People: Jun. 23, 1930

“Names make news.” Last week the following names made the following news:

Manhattan news-vendors hawked profitably last week a new greeting card: a rose-garlanded glider, piloted by a fat cherub with goggles, towed by a two-seater monoplane. In the distance, flying away, was a stork. The greeting: CONGRATULATIONS TO THE HAPPY LINDBERGHS. Price: 10c.

Suntanned, wearing a red rose in his lapel, swinging a walking stick, Thomas Alva Edison returned to his Llewellyn Park, N. J., home after wintering in Fort Myers, Fla. ; announced he would vote for Dry Senatorial Candidate Franklin W. Fort in New Jersey’s primary election, remained mum on his rubber experiments. Mrs. Edison was a member of the Women’s Committee backing Wet Candidate Dwight Whitney Morrow.

Ambassador Charles Gates Dawes, on his way to Chicago from London, stopped off at the Lawrenceville School, in New Jersey; wore cap & gown at commencement exercises (he is a trustee of the school) ; saw his adopted son, Dana McCutcheon Dawes, 18, graduated; lunched at “Dawes House,”* erected by him in memory of his son, Rufus, who was drowned in 1913.

Mrs. Flora C. Franks, widowed mother of Bobby Franks who was kidnaped May 22, 1924 and butchered by thrill-hunting Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, turned the first spadeful of earth for a three-story clubhouse memorial to her dead son in Chicago. The memorial, provided for in Franks Sr.’s will and abuilding under supervision of the Young Men’s Jewish Charities, will be equipped with gymnasium, swimming tank and complete athletic plant.

Declared Bernard Edward Sunny, Board Chairman of Illinois’ Bell Telephone Co., to the graduating class of Armour Institute of Technology at Chicago: “It’s far better for a young man starting out in the world to have an exaggerated ego than an inferiority complex!”

Alice Roosevelt Longworth won $20 from Senator Henry Justin Allen of Kansas in a bet that Senator David Aiken Reed, of Pennsylvania, wavering, would vote for the new tariff bill.

Jansci (“Jenny”) Dolly, half of the once great Dolly Sisters dancing team, went to Le Touquet for the weekend, stopped in at famed Casino de la Forét to watch baccarat gamblers, became engrossed, stayed three days, left the table with 6,944,000 francs ($268,205), nearly ruined the Casino bank. In February 1928 with her sister Rosika she won $850,000 at Cannes.

Aimee Semple McPherson, soul-saver, returned to the U. S. (via Paris) from a trip to the Holy Land, with Bibles, lamps, some Palestinian garments (to wear in the pulpit of her Angelus Temple Church of the Foursquare Gospel) and bright yellow hair (it was reddish when she left the U. S.). While she whirled away on a 200-mile week-end trip through the Catskills, U. S. Customs agents checked her luggage, levied $138 against her in duties and penalties for undeclared imports. Returning to Manhattan to find she had made Page One all over the U. S., Sister Aimee bemoaned: “I never dreamed . . .” etc. Asked by newshawks if she would pay, she frostily replied : “Oh yes, if the country needs money I’m always glad to chip in. But next time I come in, I’m going to declare everything, even if it’s worn to rags!” Some undeclared embroidered pajamas were for Daughter Roberta who remained in Ireland to visit Grandma Semple and to “visit our 30 missions in Africa and India.” Edward of Wales played cautious baccarat at Le Touquet for 10,000 francs a stake. His opponent was Mrs. James Cresson Parrish, Manhattan socialite. Soon she won 250,000 francs (about $10,000) from him, let him win it back. He beamed his delight.

Said Author Sir James Matthew Barrie (Auld Licht Idylls, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, A Kiss for Cinderella) upon being made a Freeman of his native Kirriemuir which he immortalized as “Thrums” in A Window in Thrums (1889): “I remember once being called upon in America to speak to a women’s college containing 900 girls, and I said I could not, but if they would come outside one at a time I would make 900 speeches to them.”

*The first “Dawes House” burned last year. The present one was completed last fall.