The third Emily Post post -- Garbo

Emily Post, the etiquette expert,  is sometimes confused with breakfast-cereal empress Marjorie Merriweather Post. Ninety years ago, the two women were celebrities of roughly equal wattage. In the last few decades Emily has been better-known. However,  during a previous President's time in office there was a surge of interest in Marjorie when the limelight once again illuminated her former Florida estate Mar-a-Lago.

Marjorie Post was an heiress to an enormous fortune. She  inherited her family's company, General Mills (maker of Post Toasties and many more modern products) plus properties and liquid assets.

 

 

 

Emily Post, like Marjorie Post,  was an heiress (though one with more modest assets) through her mother's side of the family, which had a coal empire. She married into the Post name; her husband (later her ex-husband) was Marjorie Post's 21st cousin. Edwin Post, when he wasn't chasing chorus girls, strained the couple's finances with stock speculation and paying off blackmailers, and Emily divorced Edwin and began to earn her own money through writing. Having great contacts through family wealth made her much luckier than many women who found themselves in the same situation. 

While Marjorie Post is associated with Mar-a-Lago, Emily Post also has architecture connections. Her father designed some very large structures, including this one in Quebec.

 

 

There are two cottages associated with Emily Post. One is named after her, and it's in Tuxedo Park, New York, where architect Bruce Price, Emily's father, also built a cottage for himself and for Emily's mother. 

The other cottage, in Martha's Vineyard, is where Emily Post seems to have spent more of her time, and it was famous for its fabulous garden spaces. 

Here's a random selection from an early edition of Emily Post's book Etiquette:

Soup at luncheon, or at a wedding breakfast or at a ball supper, is never served in soup plates but in two-handled cups and is eaten with a teaspoon or a bouillon spoon.

I knew why I was looking up "bouillon spoon" but I didn't know why others were, then found out it was related to "Downton Abbey."

Credits: 

This blog about Palm Beach is where I found the captioned image of Marjorie Post.

I found the photo of Emily Post here.