Vernon and Irene Castle's Ragtime Revolution

42. "Isn't old age awful!"

Marriages, births, and deaths punctuated Irene’s life through the 940s. Her daughter, Barbara, married Irving Kreutz in 943 at eighteen; they gave Irene four grandchildren (three girls, Mary Nichole, Charlotte, and Elizabeth, and a boy, Gregg).“I think Mother was a bit disappointed none were named after her,” says William McLaughlin. “I know she was very pleased when I named my daughter Irene Castle McLaughlin.” After Irene’s death, William had a son, David Lee, with his second wife, Dorothy , whom he married in 975. Irene’s brother-in-law Lawrence Grossmith died in 944 and was buried alongside Vernon and Coralie Blythe Grossmith, who had died in 928. Irene’s life was most affected by the death in late 944 of Frederic McLaughlin from heart disease.Afterward,Irene moved into a large house with extensive grounds on Old Mill Road in Lake Forest. “Half a mile of driveways, stables for horses, jumping fields,” her son recalls. “She enjoyed it, was happy in it, she was very protective of it. One of my more memorable moments was looking out the window one morning when the garbage truck had driven across the corner of the lawn and left deep ruts, and there was Mother standing on the running board of the garbage truck in her nightgown raising hell.” In 946, Irene finally married George Enzinger, and the two moved to Arkansas.That last marriage was happy, but not placid. “George didn’t put up with her,” says Irene’s son, and Irene thrived on a good fight. “I think she found people who weren’t a challenge kind of dull.”She spent much of the year in California, though she never did buy a home out there. Her friendship with William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies continued till Hearst’s death in 95; she spent weeks at a time in Hearst’s California estates, San Simeon and Wyntoon. In 950, Irene was back in the news, suing CBS and Ed Sullivan for  “ISN’T OLD AGE AWFUL!” CHAPTER FORTY-TWO CHAPTER FORTY-TWO 249 showing clips of her and Vernon dancing from The Whirl of Life without her permission; “I think she settled for about $0,000,” says her son. “Mother was always suing someone—she made life interesting!” She sued her former neighbors, the Walkers, for custody of a black-and-white mutt named Tippy in 956.She charged that the Walkers abandoned the dog for two years, then “just snitched him” when they returned. She threatened to take the case to the Supreme Court—the Walkers finally gave up and Tippy remained with Irene. Irene had an on-again, off-again relationship with her children in her later years. “My mother tried to teach me to dance, and I stomped on her feet so badly she gave that up,” laughs her son. He recalls being commandeered into dancing lessons at Arthur Murray’s in the 940s, and Irene beaming in delight when the dance instructor recognized her.But William spent much of the year in military school and “was farmed out somewhere around the country for at least two months of every summer,” so his relationship with his mother was somewhat distant and bemused, though he goes out of his way to be fair to her and give her the benefit of every doubt in hindsight. William and his sister, Barbara, never really compared notes till after Irene’s death.When going through their mother’s scrapbooks,Barbara—“a big, swashbuckling grande dame”—burst into sobs, confessing to her brother that Irene had always told her Bill was her favorite.Bill in turn told her,“All my life I’ve heard,‘Why can’t you be like Barbara? I never wanted boys.’ And we sat down and had a good cry together.” After being widowed by George Enzinger (who died of cancer in 959), Irene had a rare heart-to-heart with her son, telling him she’d like to get married again.“One of the things she was totally unabashed about was that she and George had had a vigorous sex life right up to the very end. . . . When she said she wanted to get married again, I thought, ‘You’re not going to find anybody like George!’” She moved again, to a lovely little hilltop home in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, to be closer to her son, who owned a farm nearby. But Irene was bored. In her sixties, she was still trim, lovely, and...