Gold-Digger Assoluta: Miss Arabella Yarrington Worsham Huntington Huntington!

This post was inspired by seeing pictures of a Victorian dressing rooms so magnificent that when the house it was in was demolished, it was removed and installed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art as an important expression of the Aesthetic movement.

 

(pictures courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art)

There are many contenders (male and female) for the Gold-Digger Hall of Fame. Usually they were of humble background, often uneducated but they all had something valuable to offer. Something that could be monetized.

Madame du Barry had her beautiful, heavy-lidded blue eyes and a wealth of skills she'd learned in a low-down brothel.

Porfirio Rubirosa had his handsome Latin looks, his continental charm and a penis so big even size-queens tapped out. Lola Montez was a beauty, but it was her fiery temperament that kept the men throbbing. Johnny Stompanato was tall, dark and loathsome, but with a dick so huge Lana Turner nicknamed it "Oscar" because it was as big as an Academy Award (and far more useful).

They all made bank, but their lives and careers had ups and downs and some even had tragic ends (poor du Barry), but the Gold-star 'ho of all time has to be Arabella Worsham. Of obscure background, she fucked her way to the top and enjoyed every minute of it.

(a teenaged Arabella Worsham, whose demure appearance gives no hint of the lusty ambitions that smoldered beneath her modest bodice)

Arabella Yarrington was born in 1850 or 1851 in Richmond, Virginia, in circumstances that might have been tawdry (some accounts have her childhood home being in a rough and tumble neighborhood of saloons and brothels). Still a teenager, she supposedly married Mr. Worsham, and had a son named Archer. They moved to NYC, whereupon Mr. Worsham died (although some believed he just went back to his wife down south).

Somehow she ended up taking care of the ailing wife of millionaire Collis Huntington, and when she passed away, Cillis married Arabella (34 years his junior) and adopted her son (who apparently grew up to be the spitting image of Collis-what?!?!).

In her archives there is a charmingly formal letter to Mr. Huntington in 1871, when her (their?) child was not yet two:

"Mr. Huntington, I am so worried that I don’t know what to do & I am going to ask your advice & assistance again. I have received another letter from home stating that my little boy is still very sick, & mama thinks I had better come on as early as possible. I am ashamed to ask you but you have been so kind that I shall impose on your good nature again. I want you to give me a [Railroad] ticket to Texas & assist me i getting the family back here [NYC] in the Spring, for I know they will stare out there. You are the only friend I have in the world. If you will do this for me, I shall never be able to express my gratitude, but if you can think of anything that will be better for me to do, I am perfectly willing to agree to any proposition you may make. Respectfully, B. D. Worsham"

In 1877, she bought a house in NYC on 54th street (with much assistance from Mr. Huntington) and in 1881-1882 she had the interiors redecorated in their final style. Two years later, she married her seigneur and benefactor and she sold the house fully furnished to J.D. Rockefeller, who (thank goodness) left the interiors intact for the 50 more years of its existence before it was demolished.

(courtesy of Rockefeller Archive Center)

She was never accepted into the upper echelons of NYC high society (though she seems to have been warmly received in California). No invitations to fancy functions from the Vanderbilts or the Astors or any of their ilk (though Heaven only knows why; those society biddies were bigger whores than she could ever be: looking at YOU, Alva Vanderbilt Belmont).

I don't know if that lack of acceptance bothered her much. She had fun, learned a lot (languages and art) and Mr. Huntington remained besotted with her. When he died in 1900, she received more than $50 million from him (like 3 billion in today's dollars) and their son received even more. She continued to do as she had been doing - taking care of her family, her friends, donating untold amounts of money to charities. She seems to have been a friendly, easy-going gal, and she'd open her purse for anyone who was in trouble or in need of assistance.

(Arabella later in life, every inch the Grande Dame)

May 1, 1899: “My Dear Mrs. Copper: Since our pleasant interview I am convinced that the Kindergarten in which you are so greatly interested is a most worthy charity. I enclose, with pleasure, one thousand dollars ($1,000) which you can use as seems best to you. Very sincerely, Isabella D. Huntington [Arabella]”

The sheer list of worthy causes and the amounts of money she gave away during her lifetime is staggering (she funded medical centers, libraries and museums on both coasts). But Arabella had a restless heart, and she needed a man in her life, so 13 years after her husband died, she married his nephew, who was also intolerably rich, and they lived happily ever after, as long as they lived.

One of the other magnificent interiors from her New York home on 54th street was removed before its demolition and has been installed in a museum in her home state of Virginia:

(Virginia Museum of Fine Arts)

There's a lesson to be learned from all of this, I think. A: Don't auction yourself off to the lowest bidder, and B: no matter what, have as much fun as you can, 'cause fuck what people think.

And if you're interested, here's some links to learn more about Ms. Arabella. The first is the best, because there's a ton of pictures and backstory about her house on 54th street and her life, but they're all interesting:

1. https://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-lost-john-d-rockefeller-mansion-no.html

2. Worsham-Rockefeller Dressing Room | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
3. Art in Depth: The Worsham Rockefeller Bedroom – Collections
4. “The Arabella Letters” at the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA – Inside the Huntington's Story

(all pictures from Wikipedia unless otherwise noted)