The Postcard
A postcard bearing no publisher's name. The image is a glossy real photograph.
The card was posted in Caterham using a ½d. stamp on Friday the 13th. April 1917. It was sent to:
Miss Winckworth,
10, Surrendale Place,
Sutherland Avenue,
London W.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Dear Glad,
I have sent you a view of
the barracks. I knew that
it would interest you, dear.
I am also hoping that your
face is better.
Keep yourself well wrapped
up while this bad weather
is on.
It is pelting with rain again
today.
Much love & kisses,
Yours most sincerely,
Nellie xxxxxx"
Spider Web Patrols
So what else happened on the day that Nellie posted the card to Gladys?
Well, on the 13th. April 1917, Royal Naval Air Service flying boats began flying "spider web" patrols over the North Sea in order to detect German submarines in the area.
The new patrol pattern, resembling a spider web, allowed four aircraft to search a 4,000-square-mile (10,000-square-kilometer) area in about five hours, only half the time it took a surfaced submarine to transit the area.
The flying boats made 27 patrols in the following 18 days. They sighted eight German submarines, and made bombing attacks against three of them.
The U.S. Navy battleship New Mexico
Also on that day, the U.S. Navy battleship New Mexico was launched by the New York Naval Shipyard in New York City.
It was most famous for supporting the major amphibious landings during World War II against the Japanese in the Pacific before it was decommissioned in 1946.
Diamond Jim Brady
The 13th. April 1917 also marked the death of Diamond Jim Brady, American business leader, and leading sales agent for Manning, Maxwell and Moore and the Pressed Steel Car Company.
Diamond Jim, who was born in 1856, was known for his lavish lifestyle and collection of rare jewels.
James Buchanan Brady, who was born on the 12th. August 1856, was an American businessman, financier and philanthropist of the Gilded Age.
Brady was born in NYC to an Irish immigrant family. He was born into humble circumstances on the far lower West Side of Manhattan, the son of a saloon owner.
Brady worked his way up from bellhop and courier. After gaining employment in the New York Central Railroad system, he became the chief assistant to the general manager by the age of 21.
At 23, Brady used his knowledge of the rail transport industry and its officials to become a highly successful salesman for Manning, Maxwell, and Moore, a railroad supply company. In 1899 he became sales agent for the Pressed Steel Car Company.
Diamond Jim Brady's Lifestyle
Known for his penchant for jewels, especially diamonds, Brady collected precious stones and jewelry in excess of US$2 million (equivalent to approximately $70,352,000 today).
Brady's enormous appetite was as legendary as his wealth, though modern experts believe that it was greatly exaggerated. It was not unusual, according to the legend, for Brady to eat enough food for ten people at a sitting.
George Rector, owner of a favorite restaurant, described Brady as:
"The best 25 customers
I ever had."
For breakfast, he would eat vast quantities of hominy, eggs, cornbread, muffins, flapjacks, chops, fried potatoes, beefsteak, washing it all down with a gallon of fresh orange juice.
A mid-morning snack would consist of two or three dozen clams or Lynnhaven oysters. Luncheon would consist of shellfish, two or three deviled crabs, a brace of boiled lobsters, a joint of beef, and an enormous salad. He would also include a dessert of several pieces of homemade pie and more orange juice.
Brady would take afternoon tea, which consisted of another platter of seafood, accompanied by two or three bottles of lemon soda.
Dinner was the main meal of the day, taken at Rector's Restaurant. It usually comprised two or three dozens oysters, six crabs, and two bowls of green turtle soup. Then in sumptuous procession came six or seven lobsters, two canvasback ducks, a double portion of terrapin, sirloin steak, vegetables, and for dessert a platter of French pastries.
Brady even included two pounds of chocolate candy to finish off the meal. Gamblers supposedly made bets on whether he'd drop dead before dessert; as a matter of a fact he did have to cut down on his gargantuan eating several years before his death due to stomach troubles.
A gregarious man, Brady was a mainstay of Broadway nightlife. He often dined with popular society.
After further investments in the stock market, Brady accumulated wealth estimated at $12 million, though not always by ethical means. According to biographer Harry Paul Jeffers:
"On election night in 1896, Brady won about
$180,000 (equivalent to approximately
$6,331,680 today) by making crooked bets
on the William McKinley–William Jennings
Bryan presidential election."
He also enriched himself to the tune of $1.25 million (equivalent to approximately $43,970,000 today) through a shady stock deal involving the Reading Railroad.
Diamond Jim was known for being the first person in New York City to own an automobile (in 1895).
Diamond Jim and Thoroughbred Racing
Jim Brady owned and raced a significant stable of thoroughbred horses. Among his top horses, Gold Heels was the Champion Older Male Horse of 1902, and Accountant was the American Co-Champion Three-Year-Old Male Horse of 1906.
In his obituary, the Daily Racing Form noted that his activities in racing helped make him a national figure.
Diamond Jim Brady's Personal Life
Diamond Jim had a long-term relationship with actress and singer Lillian Russell. They would rendezvous at his home at 7 West 46th Street in Manhattan. It is said that her eating habits were a perfect match for his own.
In 1912, Brady donated $220,000 to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, where he had once been treated. The hospital created the James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute in his honor.
Brady never married, and after his death, his estate was distributed to many institutions, most notably New York Hospital. Now known as New York–Presbyterian Hospital, the department of urology still maintains the James Buchanan Brady Foundation.
The Death of Diamond Jim Brady
Brady died in his sleep in Atlantic City at the age of 60 on the 13th. April 1917, of a heart attack. He was found dead at the Shelburne Hotel. He was laid to rest at the Holy Cross Cemetery.
Although he died of a myocardial infarction, he also suffered from Bright's disease, coronary heart disease, diabetes mellitus, gallstones, arterial hypertension, inflammation of the prostate, as well as persistent, recurrent urinary tract infections.
When his body was examined, doctors discovered that his stomach was six times the size of that of an average person.
Diamond Jim Brady's Legacy
Brady was the inspiration for a 1935 film written by Preston Sturges entitled Diamond Jim, and might have inspired a character called "Big Jim" in the Bob Dylan song, "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts".
In the 1940 film, Lillian Russell, Diamond Jim Brady is portrayed by Edward Arnold.
Brady is mentioned in two episodes of I Love Lucy: "The Business Manager," and "Lucy Gets a Paris Gown."
In the 1968 film The Odd Couple, Oscar calls Felix "Diamond Jim Brady" when he orders tea for him at a late night diner while they are discussing his separation.
Brady was the protagonist in the fictional film Bonjour, Diamond Jim that was featured in the film Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie (2012).
A story about Brady is told in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Jailbird in which Brady, on a bet while dining at the Hotel Arapahoe, eats four dozen oysters, four lobsters, four chickens, four squabs, four T-bone steaks, four pork chops, and four lamb chops.
Brady inspired Monty Python's Flying Circus to create the fictional character Mr. Creosote who appears in the troupe's sketch comedy film The Meaning of Life (1983).
The actor Howard Keel was cast as Brady in a 1963 episode of the TV series Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews. In the story, while traveling by train in Texas, Brady accepts a nearly impossible wager that he can sell $100,000 worth of barbed wire to area ranchers who oppose such fencing – and can do so without leaving the train.
Brady is featured in Caleb Carr's The Angel of Darkness near the end of a chapter; as the main characters arrive in Saratoga Springs, New York, the narrator Stevie sees Brady dining with his paramour Lillian Russell, and notes that while neither Brady's manners nor language are all that pleasant, neither are Miss Russell's.
In the 1964 movie What a Way to Go!, the character Louisa May Foster (Shirley MacLaine) said to herself on a flight on Rod Anderson Jr.'s (Robert Mitchum) jet that:
"He wasn't the Diamond Jim Brady of the
Jet Set. He was cold, arrogant, sure of
himself. Another object lesson on what
money and power can do to a human
being."
The Famous Beverly Hills Restaurant, Lawry's The Prime Rib has a special cut of Prime Rib called the "Diamond Jim Brady Cut," an extra-thick portion, with the rib bone in.
A Final Thought From Diamond Jim Brady
"I've always said, if you're going to make
money, you've got to look like money."
