Deirdre and Patrick

Preston Sturges was born Edmund Preston Biden on August 29, 1898, in Chicago, Illinois. He was to become (long after the subject of this blog) the Hollywood director of zany comedies such as “The Lady Eve” and “The Palm Beach Story” among others. Ursini (9) wrote, “ Preston Sturges was and remains to this day baffling phenomenon. “ Preston Sturges died at the age of 60 on August 6, 1959 in New York City. Oddly his children at his death were very close to the ages of Deirdre and Patrick at their death. Ursini (21) wrote that the tragedy of Preston Sturges in his finale was the “fact that he ended his life out of work and out of the mainstream of artistic and financial success.” This is the close that sounds similar to the close of Isadora Duncan’s life thirty-two years before.

His mother was Mary Dempsey (1871-1931) and his father was Edmund C. Biden. Mary Dempsey was also know in her life as Mrs. Solomon Sturges, Mary Desti, Mary d’Este Sturges, Mary Desti Dempsey, Mary D’Esti Sturges, Mary Desti Sturges, and Soror Virakam. It seems that no one paid attention to the order of her four marriages and the names of her ex-husbands appear in various orders. For the purpose of this blog, I will use the name that Mary used when she wrote her Duncan biography and this was Mary Desti.

In Preston Sturges on Preston Sturges (1990), the author describes how his mother got involved with Aleister Crowley. “Mother,” he wrote, “never did anything by halves” (Sturges, Sturges 75). Mary evolved in the environments in which she found her self or into which she inserted herself. Mary “studied“ life so that she was able to quote from the Koran, from the dialogues of Buddha, and from the writings of Confucius. She retold the stories of Greek and Norse gods and demigods (Sturges, Sturges 75). She was surely inspired by the many ideas floating around Europe at the time and was influenced by the various individuals that she knew which for many years included the inner circle of Isadora Duncan.

Sturges wrote that even with all these inspirations, his mother managed to find “black Magic.”  Sturges was referring to the strong influence that Aleister Crowley was able to use on his mother. Sturges bemoans the fact that his mother is mentioned by her true name or under an alias (Soror Virekam) in all books, blogs and writings about Crowley. Indeed, more material about Mary Desti is available in the goggling of Aleister Crowley than in her own search. Mary was the second of Aleister Crowley’s Scarlet Women, muse and sex object, from a period of October 1911 into the winter of 1912. Mary put him into contact with Abuldiz and this was helpful in Book 4.  Together Aleister Crowley and Mary Desti created Magick, Book 4 or Liber ABA. This book is considered to be the masterpiece of Aleister Crowley and is a lengthy exposition on the art of Magick, Crowley’s system of Western occult practices, ideas and rituals.

Later, Crowley said about Desti that she was a “doubtful case.”  However he conceded that he felt that she suffered from jealousy. Who or what Mary Desti was jealous of is not revealed by Crowley. Desti and Sturges removed themselves from the presence and influence of Aleister Crowley in the winter of 1912. By the time that Sturges wrote his autobiography, some of the harsher ideas he had about AC seem to have softened. Sturges claims:

“I wish I could deny this and prevent many of her descendants from being burned at the stake, but unfortunately she not only wrote and signed a small treatise on the subject under the influence of a sinister buffoon called Aleister Crowley”(Sturges, Sturges 75)

Mary Desti died in New York City on April 12, 1931, four years after Isadora Duncan’s fatal car accident. Mary’s death has been posted as being caused by leukemia.

Chronology of Desti and Crowley Venture

• January of 1911-Solomon Sturges filed suit from Mary charging her with desertion
• September 1911-Preston changes schools and leaves Lycee Janson to be placed in Ecole des Roches in Normandy (Sturges 71)
• October 1911-Mary Desti meets Aleister Crowley in party with Isadora Duncan at the Savoy Hotel in London-Crowley and Desti become lovers
• October 1911 into the winter of 1912-Entire time frame that Mary Desti is with Aleister Crowley
• October-November 1911- Desti and Crowley leave London for Paris and then Switzerland
• October-November 1911- Crowley ordered by Abuldiz to go to Southern Italy
• Fall 1911- Mary “discovers” a Villa Caldarazzo in Posillipo near Naples, Italy
• Christmas Holidays- Preston spends with his mother and Aleister Crowley in Naples
• November 1911-the writing of Magick
• January 1912- Preston returns to school at Ecole des Roches, Normandy (Sturges 78) and Mary separates from Crowley
• Winter of 1912–1913 Magick is published in The Equinox Vol. VIII of Vol I.

Works Cited:

Sturges, Preston, Sandy Sturges, Ed. Preston Sturges. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990. Print.

Ursini, James. Preston Sturges: An American Dreamer. New York: Curtis Books, 1973. Print.

Statistics and other information were just beginning to be kept in New York City pertaining to the number and nature of car accidents. In an article published by Taylor and Frances, Ltd., on behalf of the American Statistical Association, Mr. E.S. Clowes described the “Street Accident (in) New York City.” The article states that in 1912, there were 532 fatal traffic accidents in New York City. In Paris in 1911, there were 236 fatal traffic accidents. In London in 1911, 56 people lost their lives in accidents. Mr. Clowes confirms that by these statistics Paris was the most dangerous and London the most safe of European cities for who records were kept. Paris had a fatality per rate of one million of 81 fatalities due to traffic accidents. This article was published in June of 1913.

Cars and automobiles and delivery trucks and busses were still new to Paris in 1913 and were causing unanticipated problems in the traffic of the city. In 1900, Paris had three thousand cars. By 1909, the number was fifty thousand and by 1913, the number was one hundred thousand. The Paris Municipal Council had tried to address the ballooning traffic problems and had tried to banish automobiles from some streets in the capital. However there was truly no way to calm the excitement and the love of Parisians for this new mode of transportation. Horrible accidents like the one that is the subject of this blog happened regularly. All this with a “dangerous “ speed of 10 to 15 miles per hour.

(see Rabate, Jean-Michael. 1913:The Cradle of Modernism)

Paris, Saturday afternoon, April 19, 1913, next night a full moon

Weather- Downpour of cold rain, slick roads, wet ground, poor visability

The boy saw the wide eyed look on his nanny’s face and he misunderstood the the look in his nanny’s eyes.  He felt the car bounce and heave as it rolled gently at first and then picked up speed sliding down the embankment.  The movement felt like carousel horse ride to which he had been treated just last week. The boy was so busy remembering the bumpy fun that he could not interpret the fear and dread on the nanny’s face.

The girl, Deirdre, four years older than her half brother, began to sense the panic in the eyes of Miss Annie Sims.  Deirdre did not understand the yelling of her driver, who now was no longer in the front of the car cranking the starter.  When the car jerked forward, she looked out the back window of the car.  There stood Mr. Maurevat, behind the car waving his hands and wailing into the cold afternoon air.  She was still looking back at the driver as the car hit the water and a splash of cold water rippled on the car roof.

Annie Sims, felt utter hopelessness as she saw the situation of the moving car and the closeness of the Seine’s flowing currents.  She quickly assessed what her possible actions might be.  Throw a child out of the car?  The doors were locked. Try to rip out the roof?  She had no tools to cut. Stand up in the car and try to hold the childrens’ heads above the water? Patrick did not like to be touched and was already reacting to the jolting descent of the car.

The car hit the water and floated for four minutes before it began to sink.  On the bank, several people who had been witness to the rolling car and the splash, were still standing there.  A dozen more had responded to the cries and shouts of the original witnesses. The car floated slightly above water for 100 yards and then was lost to sight as it was carried underwater and away.  The rescue of the car from the water took at least one and a half hours.  During this time, rescuers and police  later felt the an air pocket in the roof of the car might have been life sustaining for a while.  In the end, all was lost by the time spent underwater.

There was no guard rail where the car had entered the river.  There were no means of planned rescue for such a strange accident.  Several stunned boatmen in row boats maneuvered their boats along the car’s possible pathway and stuck their oars as deep into the water as possible in hopes of touching the car.  The Seine was approximately thirty feet deep where the car had entered. It was impossible to tell how far the car had travelled.  The car was only later brought to the surface by means of a motored boat which was dragging the river in hopes of catching onto the car.

Later the story would be told that Miss Simms had held the children to the last, wrapping them both in the fur blanket that their mother had insisted that they take with them.  The three bodies were reported to be hugging togther.  The story would also be told that the boy emerged from 45 minutes in the water and showed “some signs of Life.”  The children were taken the the American Hospital and it was there that the  report came in that Patrick has showed some signs of life.