Summer Reading: 1912: County Witnesses Royal Wedding (1)

Written in 1997, this story is part of my “Over the Hill” series.

The County Witnesses Peninsula’s Royal Wedding

Dodging the pressing crowd anxious to witness a royal 1912 Peninsula wedding, 25-year-old Hillsborough heiress Jennie Adeline Crocker rushed into the back door of San Mateo’s St. Matthews Episcopal Church. Despite the calculated choice of a weekday ceremony, Jennie had to be shielded from hundreds of uninvited guests milling around the church at Baldwin Avenue and El Camino Real.

Waiting in the church was the handsome 35-year-old groom: tennis star, socialite and New York attorney Malcolm Douglas Whitman, himself the possessor of a vast estate.

There to witness the marriage of California’s richest heiress were 300 of the most fashionably dressed members of the smart set, wedding guests from New York, San Francisco and the Peninsula.

Granddaughter of Charles Crocker–one of the Big Four, who had personally supervised the laying of rails for the Central Pacific Railroad–Jennie Crocker was born a princess. Rich and pampered, she was third-generation wealthy, with the rough edges smoothed out.

(Next Part 2)