Evening star. [volume], March 10, 1935, Page 11, Image 81

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
Glamorous Suzanne
Her ^Adventures "Began at Four; War 3\(urse, ^tusician, Writer;
3\(ovc ^Decorated by France as One of the World*s Important Woman Sculptors
% Ruth Woodbury Sedgwick
Α τ twenty. Suzanne Silvercruys
f\ Farnam was given, by Albert
I % of Belgium, her country's most
important decoration. Knight
of the Order of Leopold. At thirty-five
she has just received one of the highest
honors which France has to bestow on
a sculptor. Officer of the French Aca
demy.
At four, at one of the great family
dinners, a glittering celebration of the
birthday of the King, Suzanne's color
ful career began. Her father. Baron
Silvercruys, of Limbourg. then Justice
of the Supreme Court of Belgium, who
believed in training his children early to
ease in manners and matters of public
address, had requested the older chil
dren to prepare speeches. Robert, nine,
stumbled unhappily through a few
sentences. Madeleine, fourteen, mur
mured a wan greeting. When they had
finished, Baron Silvercruys saw that
the baby, in her high chair, was crying.
"But why, my child, do you weep on
this happy occasion?" he asked. "I too,
papa, have a speech," sobbed young
Suzanne, "and you do not ask me to
give it."
A year later the older children were
presenting a play for another important
family reunion. Suzanne had lingered
at rehearsals, hoping, in vain, for at
least a walk-on bit. On the night of the
event. Madeleine, a victim of stage
fright, forgot her lines for a moment.
Suzanne, sitting in front, disdaining
anything so unspectacular as a prompt,
hurled herself onto the stage, assumed
her sister's role, and. in the gusto of
dramatic creation, her brother's as
well. Finishing the play single handed,
she brought down the house, and tasted
for the first time the heady vintage of
first nifht success.
Eager to do everything the others
did, Suzanne played the piano when she
was so little that her father had wooden
blocks lashed to the pedals so that she
could reach them. At six she was a good
violinist. She sat like a mouse in a
corner for hours listening while diplo
mats. ministers, cabinet members, city
officials, discussed matters of state with
her father.
In July 1914, when Suzanne was
fifteen, she and her mother and father
were at their estate near Maeseyck.
Across the fields raced the dark news
from Serajevo. On August 4th came
Germany's ultimatum. Albert's answer.
Suzanne was walking with her father
toward the town in the afternoon, when
they heard a rumble, steady, low.
menacing. "Thunder!" wondered Su
zanne the sky was clear. Her father
took her hand. "Mv child," he said
quietly, "it is War."
The Silvercruys got back to Brussels on the
last train. The wounded were already being
brought in. A dying boy, his head bandaged
in bloody rags, was lifted from the train at
ihe moment that a band at the other end of
the station began to play La Brabançonne.
the national hymn. He stiffened, tried to
salute. In that moment Suzanne grew up. In
that gesture was commemorated for her the
soul of Belgium at war
After that the hurricane broke. Suzanne
washed dishes, |)eeled potatoes, scrubbed in
the kitchens of the hospital; organized the
store rooms; graduated into the wards; re
ceived her brassard, the youngest person in
the army to have it. Brussels pulled down its
blinds and crept through the days. Work
continued at the hospital. La Libre Belgique
was printed in secret cellars. "The London
Times" was smuggled in. wrapped around the
bellies of ambulance dogs, and read in hushed
conclave behind the city's barred doors.
I lalf starved, in constant peril. Suzanne was
nart of these heroic activities. Finally, her life
ι danger, she was slipped one night over the
•order into Holland She made her way to
i ngland. to her sister, who was already there.
From the sturdy shelter of England. Su
.anne went on to America. New York en
hanted her. It was not easy to settle down to
em
Portrait by Leo ne bel Jacob
Suzanne St/vercruyt Farnam
the skimmed-milk routine of a girls' school, to
tennis matches, and rules of syntax. Sud
denly. unexpectedly, she found again her way
to serve Belgium. Secretary of War Baker
was to speak at the press banquet of Phila
delphia's Poor Richard Club in January of
1917, and Suzanne was on the balcony of the
ballroom of the Belvue-Stratford to hear him
At the last minute came a message saying
that he could not get there. In a tight spot.
Theodore Ashe, master of ceremonies, dragged
Suzanne, so frightened that her curls shook,
down the long marble staircase. "Talk for ten
minutes." he barked. "This is for Belgium."
That word worked a miracle. For an hour
and a half she churned the cast-iron emotions
of fifteen hundred hard-boiled men with the
story of her haunted days.
The affair was a sensation, and immediately
the Belgian government sent her into the
field. Until the end of the War she went back
and forth across the country, speaking three,
sometimes four times a day for the Red Cross,
for food conservation, for patriotism. She
collected nearly a million dollars for her
people. After the Armistice she sailed for
Europe on the old Loraine. On January 1st.
1919, she was home
At first the pressure of after-War activity
held her: rehabilitation work, speeches about
America, the delight of reunion with her
family. She was decorated, the youngest per
son alive to receive the Knighthood of the
Order of Leopold. She had the Queen Elizabeth
Medal. A healthy girl, handsome, charming,
she enjoyed all this.
She enjoyed being presented at court
Knowing his daughter. Baron Silvercruys
gave instructions. "Under no condition," he
said, "may you contradict the King." Su
zanne advanced, made her bow in sixteen
counts. "Distinguished family of Luxemburg."
murmured Albert. (There were two hundred
and fifty on line at that Court, the first since
the War. ι
"1 must put him straight," thought
Suzanne of Limbourg. burning with family
pride. "Luxemburg or Limbourg." she
answered crisply, "we are devoted subjects
of Your Majesty." The King's eyes twinkled.
When the court was over he turned to her
father, "Silvercruys," he chuckled, "your
daughter has quite a repartee."
In 1922 Suzanne came back to America to
visit her brother, then attaché at the Belgian
embassy in Washington. She met and married
Henry W. Farnam. Jr., son of Professor
Farnam of Yale. She was happy in a com
fortable, safe world.
That, however, was not enough. The
splendid energy which had bulwarked
a planet's crisis could not patter
through the gentle activities of the
Junior League. Young Mrs. Famam
became listless, wan; then very ill. An
aunt of her husband's brought her a
box of plasticene one day. "It will
amuse you to make carrots and rose
buds while you lie there." she said.
"I won't touch it," stormed Suzanne.
"Form is too sacred for baby games."
But the box was left on the bed, and
presently, without thinking about it,
she was fingering the soft clay while
she watched her dog's head. She became
excited, interested. Her life flared up
again in one of her quick rockets of
creative energy. In a week she was well.
She entered the Yale School of Fine
Arts, took the five year course in three,
captured all the prizes open to women
At the end of her second year there, she
did her celebrated bust of Hoover, the
original of which is in the library at
Lou vain. She studied with Antoine
Bourdelle in Paris.
Since then her life has been a vigor
ous routine of well organized service
and accomplishment. "Fly on your own
wings." said Bourdelle when she left
Paris. A glowing woman with a candid
brow and the proud carriage of the
Victory of Samothrace, she has a studio
in New York. There, in a big-boned
room, full of serenity and the austere
beauty of good sculpture, she works
three days a week. The rest of the time
she is. efficiently and happily, Mrs.
Famam of New Haven.
In 1931 she had her first one-man
show at the 56th Street Galleries.
Quickly she has taken her place as one
of the distinguished woman sculptors.
Out of hundreds of commissions, her
most interesting ones have been the
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lotte of Belgium; the seven statuettes
of famous athletes made for the Olym
pic Games in 1932; the Zonta Club
Aviation Trophy, for notable achieve
ment by a woman pilot, which went,
last fall, to Amelia Ear hart ; the statue
of St. Thérèse de l'Enfant Jesus, done
for the church in Lisieux, France.
To fill in the time after it was too
dark to model and too early to go to
bed, she began to write. This led to an
autobiography, "Suzanne of Belgium."
Since that impromptu star perfor
mance when she was five, Mrs. Famam
has always wanted to act. The art of
sculpture is a lonely one. She likes to
s feel the emotion of people — their
laughter, their tears, rising through her
work. Instead of setting her apart, the
War ended forever, for her, any feeling
of detachment, of isolation. So to get
a part for herself which included a
slight accent, she wrote one. Her play, which
holds in its title, "There Is No Dea-A.'
another conviction which the War left artic
ulate on her lips, was tried out in New Haven's
Little Theatre, and again, last summer, at
Peterborough.
Lately, she has been working on her next
exhibit. About twenty-five, heads, each
typical of some phase of today's living, the
group is called "The American Look." These
are spirited miniatures; Katharine Hepburn
in terra cotta, her red curls electric, her cheek
bones superbly insolent; Sam Harris, a Penrod
grin in bronze; Bishop Manning, ecclesiastical,
prim, in white plaster; the spectacles, the wry
grin, of Louis Sobol.
"Are you showing your best profile?" she
asked Mr. Sobol while she was working on her
head of him. "I have no best profile," he
answered glumly.
Last fall Mrs. Farnam had three pieces
accepted for the Paris Salon. For one of these
a superb lectern — three heads, inscribed
Faith, Hope. Charity, a child, a maid, an old
woman with a calm face and lovable, gnarled
hands, done in full round on a triangular
block of marble — she was recently decorated
with the order of Officer of the French
Academy. From such splendid pinnacles
Suzanne of Belgium pushes on.