Meeting a Member of the Vanderbilt Family

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My strange landlady in Columbus, Georgia

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A Hundred Year Story, Part 44
By Elton Camp An encounter with a member of the Vanderbilt family The one extravagant story of Mrs. Smith’s that proved to be factual concerned her niece who was married to one of the millionaire Vanderbilts. I thought it was true because her nieces from Opelika backed it up. In addition, I often heard her talking to Mrs. Vanderbilt over the phone. The only phone in the house was in the common area, an open public spot. Hard of hearing, Mrs. Smith talked very loud. At length, the Vanderbilts drove from California to visit. All was exactly as she’d stated. His name was Donald Vanderbilt, but rather than a snob as I’d anticipated, he was a pleasant, friendly person. His appearance was unimpressive. Candor demands this description: short, skinny, bald, and glasses. “I usually introduce myself as Mr. Donald,” he explained. “If people hear the name Vanderbilt, they fawn all over me. Some even try to charge me more for things. I don’t like being cheated.” I acted unimpressed and didn’t call him anything, so we got along fine for the few days of their visit. Mrs. Vanderbilt was very kind and gracious. Since I was a mere renter, she’d have been fully justified to ignore me, but she went out of her way to chat amiably. “Aunt Estelle wants to will me things from the house, but all I want are a few personal items, such as the pictures she painted,” she volunteered. Their luxury car, quality clothes, and elegant jewelry testified to their wealth, but neither of them was pretentious. They lived in an upscale neighborhood at 1025 Canyon View Drive in Laguna Beach, California. On two occasions, Mrs. Smith sent them $10,000, a significant sum in those days, to keep so it wouldn’t be taxed at her death. Estate taxes were oppressive at that time and started at a fairly low level. “If I need it, you can send it back to me. Keep it in California. You can get more interest there than I can here,” she insisted. I’m sure her two Collins nieces in Opelika would’ve been furious if they’d known what she did. They had greedy eyes on her assets. Another reason she sent away the money that she had trouble finding enough banks to keep all her funds. The F.D.I.C. insured deposits only up to $10,000 per account. Not as many banks operated in those days. An amusing incident occurred when

Mrs. Smith reached the maximum on all her current banks. She went to another bank to start a new account. She was shabbily dressed as was her custom. “I want to open an account,” she informed the lady at the desk in the lobby. From her disheveled appearance, the employee jumped to the conclusion that she was there in an attempt to borrow money. “Oh, is that so?” she responded condescendingly. “Have a seat over there and we’ll get to you when we have time.” Mrs. Smith seated herself on a couch in the indicated direction. Time passed with no attention being paid to her. When she realized that she was being deliberately snubbed, she got up in a huff and started toward the exit. “I’ve never been treated like this in my life,” she said with a loud voice. A vice president walked into the lobby at that point and recognized her. He rushed over to see what was wrong. “Miss Estelle, where are you going? Did something happen to make you mad?” he asked with concern. “I came here to start an account, but apparently the bank doesn’t want my money,” she exclaimed with irritation. “So, I’m going somewhere else.” After a stern rebuke of the offending employee, the man succeeding in mollifying her so that she made the deposit. Religious belief played a large part in Mrs. Smith’s life, although she seldom attended church. At night she often prayed loudly and repeated the same things over and over. She confined her prayer to the Josephine Room, but her voice was audible over most of the lower floor. I could understand every word. “Why do you keep me here? I want to go be with my family. Please take me.” She repeated similar sentiments in a pitiful, begging voice. Her prayers never dealt with any other matters than her desire to die. It was lugubrious to hear her pray night after night like that. I tried not to listen as prayer is supposed to be personal. Perhaps she didn’t realize how her voice carried. I couldn’t keep from hearing it. Her favorite verse from the Bible was “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” It was clear that she expected to live in a mansion in heaven even as she was already doing on earth. She stumbled onto a verse in James that says, “You are but a mist that appears for a while and disappears.” It puzzled her enough that she asked me about it. I attempted to explain the truth about death and resurrection, but she was so indoctrinated by her upbringing that she wasn’t open to a new understanding. No matter how much I reasoned with her, she came right back to the belief that she’d be immediately transported to heaven at her death. She was a long-time member of the St. Paul United Methodist Church on Wildwood Avenue, which was intended for rich people, but she attended only rarely, often near Easter. The large, brick building had a most unusual feature. “Drive by my church and I’ll show you something interesting,” she said one day when I was taking her

to the supermarket. We cut off the usual route and circled the building. “Look at that,” she said with a smirk when we passed the left side. She pointed to a huge stained glass window with images of angels, animals, cherubs, and Jesus sitting in the center with a child on his lap. Mrs. Smith explained that a wealthy family had donated the costly window on the condition that their own child must be depicted as sitting on the lap of “Jesus.” There sat an image of their surly-looking brat starring out toward onlookers. It was foolish enough to become a matter of ridicule even among the religionists. “Can you imagine anybody doing that?” she asked with disgust.

St. Paul United Methodist Church The minister visited only when she failed to submit a pledge or keep it up. The emphasis of his visit was on money, not her lack of attendance or her spiritual welfare. “Miss Estelle, I see you didn’t turn in your pledge card this year,” he complained. I could hear them chatting in the parlor which adjoined my room. When his visits failed to produce the desired funds, he quit coming. As far as I know he didn’t show up the last two years I lived there. I finally concluded that the untruths she continually told were a manifestation of living in a fantasy world and were “real” to her. She told the most awful things about people who came to the house, supposedly with the pretense of renting a room. According to her twisted version, they had other motives. Usually, they wanted to attack her or to rob her. She doted on how she managed to outwit them by her cunning. “I have to ask you to keep your voice down. I have a policeman living here and he sleeps days,” she claimed to have told a man who was about to rob her. In another story, she claimed to have shown her house to a couple who said, “Well, it’s not nearly as nice as what we’re accustomed to, but we can make do with it for a while.” “I told them that I didn’t believe they’d be happy here and sent them down the street to Mrs. Brown’s house with the assurance that it’d be more in keeping with their status in life.” She had pointed out the house many times. It was a dilapidated two-story house that wasn’t fit for inhabitation. She intended to insult them. It was a funny story, but I doubt it ever occurred.

At first I didn’t realize none of the entertaining stories were true, but over the years I learned better. Often, I was present and heard everything when potential tenants visited. Many of them didn’t like what she had available and told her so in no uncertain terms. Others would agree to rent a room to get her to stop exerting pressure, but then never return. When that happened she’d make up some wild tale as to why she refused to rent to them. Never, to my knowing, did she refuse any tenant. Sometimes I was present when her two nieces from Opelika came to visit. She began to turn to me to confirm the truthfulness of her experiences. That’s one reason I decided she was fantasizing. She had to know that I knew what she said wasn’t true. I managed to remain noncommittal. More than once, her nieces told me, out of her hearing, “Aunt Estelle’s an actress.” An especially deplorable practice was her attacks, often in a vicious manner, on renters who moved elsewhere. As I expected, that also applied to me. After I moved back to Alabama, she told her nieces that I’d carried away her small stack of Confederate money. They sent me a nasty letter about it. “Thank you for taking care of Aunt Estelle’s Confederate money,” it stated. “There’s no need for you to be bothered with it any more. Send it back and we’ll take care of it.” They had to know that her accusation was consistent with her being a pathological liar. I immediately picked up the phone and called them. They hadn’t expected that and were taken aback. “I got your letter. If I have her Confederate money, I wouldn’t be taking care of it. I would have stolen it. I know exactly what she did with it,” I said with a tone of mild anger, but with a pretense of helpfulness. I informed them that she’d given it to one of her Allen nephews who lived in Atlanta on Ponce de Leon Avenue, one of the richest residential sections. When I told them that, they immediately recognized that it was true. She intended to hide from them that she had given it to somebody else, never dreaming that they’d contact me. The Collins sisters had an intense desire to get everything she had. They immediately began to apologize for their letter. They hoped I hadn’t taken it in the wrong way. I took it exactly as they intended. If I’d wanted to steal something from the house, it certainly wouldn’t have been worthless Confederate money. She owned many valuable antiques, some of them small enough to be easily portable. In an hour, I could’ve loaded thousands of dollars worth of loot into my car trunk if I’d been so inclined. Despite her shortcomings, Mrs. Smith was extraordinarily nice to me. She regularly fixed me breakfast and supper although that wasn’t in the rental agreement. I learned that she had, for years, picked out one renter for such privileged attention. Yet, a dark side to her marred her generosity. I overheard her tell her nieces that I practically begged her to cook for me. That was a complete lie. I’d greatly have preferred to eat elsewhere, but as Mrs. Mowen once

told her, she forced it on me. The only way to keep her from doing it would’ve been to move. A place in easy walking distance, called Linwood Lunchroom, featured meat and three vegetables for 65 cents. The place also fixed an extraordinary hamburger steak with gravy and cooked onions for $1.25. That was where I wanted to eat, but didn’t often get to. Looking back, I should’ve found other accommodations as soon as I realized what she was like. I knew it would hurt her feelings if I did, so I stuck it out. Of course it benefited me in that I could live really inexpensively. With the low cost of living, it was easy to afford the significant expense at Peabody College in Nashville where I was working on a master’s degree in biology. The fifth year at Columbus, I firmly refused to accept any more food from her and managed to make it stick. I was then living in the upstairs apartment so that it was easier to avoid her. Prior to that, she had a meal ready when I got in from work and if I didn’t show up, got very offended. At the same time that she fed me free, she made the circuit of the grocery stores to buy only the bargains. The clerks hated to see her since the items she purchased were “loss leaders” to get people into the store. Typically, newspaper advertisements merely stated the prices of the items, but listed no conditions. In the store might be signs that set limits or required a minimum purchase. “I saw your ad in the paper, not in the store,” she insisted. “You have to sell it like you advertised.” Actually, she was right. The stores engaged in deceptive advertisement, a violation of law. They always gave in to her demands, although reluctantly. One manager initially refused, but she got louder and louder until he caved. The stores could’ve changed their advertisements to head her off, but it was their intent to deceive. The trick usually worked. Most shoppers wouldn’t stand up to them like she did. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

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