NORWAY: An Ordinary Girl

The wedding was to be a small one, in a country church, before a congregation of rural neighbors. But not since the Grace Kelly nuptials has there been such an international fooster as last week swirled about a wedding in the Norwegian town of Sogne (pop. 4,000). While 150 newsmen and photographers trampled gardens and graves, while 5,000 curious visitors crowded close about the church in a drenching rain, tall, bespectacled Steven Rockefeller, 23, son of the Governor of New York and scion of one of the world’s greatest fortunes, was joined in marriage to blonde, buxom Anne-Marie Rasmussen, 21, the daughter of a retired grocer and onetime housemaid in the 27-room triplex Manhattan apartment of the Rockefeller family.

Private Occasion. Serious-minded Steven and his Anne-Marie seemed genuinely stunned at the world response to their wedding. At first they were glad to interrupt their jaunts on Steven’s motorcycle and chat with the trickle of arriving newsmen. Then their eyes glazed at the continual flaring of flashbulbs, the eager and often idiotic questions of a growing flood of newsmen and newswomen.

Holding Anne-Marie’s hand and occasionally putting a comforting arm about, her shoulder, Steven explained almost plaintively to newsmen his reasons for allowing only five reporters at the ceremony itself: “For many of you, this is merely another job. Anne-Marie and I have to live for the rest of our lives on the memory of what goes on in this church. For us it is a very private occasion and a religious one. I hope you will respect our feelings in this.”

Already things had threatened to get out of hand. The Norwegian press snorted at U.S. rhapsodies about the “Cinderella” marriage, testily pointed out that Anne-Marie’s brief stint as a U.S. housemaid (one year) was common European practice for well-brought-up girls, who often serve au pair* in a foreign country. Anne-Marie should not even be called a poor girl, protested one paper, because “everybody is poor in comparison with the Rockefellers.”

The desperate mayor of Sogne reinforced his police force (one man) with 40 others from the nearby city of Kristiansand, and the Sogne militia was alerted for the first time since the war. A battle of organists erupted briefly in the Lutheran church, with the aged local man reportedly being elbowed aside for a more accomplished player from Kristiansand. Back in the States, reporters tracked down Anne-Marie’s uncle, Andrew Swenson. at whose Bronx home she stayed when she first came to the U.S. in 1956. A New York City mounted policeman. Uncle Andrew took a melancholy stance beside his horse and confessed he had not been invited to the wedding.

Swedish Dress. Earlier in the week. Rockefellers rained from the sky on Norway. The first to come was Steven’s mother, Mary Todhunter Clark Rockefeller, who embraced Anne-Marie and described her to reporters as “wonderful.” Next came Steven’s brothers: Michael, a student at Harvard, and Credit Analyst Rodman and his wife Barbara, who were the only passengers on the chartered KLM plane that brought them from New York. At week’s end Governor Nelson Rockefeller flew in with the rest of the family: Steven’s two sisters, Mary. 21, Michael’s twin and a student at Vassar, and Ann, 25, the wife of Episcopal Clergyman Robert L. Pierson. None of Steven’s 17 first cousins (the children of Laurance, Winthrop, Abby, John D. III and David Rockefeller) made the trip.*

Thousands of Norwegians and scores of newsmen greeted Governor Rockefeller at Kristiansand airport. Three photographers were knocked down and trampled, and a flying wedge of Rockefellers protected Anne-Marie from being crushed. Rocky embraced Anne-Marie and called her a “wonderful and intelligent girl.” He shook hands with her leathery father, Kristian Rasmussen, 67, who was also being jostled, and asked Anne-Marie to tell him in Norwegian that he was a “good sport.” One of Steven’s sisters exclaimed at seeing Anne-Marie’s brightly embroidered blouse and dirndl skirt: “What a pretty dress! Is it Swedish?” Answered Norwegian Anne-Marie dazedly: “Why should I be wearing a Swedish dress?”

By now the Rasmussen family, used to the simple life, was completely storm-tossed by the invasion. Anne-Marie’s mother stayed mostly at home and watched her flower beds get trampled. Only the importation by the Rockefellers of four publicity men from the U.S. (one of whom promised to signal from the front door of the church when Anne-Marie said her jo) enabled the newsmen to get their stories while ensuring a little privacy to the participants.

It rained on the wedding day, but, as every sentimental newsman reported, the instant Steven and pale but happy Anne-Marie were joined in marriage, the sun began to shine. Bride and groom came to the church steps for another round of news pictures. When Governor Rockefeller was asked by photographers to kiss the bride, he answered, “This is Anne-Marie’s and Steve’s day, not mine,” and stepped back into the church. Pastor Olav Gautestad spread his benison even over the unflagging newsmen and photographers. It was encouraging, he said, that in this day, when “most youths have film stars of doubtful moral qualities as their ideals, the world press has paid tribute to an ordinary girl—a girl who has taken pride in being industrious, reliable and faithful.”

*Au pair originally meant the rendering of service without money payment a system under which young European girls agree to work for room and board in another country to learn the language. Such girls are seldom treated as ordinary domestics, usually eat and travel with the family they visit. Anne-Marie reportedly earned $100 a month with the Rockefellers.

*One of them, John D. IV”, 22, was discovered last week in Tokyo living in an $11.80-a-month room with a matted floor for a bed at Japan’s International Christian University. Said he: “This is the life. It couldn’t be better.”