From Paris to Miss Annette Markoe

L'avenue du Bois de Boulogne connects the Place Charles de Gaulle with the Bois de Boulogne, a park of almost 900 hectares designed by Baron Haussmann. It's a beautiful park, although it's not as idyllic as it used to be.  There is a fair amount of prostitution in the park now. In this early photo, it appears that it was an ideal place for a family promenade. As noted in one of the comments below, the avenue has been renamed Avenue Foch.

Although this is a lovely card, once again the real highlight is the recipient of the card.  The card was sent to Miss Annette Markoe on March 10, 1906 with love from Frank. Annette had an uncle Frank, so this could well have been from him. At the time, she would have been eight years old.

Annette was the daughter of James and Annette Markoe. Her mother was reported to have been a mistress of J.P. Morgan before she married  Dr. Markoe, J.P. Morgan's physician and close friend as well as a prominent surgeon. Although Dr. Markoe had not been married before,  his wife had previously married and divorced William Wetmore. The divorce proceedings and the alimony arrangements were decided by the New York Supreme Court and reported in the NY Times in 1890. Apparently Dr. Markoe's marriage to a divorcee with children was not considered scandalous enough to keep them out of the social pages. In addition to her previous children, they had only one child together - Annette.

In January, 1916,  a coming out party for Miss Annette Markoe was hosted by Mrs. C.C. Cuyler at Sherry's and reported in the New York Times. Annette and her family regularly appeared in the social pages of the New York Times, including for the event of Annette's 1918 marriage to William J. Schieffelin Jr., great grandson of William Vanderbilt, in St. George's Episcopal Church.  The newspaper article related how her father walked her down the aisle, described her dress in great detail, and listed all of the various attendants and their family ties. Two years later, her father, Dr. James Markoe, was shot to death in the same church by an escapee from the mental asylum who is thought to have mistaken him for J.P. Morgan Jr. (link to newspaper article here)

Annette Markoe Schieffelin and her husband had two children. The husband and both children preceded her in death, but when she died in 1997 at the age of 99, she left behind 8 grandchildren, 15 great grandchildren, and two great-great-grandchildren. Here's a link to her NY Times obituary.

I am curious as to what Annette's childhood house might have looked like. Whatever grand residence may have been there on West 55th Street near 5th Avenue was replaced by another building as early as 1920. Those midtown Manhattan residential areas have long since been replaced with commercial buildings and apartments, however the 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church (still standing), would have been visible from their house across the street back in 1906.

If you're interested in finding out more about the Morgans (and the Markoes by default), you may want to read Ron Chernow's House of Morgan. More recently, Jean Strouse has also written a book specifically about J.P. Morgan. Since Morgan died in 1913, there were very few people who knew him who were still alive, but she was able to interview Annette Markoe Schieffelin for the book.

For now, I must give up this story.  It's downright addictive. I started looking at the NY Times archives for C.C. Cuyler and Mrs. C.C. Cuyler and found more than enough interesting information for another post there, including C.C's death by a backwards-moving car in Biarritz in 1909 (his chauffeur was having trouble shifting from third gear to second.) Now I feel somewhat more justified in avoiding cars with stick shift.