thomas Francis Walsh was an Irish-American miner who discovered one of the largest gold mines in America...
, an Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
immigrant miner and prospector turned multimillionaire, and his wife, Carrie Bell Reed, a former schoolteacher.
In 1908, she married Edward Beale McLean
Edward Beale McLean
Edward Beale "Ned" McLean was the publisher and owner of the Washington Post newspaper from 1916 until 1933.Edward McLean was born into a publishing fortune founded by his paternal grandfather Washington McLean, who owned the Washington Post and the Cincinnati Enquirer...
, the heir to the Washington Post and Cincinnati Enquirer publishing fortune. They had four children: Vinson Walsh McLean, Edward Beale McLean Jr, John Roll McLean II, and Emily Washington McLean. Edward McLean eventually died in a mental institution.
Evalyn McLean was also a friend and confidante to Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth was the oldest child of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States. She was the only child of Roosevelt and his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee....
and Florence Harding
Florence Harding
Florence Mabel Kling "Flossie" Harding , wife of President Warren G...
, the wife of Warren G. Harding
Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding was the 29th President of the United States . A Republican from Ohio, Harding was an influential self-made newspaper publisher. He served in the Ohio Senate , as the 28th Lieutenant Governor of Ohio and as a U.S. Senator...
, the 29th President of the United States.
The site of the McLean home, Friendship — a sprawling country mansion built for her father-in-law by John Russell Pope
John Russell Pope
John Russell Pope was an architect most known for his designs of the National Archives and Records Administration building , the Jefferson Memorial and the West Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.-Biography:Pope was born in New York in 1874, the son of a successful...
and which was located on Tenleytown Road, N.W. — is now a condominium complex known as McLean Gardens
McLean Gardens
McLean Gardens is a residential neighborhood in Northwest Washington, D.C., bounded by Rodman Street NW to the north, Idaho Avenue to the south, Wisconsin Avenue to the east, and 39th Street NW to the west....
. (The original house was demolished in the 1940s though some of the property's garden features remain intact, as does the Georgian-style ballroom.) A later residence, also known as Friendship, is located at the corner of R Street, N.W. and Wisconsin Avenue, and remains a private home. Her childhood home, a grandiose Second Empire-style mansion at 2020 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., is now the Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
n embassy.
McLean was a victim of Gaston Means
Gaston Means
Gaston Bullock Means was an American private detective, salesman, bootlegger, forger, swindler, murder suspect, blackmailer, and con artist....
, a former F.B.I. agent, murder suspect, and grifter, who claimed he had set a deal to free the Lindbergh baby for a ransom of over US$100,000, which Evalyn McLean advanced him. Means disappeared with the money, only to resurface months later in California, and ask McLean for additional funds. Suspicious of Means' activities, she helped lead police to him; he was also wanted for other various crimes and civil actions. This ultimately led to his conviction and imprisonment on larceny
Larceny
Larceny is a crime involving the wrongful acquisition of the personal property of another person. It was an offence under the common law of England and became an offence in jurisdictions which incorporated the common law of England into their own law. It has been abolished in England and Wales,...
charges.
The Hope Diamond was associated with a curse, and her first son was killed in a car accident. Her husband Ned ran off with another woman and eventually died in a sanitarium. Their family newspaper, the Washington Post, went bankrupt and eventually her daughter died of an overdose, and one of her grandsons died in the Vietnam war. Evalyn never believed the curse had anything to do with her misfortunes.
Evalyn Walsh McLean died at 60 of pneumonia, and was buried in Rock Creek Cemetery
Rock Creek Cemetery
Rock Creek Cemetery — also Rock Creek Church Yard and Cemetery — is an cemetery with a natural rolling landscape located at Rock Creek Church Road, NW, and Webster Street, NW, off Hawaii Avenue, NE in Washington, D.C.'s Michigan Park neighborhood, near Washington's Petworth neighborhood...
, Washington D.C., in the Walsh family tomb.