Meets Mrs. Richard Peabody
After returning from World War I, Harry attended Harvard under an accelerated program for veterans. Harry's mother invited Mrs. Richard Rogers Peabody (née Mary Phelps Jacob) to chaperone Harry and some of his friends at a picnic on July 4, 1920, including dinner and a trip to the amusement park at Nantasket Beach. During dinner, Harry never spoke to the girl on his left, breaking decorum. By some accounts, Harry fell in love with the buxom Mrs. Peabody in about two hours, confessing his love for her in the Tunnel of Love at the amusement park. Two weeks later they went to church together in Manchester-by-the-Sea and spent the night together. Their public relationship was the gossip of blue-blood Boston.
She was 28, six years older than Harry, with two small children, and married. No matter what Harry tried, Polly would not divorce Richard and marry him. Harry took a job in Boston at the Shawmut National Bank, a job he disliked, and took the train to visit Polly in New York. In May 1921, when Polly would not respond to his demands, Harry threatened suicide if Polly did not marry him. Polly's husband Richard Peabody was in and out of sanitariums several times fighting alcoholism. In June 1921, she formally separated from him. Later that winter, Polly accepted weekend visits from Harry, who would take the midnight train home to Boston afterward. In December, Polly's husband Richard offered to divorce her, and in February 1922, the marriage was legally ended.
After eight months at the Shawmut National Bank, Harry got drunk for six days and resigned on March 14, 1922. Polly intervened with Harry's uncle, J. P. Morgan, Jr., who agreed to provide a position for Harry in Paris at Morgan, Harjes et Cie. Harry already spoke and read fluent French and moved to Paris in May. Polly preceded him there but in July, angry and jealous, returned to the United States. On September 2, 1922, Harry proposed to Polly via transatlantic cable, and the next day bribed his way aboard the Aquitania for New York which made a weekly six-day express run to New York.
Read more about this topic: Harry Crosby
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