Embers of Childhood: Growing Up a Whitney

by Flora Miller Biddle

A Look into the Privileged World of the American Aristocracy of the Early Twentieth Century

Flora Miller Biddle was born a blue-blood. The granddaughter of the Whitney museum founder, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, her childhood played out in a sort of Wharton landscape as she was shielded from the woes of the world.
But money itself is not the source of happiness. Glimpses into the elegance of a Vanderbilt ball thrown by her great-grandparents and the yearly production of traveling from her childhood home on Long Island to their summer home in Aiken, South Carolina, are measured against memoires of strict governesses with stricter rules in a childhood separate from her parents, despite being in the same house, and the ever-present pressure to measure up in her studies and lessons. As Flora steps back in time to trace the origins of her family’s fortune and where it stands today, she takes a discerning look at how wealth and excess shaped her life, for better and for worse.

In this wonderfully evocative memoir, Flora Miller Biddle examines, critiques, and pays homage to the people and places of her childhood that shaped her life.

Genres: Biography Memoir, Nonfiction, Autobiography, Biography

320 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 4, 2019

Reviews

[Sandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this book up because of loved the paper used and how it looked. I did like reading this story but something was missing. Reading about a life that I would never experience was fascinating yet it lacked any real depth of character. I kept expecting something to be learned or just something and nothing happened. It was just okay.

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a special birds eye view into the life of Flora Whitney. A child born into American royalty in a time do different than the one we live in today. I enjoyed this book because it is so incredibly rare to get your hands on a book about anyone from that times childhood. We normally get the books about the adult Vanderbilt’s and the adult Whitney’s but never the perspective of a child. This is what set this book aside from all the others. We see that Flora and her brother grew up very incredibly sheltered to the point that they didn’t know there were wars being fought and civil atrocities happening everyday outside of their own home. It’s almost incredible how these children were raised in absolute ignorant bliss. It’s also a standout in how so many other people took care of someone’s children instead of the parents. In Flora Whitney’s case this was a huge portion of her feelings. She wanted to be close with her mother and father but all of the luxuries and travels drove a wedge between them. If you like reading about some of our social history this is a very good read. Not the most exciting and at times frustrating because of the disconnect from reality, but all in all a great read!

[Janilyn Kocher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always enjoyed reading about the Vanderbilt family and marveled at their Immense weath. Flora recounts her childhood, living and traveling at her family homes. The family tree provided In the back would have been better situated at the front since it was difficult to keep all the people straight. Halfway through, the writing became rather dull and I struggled to keep interested. Overall, it's a decent read. Thanks to Edelweiss for the advance read.

[Alison Ivey · Rating 2 out of 5]

The memoir conjures up a rarified life lived by the very rich “aristocracy” of America. Flora refers to herself as a princess. It’s a world of entitlement and abundance. Some of it was interesting but she has long passages of introspection that are tedious and repetitive.
Frustratingly, many of the things I wanted to know about were skimmed over or ignored. It probably sums up the author, more interested in herself than others and rather lacking in character.

[Whistler's Mom · Rating 3 out of 5]

But where did all the money go? And what do we do now?

As this author points out, those who live on inherited wealth have one thing in common - an ancestor who had the ability to amass a huge fortune and hold onto it long enough to pass it along to his heirs. Flora Whitney (the author's mother) was the oldest child of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and Henry Payne Whitney, so her inheritance came from both sides of her family. It still wasn't infinite.

Gertrude was the oldest great-grandchild of Cornelius Vanderbilt, a poor, uneducated man who made a vast fortune in shipping and then rails. Surprisingly, his oldest son was an even better businessman than "The Commodore" and he increased the family fortune significantly. Furthermore, the Vanderbilts adopted the English aristocratic custom of leaving the bulk of their fortunes to the oldest son. Younger children griped, but the fortune remained intact.

By the third generation, the Vanderbilts had gone from money-making to money-spending, building huge mansions and endowing charities. When more is going out that is coming in, even the grandest fortune eventually disappears. Gertrude was an heiress and her marriage to one of the Whitney family (oil and rails) meant that their three children grew up in great luxury.

Sadly, that marriage was a troubled one. Gertrude had her sculpting and her lovers. Henry had his sports and his lovers. As the author makes clear, their oldest daughter tried to create a more normal childhood for her children, but "normal" is relative. Flora Whitney and her husband (who had no money) lived together, although there was always the shadow of her devoted lovers.

She spent more time with her children than her mother had spent with her, but her interests were adult ones - hunting, drinking, cards, and parties. The children depended on governesses for maternal warmth and on various instructors (horse riding, hunting, swimming, boating) for the attention their father failed to give.

Fatally, they were raised to take their place in a world that would be gone by the time they reached adulthood. WWII changed everything and the seemingly endless Vanderbilt-Whitney money was largely gone. The author lived with her salary-drawing husband and her four children as a typical post-war house-wife. There were some perks attached to having relatives who still had money, but (as the author says dryly) HER descendants will have to earn their livings.

She's a very likable woman. A great debt of gratitude is owned to the writer-friend (mentioned in the acknowledgements) who persuaded her to put her book into chronological order. Without that suggestion, I suspect it would have turned out to be one of those lyrical, confusing "memolrs" which leave me tearing my hair out and wondering what's going on. It's hard enough to follow as it is, but it has enough structure to make it possible.

If you're an art lover, you'll enjoy the story of the founding of the Whitney Art Museum by the talented Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and how it was carried on by her daughter and granddaughter. I was most impressed by the author's stories of her life as a "normal" person and her shrewd assessment of how her childhood did and did not prepare her for the future.

Fortunes are still being made in America and eventually those fortunes will be passed on and (if history is anything to go on) frittered away by those who assume the family money will always be there. I once read of a man who was asked how he raised such great kids. "We never let them know we had any money." Maybe there's a clue there.

[Suzanne Garrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what I imagined

Flora Miller Biddle recounts the days of her childhood, the granddaughter of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, in a rambling, stream of consciousness style that is part memory, part therapy, and part apology. I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t this.

Detailing a childhood where she was virtually ignored by her parents (as they had been ignored by their parents), she recounts all of the various ways she felt she was found lacking, and all the various ways she tried to fit in and capture her parents attention. The closeness came as she grew older, but I think that’s the same for everyone.

While her branch of the Vanderbilt family tree wasn’t as wealthy as others, she did lead an extremely sheltered, and pampered life until she got married. On the family payroll were maids, nurses, governesses, laundry women, a riding instructor, cooks, maids, etc. There was the difference between the white and black servants, along with the unspoken racism of the south during the 1930s & ‘40’s. She makes an apology for not recognizing the discrimination, but she would not have known it as anything other than “that’s just how things are.”

Family activities centered around dove shooting and fly fishing, both things she became a unite accomplished at. Biddle then goes into another apology for ruthlessly taking the lives of innocent animals.

Once Biddle was in her teens, the family moved to New York to better help with the war effort, and the shy girl who’d been raised in rural Aiken, North Carolina was unceremoniously dropped into the bustle of New York City. She was such a misfit in that surrounding that the head of the girl’s school recommences that she be sent to a boarding school in the country where she would be in a more familiar setting. She describes the excitement of making her debut into society, and the disappointment when the dances stopped and boys found her too shy, too quiet, and too serious. She blames this on the way she was raised by British and French nannies and governesses, saying she still struggles with expressing her feelings.

Throughout this book, Biddle seems to be constantly apologizing; for the inherited wealth and the lifestyle that went with it, for not recognizing discrimination and segregation for what they were, for being involved in sporting events that PETA would not approve of, etc. It all makes the book somewhat of a chore to read.

Like I said, I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. The book might serve as a good secondary source for a research paper on what happened to lesser known branches of New York’s infamous 500 Club, but I would not recommend it for leisure reading.

[Murrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The tight magic circle of US royalty had such illustrious names as Vanderbilt. Miller Biddle was a child of these times. The rich were listed in the now defunct, one hopes, Blue Book. Yes, there really was one. The filthy rich four hundred of the BB, controlled not only upper rank institutions such as the Coming Out, but also business, the arts and sciences. The group expected to get first dibs into the best colleges, clubs and night clubs. The embers of Flora's childhood, bespeak every luxury but the ones children most need: the presence of loving parents. Parents of the rich have what they call obligations. The children like Flora, had nannies and governesses and gardeners and butlers and so on, but saw little of their involved parents. This attractive young woman absolutely adored her mother whose own mother, built the Whitney Art Gallery in New York and was a famous sculptor and society beauty herself. Young Flora was trained at home in the strict principals of decorum to instill the required system of manners and controls. How to walk, talk and conduct onself was not optional. It was not a cruel endeavor in their eyes because they knew naught else. The rich went about unaware of childrens' needs such as affectionate cuddling and communication on personal matters. Wealthy parents instilled in their offspring, that duty rose above personal comfort. They were not indulged, but rather, were led in the hard line educational agenda for a life of philanthropic "service". Even their camping and sport activities were part of the necessary social strata. This tale invites us to see through Flora's young eyes, her golden sphere, but with frank honesty in the innocence of a child who knew nothing about an ordinary citizan's lifestyle. Flora merely accepted without question all that was demanded of her. At the same time, she had doubts and unanswered questions that could not be spoken. When as a youth, she enters the college world, she is terrified by its expectations. We the reader outside, can walk with her into the wondrous world of the very, very rich but lacking and savor, through Flora, the homes, parties, recreations and relationships of those of the times. How the golden life of the very rich, all turns out for a young woman who lives it, is revealed in the end, and not all of it is golden. An unforgettable and sad journey.

[Andie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flora Miller Biddle was born to wealth. The granddaughter of the Whitney Museum founder, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, her childhood played out in a Whartonesque landscape between the horsey environs of Aiken, SC in the winter and her family’s “camp” in the Adirondacks and their cottage” in Newport in the summer. Wherever she resided she was shielded from the woes of the world.

But money itself is not the source of happiness. Glimpses into the elegance of a Vanderbilt ball thrown by her great-grandparents and the yearly production of traveling from her childhood home on Long Island to their summer home in Aiken, South Carolina in their private railway car, are measured against memoires of strict governesses with stricter rules in a childhood separate from her parents, despite being in the same house, and the ever-present pressure to measure up in both her studies and lessons in riding, music and other skills deemed essential for a young woman of her class. As Flora steps back in time to trace the origins of her family’s fortune and where it stands today, she takes a discerning look at how wealth and excess shaped her life, for better and for worse. This is a fascinating look at a world that has now disappeared.

[Lindsay Heller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was entertaining, but in a light way. I love learning how people have lived and I have a fascination with the Vanderbilts, the clan to which Gertrude Whitney belonged before her marriage. This is two generations removed from Gertrude's time in the Gilded Age but I honestly didn't know anything about her daughter Flora or Flora's daughter... Flora (I always wondered why Lorelai Gilmore thought she was doing something interesting by naming her daughter after herself after leaving the wealthy enclave of her youth because rich people do this ALL THE TIME, yes even the women). I've read a couple contemporary memoirs from descendants of once grand families, Dead End Gene Pool, The Astor Orphan, and both of those were dedicated to telling us how nuts their families are. That is not what Biddle was doing here. It was fond memories, which is great. But sometimes I'd rather get the juice.

[MaryAnn Lockey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is No One Happy?

A little drab, I was hoping for more. What would it be like to spend endless days vacationing, playing canasta, entertaining, and fishing? knowing this wasn't a vacation, but your life? Flora feels like she has been ignored by parents but yet talks of hunting and other special trips her parents took her and her alone on. This is more attention than I or many of my peers ever received. However this is her perception and it's valid. As she talks of time passing I found her relatable.

[Marilyn Boyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

The ending has me floored.
I am a bit intrigued by these old American families and their customs, so enjoyed Biddle’s perspective on her upbringing.
She is candid to a flaw which is not to say she is always self aware, but this had great insight into an unusual (for most of us) childhood. Her ambiguity was refreshing.
I liked the jump cutting of times . They didn’t always illuminate events and their ramifications, but they gave a greater insight into the author. We don’t know everything about her life, but enough to intrigue us.

[Marna Tisdel]

Flora Miller Biddle grew up as a member of Whitney and Vanderbilt families. She spent him winters on a polo compound in Aiken, South Carolina and her summers on a family comping in the Adirondacks. She also spent time at family homes in New York, Long Island, and France. She grew up to raise her own children in very comfortable, but less expansive circumstances. She was the chairman of the board of th Whitney Museum of Modern Art.

[Merrikay Shade · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have read books about the Vanderbilts before and enjoyed them. I have been to the Breakers, and I thought this sounded intriguing. However, it seemed dis jointed and didn’t tie up where she and her siblings are now. It was so filled with their camp descriptions that it was hard to slog through.

[Vicki Bishop · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I've always been fascinated by these families. This gave real incite into it their real lives.

[Toni Aucoin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can't feel too sorry for her life

[Barbara · Rating 2 out of 5]

As hard as she tries to disavow her privileged upbringing, it is impossible although it is acknowledged throughout.

[Jane Coward · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting life...

Having lived in Aiken, SC at one time, I was aware of Joye Cottage and other homes and stables occupied in times past (mostly) by the East Coast elite. This book was somewhat interesting to me because of that, but I found her life to be too rigid and boring for me. It was a difficult one to live and her parents expectations were difficult for her to live up too. She never seems quite happy now nor in her past.

[darlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoy reading Growing up a Whitney. Seems like a pleasure and sometimes a hard world to grow and find your own place. That kind of money is hard to understand. I enjoyed learning how they traveled ly dea;and their family homes. I sometimes wonder how they are equipped to really deal with the world. Flora seem like a nice and caring person.

[Loraine · Rating 3 out of 5]

After a bumpy start the story picked up momentum. It is Interesting to read about the “diamonds and manure” set. The end is unsatisfying - too abrupt. Although the story is about Flora and her childhood, her adulthood could have been briefly included,

[Deborah Necessary · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great selection of memories of one of America's blue bloods, life that most of us will never know!

Merged review:

Flora Miller Bibble, granddaughter of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, grew up in a world we can only imagine.

[Candy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Biddle's childhood is hard to even imagine. I thought she did a good job recalling it and putting it into perspective.

[Dianne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just didn't hold my attention. Skimmed thru much of it.

[Nelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a interesting glimpse into the childhood of a member of this country's wealthy elite (her grandmother was a Vanderbilt), who grew up in the 1920's and 1930's.