(4 of 6)
Cincinnati is one of those rare cities in which a society editor is the social tsarina —Marion Devereux, a spry, birdlike, fiftyish spinster who inherited from her mother the society editorship of the polite. McLean-owned Enquirer* No party is held without her consultation months in advance as to date. An event scheduled against her advice is doomed to obscurity. Mothers and daughters may object to her domination, but not in her presence. For Editrix Devereux has at her command such social barbs as "She appeared encased in that striking green dress which has graced so many previous occasions." Last week came a climax in Miss Dev- ereux's professional life. The daughter of the Enquirer's Editor William F. Wiley —her boss's daughter—was being married. Now her page, already a marvel of descriptive prose, must outdo itself. Marion Devereux rose splendidly to the occasion. For two-and-one-half columns she rhapsodized. Excerpts: "Last night the marriage of Miss Margaret Wiley and Mr. Campbell Dinsmore was an event of wide importance both for its social interest and owing to the fact that the fathers of both bride and groom are nationally known, Mr. William Foust Wiley as a publicist and publisher, a citizen of acknowledged judgment and influence, and Mr. Frank Furbus Dinsmore as a lawyer of high repute and marked ability. . . . "Into the hush of this ambient twilight came the bridal procession, the feathery green of tender laurel that wreathed choir stalls, pulpit and rood screen, and the curving fronds of a few giant palms massed in the chancel, pointing the way to the altar where the snowy chalices of tall Easter lilies were sentineled by blazing candelabra, seven-branched. . . . "Very pretty with lovely light brown hair and gray-blue eyes, the bride's youthfulness suddenly seemed to take on a certain queenliness as she swept from end to end of this lane of light. Her gown of soft white crinkly crepe was the essence of simplicity and therefore the perfection of chic. . . . "Held closely to her well-poised head, her fair hair visible through its delicate mesh, this airy, unsubstantial fabric [the veil] drifted in long, broad folds for yards behind her, as fragile as a mist, enmeshing her tall figure, concealing her face, and, in its upturned brim that circled her shapely head, forming the semblance of a halo, that gave her the air of one of the saints or angels that, in color, looked down from the gorgeous memorial windows on every hand. . . ." Actually the two-and-one-half columns showed a degree of restraint. Miss Devereux has been known to devote four columns to a wedding or ball, 16 columns to a day's social news. To her, debutantes are "rosebuds," a dining table is "the central mahogany," a woman's dress is a "toilet." Her copy is sacred. When a cotillion was being formed four years ago no editor touched pencil to the information that it was an organization of "young celibrates" for whom tailcoats would be "de Rigeuer." Some society editors in other cities are as remarkable if not so powerful as Marion Devereux: Boston had until last winter a tsar to match Tsarina Devereux. He was Charles Elmer ("Charlie") Alexander, past 60, of the Transcript, to whose office generations of Sewing Circle and Vincent Club girls beat a path, bearing portraits