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- MISS WIBORG TO WED G. C. MURPHY
Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. F. B. Wiborg Betrothed to s/o Patrick F.Murphy.
ACTIVE IN RELIEF WORK
Her Engagement Follows the Marriage of Her Sister Olga to Sidney WebsterFish
Society will be interested in the engagement of Miss Sara Sherman Wiborg,daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Frank B. Wiborg of New York and East Hampton, L.I., to Gerald C. Murphy, s/o Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Francis Murphy ofNew York, which is to be formally announced tomorrow by Mr. and Mrs.Wiborg, who are at their Summer home at East Hampton.
Miss Wiborg is prominent in society, and last season was active in warrelief work. Her sister, Miss Olga Wiborg, was married on Sept. 18, atEast Hampton, to Sidney Webster Fish, s/o Stuyvesant Fish and the lateMrs. Fish. Another sister is Miss Mary Hoyt Wiborg.
Miss Sara S. Wiborg and her sister were presented at Court during theseason in London several years ago, Mr. and Mrs. Wiborg formerly residedin Cincinnati. Mrs. Wiborg before her marriage was Miss Adeline Sherman,a daughter of Major Hoyt Sherman.
Mr. Murphy is Vice President of the Mark Cross Company of New York andLondon, of which his father is President. Mr. Murphy, Sr., is renownedfor his brilliant after-dinner speeches.
[New York Times, 25 Sep 1915]
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MISS SARA WIBORG WEDS
Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. F. B. Wiborg a Bride in Fifth Avenue Home.
The wedding of Miss Sara Sherman Wiborg, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. FrankB. Wiborg, and Gerald C. Murphy, a s/o Mr. and Mrs. Patrick FrancisMurphy of 247 Fifth Avenue, was celebrated at 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon at the Wiborg residence, 40 Fifth Avenue.
It was a small wedding, and the guests included only relatives and intimate friends, so of the latter being Summer residents at EastHampton, L. I., where Mr. and Mrs. Wiborg have a country home.
The ceremony was performed by the Rev. Father William Martin of St.Patrick's Cathedral in the east end of the drawing room, where a largebay window had been transformed into a chancel, in which stood the altar and prie dieu. The background was formed with heavy rich hangings of ecclesiastical tapestries of gold, with touches of blue, which harmonized with the color scheme of the lower floor. There were several tallc andelabra placed near the altar.
The decorations throughout the house were suggestive of the Christmas season, with festoons of green and clusters of white heather. A trio of organ, harp, and cello were used for the ceremony, the musicians coming from Grace Church.
The bride wore a gown of white satin and point lace, the corsage being appliqued with pearls, and a train of tulle, the veil forming part of the train. Her only ornament was a string of pearls, and she carried a bouquet of orange blossoms.
She was attended by her two sisters, Mrs. Sidney W. Fish and Miss MaryHoyt Wiborg, who wore gowns of heavy bluish-green brocade, fashioned inJuliet style, with chaplets of silver leaves, each carrying along-stemmed ascension lily.
Frederick T. Murphy acted as best man for his brother. There were no ushers.
There was a reception after the ceremony. Later Mr. and Mrs. Murphy left on their honeymoon. They plan to sail tomorrow for Panama, and will return by Feb. 1, when they will occupy the house 50 West EleventhStreet.
The bride's mother was formerly Miss Adeline Sherman, daughter of Major Hoyt Sherman, a brother of General William Tecumseh Sherman of civil war fame. Her sister, Miss Olga Wiborg, was married to Sidney W. Fish, a s/o Stuyvesant Fish, last Autemn at East Hampton.
[New York Times, 31 Dec 1915]
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*Sara Murphy, Patron of Writers and Artists in France, 91, Dead*
By Alden Whitman
Sarah Murphy, widow of Gerald Murphy and the model for Nicole in F. ScottFitzgerald's "Tender Is the Night," died yesterday of pneumonia in theArlington (Va.) Hospital. She was 91 years old and lived at 1113 BasilRoad, McLean, Va.
Mrs. Murphy, with her husband, was a friend and patron of scores of artists and writers, especially during the nineteen-twenties, when they lived in Paris and on the Riviera. Mr. Murphy, who was a painter and later president of the Mark Cross Company here had a flat in Paris and a home at Cap d'Antibes called the Villa America from about 1917 to 1931.
In the late thirties, the couple was instrumental in establishing EastHampton and Amagansett, L.I., as a center for artists. They had a home inEast Hampton and encouraged, first, expatriate European painters and then Americans, to live and work there.
In her years in France, Mrs. Murphy was a close friend of Mr. Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda, who were frequent guests on the Riviera. The novelist once told Mr. Murphy that "Tender Is the Night," which he liked the best of the four novels published in his lifetime and which he dedicated to the Murphys, "was inspired by Sara and you, and the way I feel about you both, and the last of it is Zelda and me because you and Sara are the same people as Zelda and me."
*Book Perturbed Her*
In the novel, Mr. Murphy appears as Dick Diver, an ambitious but disintegrating psychiatrist. Nicole Diver, fun-loving and self-centered, had the mannerisms and physical characteristics of Mrs. Murphy. The book, published in 1934, perturbed the Murphys and led Ernest Hemingway to accuse Mr. Fitzgerald of creating not people but beautifully faked case histories.
Late in her life Mrs. Murphy reread the book for the first time since it was published and said, "I didn't like the book when I read it, and liked it even less on rereading."
"I reject categorically any resemblance to us or to anyone we knew at the time."
Mrs. Murphy was born Sara Wiborg in Cincinnati on Nov. 7, 1883. Herfamily was well-to-do, and she was educated in Germany and at the SpenceSchool. She and Mr. Murphy married in 1916.
In France, she was a friend of such writers as Hemingway, Dorothy Parker,Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott and Donald Ogden Stewart as well asof Archibald MacLeish and John Dos Passos. Her artist friends includedPablo Picasso and Fernand Leger.
*Tribute on Living*
Mr. Dos Passos, who had known the Murphys for 40 years, once said inexplaining the couple's catalytic role with writers and artists:
"People were always their best selves with the Murphys."
And Mr. MacLeish had another explanation, remarking:
"Person after person -- English, French, American, everybody -- met themand came away saying that these people were really mastering the art ofliving."
Mrs. Murphy was also exceptionally handsome. One notable photograph showsher, arm in arm with Picasso, with Mrs. Murphy dressed in an ankle-lengthprint dress and a turban. That Mrs. Murphy lived with style was evident.She cared about the good life -- sun, air, food and wine, family, friendsand love.
The Murphys returned to the United States so that Mr. Murphy could runthe family store on Fifth Avenue. They lived quietly here and on LongIsland. Although they felt savaged in "Tender Is the Night," they neverforsook Fitzgerald as a friend. They helped him financially when hisdaughter was attending Vassar, and tried to understand his drinking andhis wife's final descent in madness.
Mr. Murphy died in 1964 at the age of 76. In recent years, Mrs. Murphyhas been living with her daughter, Honoria Donnelly, who survives, alongwith three grandchildren.
["New York Times", 11 Oct 1975]
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Old Dead Relatives
1884 - 1975 (90 years)
