Chapter 20: Mary Martha's Secrets
In the end, there are no secrets time won't reveal
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Release Date: November 5, 2024
On November 25, 1945, the Alien Property Custodian brought an action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to determine how much of the money Mary Martha had assigned to the mysterious Martha Sakrausky through the secret agreement could be seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917.
The case would be in the courts for more than four decades, and forever reveal the stunning secrets Mary Martha had spent three-quarters of her life – and a huge portion of the generational wealth she had been given – to keep hidden.
But, before we move forward, we have to go back.
The winter of 1888-1889 was a busy social season for 24-year-old Mary Martha Parker. In November, she served as a bridesmaid at the Boston Brahmin wedding of Walter Cabot Baylies and Charlotte Upham, to which no fewer than 1,200 members of New England high society had been invited. Walter, at the time an up-and-coming merchant, railroad man and investor in Boston’s electric and gas companies, would go on to become one of the wealthiest and influential men of his era. The wedding was attended by a number of Mary Martha’s aunts, uncles and cousins, though I haven’t been able to make a family connection with either the bride or groom. 1
A month after the Baylies-Upham wedding, Mary Martha was at another society wedding, this one celebrating the nuptials of Harriet Paine Lee and George Mifflin Hammond. Like the earlier wedding, this one, too, was attended by many of Mary Martha’s relatives as well as a host of other Boston Brahmins. 2
And finally, in February of 1889, Mary Martha was a guest at the wedding of Jessie Watson Shepherd and Williams Graves Titcomb. Held at Boston’s historic First Church, the ceremony was followed by a banquet and reception at Hotel Vandome. And what an event it must have been. Papers of the day note:
“The ebony salon was utilized for the reception and had been elaborately prepared for the event. The alcove window had been turned into a. Tropical grove, and was a perfect maze of palms and ferns, Genesta Scotch heather and azalea bushes. The walls were thickly festooned with laurel and sparking chandeliers were given a weird and fairy-like aspect by dainty circlets and loops of smilax dotted with fragrant carnations.” 3
It must have been an exciting time for Mary Martha, but a time of growing concern, as well.
She was, after all, several years past her debutant days and still unmarried, despite her father’s social and business standing in the community, her family’s great wealth and Boston Brahmin heritage, and her own training in the finest finishing programs money could buy.
Or perhaps Mary Martha’s concern stemmed from the fact that she was pregnant.
Shortly after the February 1889 Shepherd-Whitcomb wedding, Mary Martha and her father, Richard, traveled to Europe ostensibly because of Richard’s impaired health. The real reason, of course, was to keep Mary Martha – and her condition – as far away from the prying eyes of society as possible.
The deception, coverups and lies had begun.
In June of 1889, just weeks after they’d covered the devastating news that Allen Thorndike Rice, America’s new ambassador to Russia, had passed away, the society pages of Boston newspapers published a short blip noting that Richard T. Parker, and his daughter, Mary Martha, were staying outside of Prague, where Richard was “taking a course of the Carlsbad waters for his impaired health”. The piece noted that the father and daughter would be returning soon. Not to Boston, however, but rather to the family’s Dublin, NH summer estate.4
On July 11, 1889, Mary Martha gave birth to a little girl she named Martha Sylvester, a family name with deep roots. In doing so, Mary Martha carried on a long-standing Parker family tradition of naming the first daughter after the family’s matriarchs including her mother, her grandmother, (Martha Sylvester Thorndike), her great-grandmother, (Mary Martha Purnell), and her great-great-grandmother, (Martha Sylvester).
What happened next is up for speculation, however, church records indicate little Martha Sylvester was placed with a German woman named Julia Marie, last name unknown, with whom she remained until, at the age of 15, she married 23-year-old pastor, Oskar Sakrausky, in Scharten, Austria.5
Seven weeks after giving birth to her daughter, Mary Martha and her father sailed into New York Harbor aboard the HMS LeBretagne and returned to their secluded summer estate as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened in Prague.
Mary Martha and Amelia Wright would repeat that same process again two years later, this time traveling to Rothesay, New Brunswick, where Mary Martha would secretly give birth to another little girl, leave her behind with strangers, and return to her gilded life as a member of high society, reputation intact.
That little girl, however, would not be given a cherished family name, instead she would simply be known as Aimee Henry, and she would spend much of her life wondering where the name came from and who had given it to her.
It has been an honor to tell her story over the last 20 weeks.
Aimee Henry Morecroft Mishou eventually received the money Mary Martha had promised her in the 1931 Mishou Agreement and in the secret arrangement with Harland Tibbetts, but much of it went to paying legal fees. She passed away in the fall of 1981 at the age of 90. Frank, her husband of 46 years, followed her to the grave six months later. Their wills established a college scholarship fund for students at the high school in Gouldsboro, ME, where Frank and Aimee had been living since the 1950s. 6
Martha Sylvester Sakrausky and her daughter, Martha Sakrausky Piesche, died in Austria sometime between 1947 and 1959. It’s not known if Martha Piesche had any children.
Martha’s son, Oskar Archibald Sakrausky was a member of Germany’s Wehrmacht infantry beginning in 1939, and spent 1944 to 1949 as a Prisoner of War in Tula, about 170 kilometers south of Moscow.
In 1959, the US and Austria were involved in a UN Treaty which released what was left of the funds seized in 1946 by the Alien Enemy Custodian, however, because of Oskar’s affiliation with the Nazis, it’s unknown if he ever saw his inheritance. 7
After the war, Oskar went into the clergy and spent much of his career as leader of the Austrian Protestant Church fighting antisemitism. He died in 2006 at the age of 92, leaving behind a widow, two children, three grandchildren and a great-grandson.
Despite repeated efforts to make contact with Martha Sylvester’s descendents, her story remains untold.
At least for now.
Copyright 2024 Lori Olson White
So there we have it, the end of “Call Me a Bastard”! On Friday, I’ll be answering questions and providing some additional information about the story, my process and the research. If you have questions or comments to be addressed, please add them here or send me a message, and I’ll add them to the list!
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Chapter End Notes
1 “Upham-Baylies: A Brilliant Saturday Wedding at the Emmanuel Church”, The Boston Globe, Boston, MA, November 18, 1888, P. 13.
2 “Hammond-Lee: Fashionable Wedding at the Arlington Street Church, Society People Present”, The Boston Globe, Boston, MA, December 18, 1888, P. 1.
3 “Till Death Parts. Gorgeous Wedding Apparel and Fine Music. The Brilliant Shepherd-Titcomb Wedding at the First Church”, The Boston Globe, Boston, MA, February 12, 1889, P. 3.
4 “Table Gossip”, The Boston Globe, Boston, MA, June 18, 1889, P. 13.
5 Marriage License, Indeces aus Romisch Katholischen Matriken, Record 3175393, Folio 114, 1909.05.06.
6 “Graduates of Sumner High to Benefit from Will Bequest”, The Bangor Daily News, Bangor, ME, May 31, 1982, P. 15.
7 “Former Bishop Oskar Sakrausky Passed Away”, Protestant Church in Austria, October 2, 2006.
So, Aimee had a sister all that time, too! Do you have suspicions of who the father was? Mary Martha goes to Europe and leaves a daughter behind there, then two years later, another in Canada? Wouldn't you love to compare some DNA tests here?
Thoroughly captivated by the episodic storytelling! Didn't want it to end as it has been a pleasure to read.