Engaged Alicia Patterson, aviatrix, daughter of Co-Publisher Joseph Medill Patterson of the Chicago Tribune and New York Daily News, divorced wife of James Simpson Jr., son of Marshall Field & Co.'s board chairman; and Joseph W. Brooks, Manhattan stockbroker, son of the late Belvidere Brooks, onetime vice president and general manager of Western Union Telegraph Co. The engagement became known when, at South Bend, Ind., Mr. Brooks cracked up a plane belonging to Miss Patterson, who is in Europe.
Appointed. David 0. Selznick, 28, resigned vice president of Paramount Pictures (TiME, Aug. 3); to be executive vice president in charge of production of RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. which plans to merge studio facilities with RKO Pathe, Inc. As vice president of RKO Pathe, Mr. Selznick will be in charge of consummating the merger.
Left, By the late Thomas Alva Edison: an estate estimated at $14,000,000; to his six children (save for $28,000 to three old employes). The children of his first marriage (to Mary G. Stilwell, died 1884) are Mrs. Marion Estelle Edison Oser of Norwalk. Conn., relict of a German officer; Thomas Alva Edison Jr., consulting engineer to Edison industries; William Leslie Edison, 53, inventor, of Wilmington, Del. The children of Mrs. Mina Miller Edison, who is mentioned in the will as having been "adequately provided for," are Charles Edison, 41, president of Thomas A. Edison, Inc.; Mrs. John Eyre Sloane of Llewellyn Park, N. J.; and Theodore M. Edison. 35, research chief in his father's interests. Closest to the great inventor, both in life and in business, were the two youngest sons. To them is willed in equal shares the capital stock of Thomas A. Edison Inc.; the Edison Laboratory; all the Edison lands (but Mrs. Edison was previously given the home in Llewellyn Park); stock in Edison Cement Corp. and an equal share with the four others in a trust fund composed of U. S., railroad and mortgage bonds; also the residue of the estate, with power to distribute it among their brothers & sisters as they wish. As executors the two youngest sons may sell or mortgage any part of the estate and take full charge of the Edison industries. In a codicil to the will, the executors are given broad powers in distributing debenture notes of Edison Cement Corp., estimated at $1,070,000, as follows: 5% each to the four eldest, 40% each to themselves, Charles and Theodore Edison.
Soon as the will was filed, Son William L. Edison, who lives modestly in Wilmington tinkering electrical inventions, announced he would contest the codicil on the grounds that his brother Charles and the stepmother had brought undue influence to bear. Though he hinted that he would "not be alone" in the suit, he received no public promises of support from the family. Mrs. Oser called the codicil "unfair."'
Died. Arthur James ("Emperor") Cook, 46, general secretary of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, longtime left wing Labor leader, a prime inciter of the British general strike of 1926; after an operation for a glandular swelling of the neck; in London.
Died. Henry Varnum Poor, 52, Manhattan lawyer, board chairman of Poor's Publishing Co. (Poor's Manuals: finance reference books) ; by accident while cleaning a shotgun; at Andover, Maine.