Person Record
Images
Metadata
Name |
Augustine Van Wickle Shaw Toland |
Born |
1898 |
Father |
Augustus Stout Van Wickle |
Mother |
Bessie Pardee Van Wickle McKee |
Spouse |
Quincy Adams Shaw, Robert Tolland |
Children |
Augustine Pardee Shaw Tolland Marjorie Shaw Jeffries |
Deceased Date |
1977 |
Notes |
Augustine's parents, Bessie and Augustus S. Van Wickle purchased the Blithewold estate in 1894 as a 'Country Home', and moved there in 1896. Augustine Van Wickle was born in November 10,1898 in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, the second daughter of Bessie Pardee Van Wickle and Augustus Stout Van Wickle. Augustine's father had been killed in a skeet-shooting accident five months earlier, and her only sibling, Marjorie, was fifteen years older. In 1901, Augustine's mother, Bessie, married William Leander McKee and the family moved to Boston where Mr. McKee had a successful leather manufacturing business. Augustine adored William McKee, the only father she knew. She was a very beautiful, high spirited child who charmed everyone - family, friends and servants alike, and Bessie and Will indulged and spoiled her. As a child she traveled extensively with her parents, her first big trip being on their 174' steam yacht Marjorie to the Caribbean when she was just one year old. Augustine had a favorite doll named May Blossom, who was "saved from the fire" when the first Blithewold burned in 1906. Family friend, Estelle Clements, made beautiful clothes for the doll, a whole wardrobe of coats, hats, dresses, petticoats, even handkerchiefs, some of which are preserved as part of Blithewold's textile collection. By 1911, at only 13 years old, Augustine was beginning to reveal her love of parties and dancing which was to ease her through a golden, youthful decade: "The Herreshoff boys, and Carl Rockwell and the Thurbers came and we danced and had lots of fun and stayed up until after eleven o'clock" she wrote to Estelle Clements in December of that year. By the time she was 20 years old she was a stunningly beautiful young woman. In 1918 she became engaged to Quincy Adams Shaw, the only son of a socially prominent Boston family. When they married the following year, Estelle Clements wrote "Augustine's expression as she turned down the aisle, exalted with happiness, was so wonderful that people caught their breath as at the sight of something not of this world." Augustine and Quincy had two daughters, Dee and Marjorie Shaw, who grew up spending every summer at Blithewold. They were Bessie's only grandchildren. Augustine divorced Quincy in 1936, and the following year she married Robert Toland from Philadelphia. Augustine was a fine athlete all her life and played tennis until the age of 75. She loved adventure and taught her daughters to skate, sail, swim, and horseback ride. At home she passed on her love of books, gardening, and knitting. She was very active in her church, and was a member of the Auxiliary of the Philadelphia Episcopal Hospital. Augustine died in 1977 at the age of 78, at her home in Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania. Her second daughter, Marjorie Shaw Jeffries, maintains a close relationship with Blithewold, generously sharing her memories and donating family photographs, letters, and journals to the Blithewold Archives. |
