High Society

High Society



I never really felt pretty, bright or socially adept. - Grace In the late 1920s, the Hahnemann Medical College, at the corner of Broad and Vine Streets in Philadelphia, was one of the largest private hospitals in the United States. Unusual luxuries characterized the private rooms: a telephone and radio were installed at every bedside; nurses could be summoned and addressed by call-buttons and two-way speakers; and high-speed elevators whisked visitors to the wards. Although Hahnemann accepted emergency cases from every socioeconomic class, it catered, unofficially but famously, to the demands of the rich from the counties of eastern Pennsylvania. Early in the morning of Tuesday, November 12, 1929, John B. Kelly escorted his wife, Margaret Majer Kelly, to Hahnemann, where, after an unexceptional labor, she bore her third child and second daughter. On December 1, the Kellys took the baby to St. Bridget’s Roman Catholic Church, a three-minute, half-mile drive from their home in the upscale neighborhood of Philadelphia known as East Falls. The infant was baptized Grace Patricia, in memory of an aunt who had died young, and (so Grace Kelly believed) “because I was Tuesday’s child” - who, according to Mother Goose, was “full of grace.”

On the banks of the Schuylkill River, East Falls has always been a quiet residential neighborhood, known for its easy commute to downtown Philadelphia. The most respected, established families - Protestants with “old money” like the Drexels, Biddles, Clarks, Cadwaladers and WidenersÑlived across the river, in western suburbs along the ?so-?called Main Line, in eighteen communities (among them, Overbrook, Merion, Wynnewood, Ardmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Rosemont and Radnor). The river was very like a social dividing line.

But membership in Philadelphia’s elite depended more on history than geography: one was “in society” only if a family could be traced back to colonial times, before the War of Independence. The class distinctions were so immutable that the Kellys knew they would never be accepted into high society, no matter the extent of their wealth. The Kellys were Irish, Roman Catholic and Democrats; Philadelphia society was English, Episcopalian and Republican. “We could have been members of the social register - the so-called Four Hundred - if we’d wanted to,” Grace Kelly’s mother said. “But we had other things to do.” If she really believed this, she was astonishingly naive. Her husband knew otherwise; instead, he set out to “do well” in business, athletics and politics.

Excerpted from High Society by Donald Spoto Copyright © 2009 by Donald Spoto. Excerpted by permission of Harmony, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.