Jean Gordon (Red Cross)

Jean Gordon
Born February 4, 1915[1]
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died January 8, 1946 (30 years old)[1]
New York, New York, U.S.
Nationality American
Occupation American Red Cross Clubmobile Staff Assistant ("donut girl")

Jean Gordon, a niece by marriage of General Patton, was a Boston socialite and a Red Cross worker during World War II. She probably had an affair with Patton before the war. It possibly continued during the war, but Patton's biographers suggest he was boasting. She committed suicide shortly after Patton died, and after her boyfriend left her and returned to his wife.

Early life

Jean Gordon's mother, Louise Raynor Ayer, daughter of Boston industrialist Frederick Ayer, was a half-sister of Patton's wife Beatrice.[2] Her father Gordon, a well-known Boston lawyer, died of leukemia when she was eight years old.[3] The same age as Patton's younger daughter Ruth Ellen and her best friend,[4] Jean spent many of her vacations with the Pattons and was a bridesmaid in the weddings of both Patton girls.[5] She was prominent in pre-war Boston high society.[6][7][8]

World War II

Early in the war, Jean Gordon completed the American Red Cross Nurse's Aide training course and volunteered in several Boston hospitals.[9] In October 1942, she was appointed vice-chairman of the Boston Red Cross Volunteer Nurse's Aide Corps, the chairman of which was Mrs Frank G. Allen, the wife of former governor of Massachusetts.[10] In 1944, Gordon enlisted as a Red Cross staff assistant and was sent to England in May.[11] She contacted Patton early in July and they met up in London. Patton found her stunning in her uniform. He later told his close friend General Everett Hughes, one of Eisenhower's logistics officers, that he wanted her presence in London to be kept secret. Hughes could not help wondering what the relationship was.[12] On July 9, Patton told him, in a mood which Hughes gathered was "more boastful than repentant", that Jean Gordon has "...been mine for twelve years"[13] thus putting the start of their affair around 1932 when she was 17 years old and a frequent guest of Ruth Ellen.[14] According to the memoirs of Ruth Ellen Patton Totten, her father had an affair with Gordon, described as "a quiet but witty girl, highly intelligent and beautiful,"[15] as well as "a vivacious and lovely brunette,"[16] in 1936 when she was 21 years old and visited the Pattons in Hawaii en route to the Far East; moreover, Ruth Ellen thought that she had already started "making a play for Georgie" in 1934.[Note 1] Gordon was assigned to the ARC Clubmobile group L attached to the headquarters of the Third Army as a "donut girl", a volunteer who served front-line troops with donuts, coffee, cigarettes and writing paper, as well as entertaining them with music, dance and chat.[18] She would become Patton’s constant companion[19][Note 2] and his hostess when he entertained guests at his headquarters.[21][22][Note 3] The two of them would converse animatedly with each other in fluent French, to the confusion of those around them.[12] Patton made a practice of inviting the Red Cross girls to dine with his staff, especially when dignitaries and VIP's visited his headquarters,[24][25] and the girls had Patton to dinner several times.[26] Once the war was over, they became even more a part of Patton's entourage.[Note 4]

Postwar

In May, after the official end of the war in Europe, Everett Hughes visited Third Army headquarters in Regensburg, Germany, where he soon realized that Patton had had a "scene with Jean Gordon"; perhaps, he thought, about what would become of her now. However, according to Hughes, they had made up that evening, thanks in part to a huge bottle of champagne provided by another Red Cross girl,[28] and reportedly renewed their liaison in London later that month during Patton's leave in England.[29][30] When in early June 1945 Patton was returning to the United States for a month long bond-raising tour, Hughes, who saw him off, wrote in his diary that Jean was distraught and that he took her with a friend back to his apartment so she could "have a good cry."[31] Gordon returned to the United States in December 1945 on the mercy-ship Gripsholm.[32]

Historians and Patton's boasting

Patton repeatedly boasted of his sexual success with this young woman but his biographers are skeptical. Only the discredited author David Irving thinks there was sex. Stanley Hirshson says the relationship was casual.[33] Dennis Showalter believes that Patton, under severe physical and psychological stress, made up claims of sexual conquest to prove his virility.[34] Carlos D'Este agrees, saying, "His behavior suggests that in both 1936 [in Hawaii] and 1944–45, the presence of the young and attractive Jean was a means of assuaging the anxieties of a middle-aged man troubled over his virility and a fear of aging."[35]

Jean Gordon's supervisor, Betty South, the captain of the Red Cross Clubmobile crew attached to the Third Army headquarters, claimed that although Gordon adored General Patton[Note 5], it was strictly in a father–daughter relationship, while the man she truly loved was a young married captain who left her despondent when he went home to his wife.[Note 6] However, her version is colored by the fact that she was protective of both Patton's and Gordon's reputation.[38]

Ruth Ellen Patton has initially also staunchly denied the rumors of an affair, [Note 7] yet her, until recently unpublished, memoirs, as well as her nephew Robert's work on the Pattons she collaborated on, reveal that the family considered Gordon and Patton to have been in a romantic relationship.[2][Note 8][Note 9]

Death

Beatrice Patton clearly believed that Jean Gordon was intimately involved with her husband and wrote to him repeatedly to express her concerns, prompting his cavalier dismissals and a denial that he had even seen her.[41][42] The evening before he left for his bond-raising tour, during a farewell dinner at the Ritz, Patton confessed to Everett Hughes that he was "scared to death of going back home to America;" likewise, he told Hughes upon his return: "Beatrice gave me hell. I'm glad to be in Europe!"[31] Shortly after Patton died of injuries sustained in a car crash that had left him paralyzed, his wife arranged to meet Gordon at a Boston hotel where she confronted her over the supposed affair.[Note 10] In the early morning of January 8, 1946, only days after the confrontation with Beatrice and a little more than two weeks after Patton's death, Jean Gordon committed suicide, surrounded by General Patton's pictures, in the Upper East Side Manhattan apartment of a friend.[44][Note 11]

See also

Bibliography

Notes
  1. 1 2 Steward 1993, p. 92
  2. 1 2 Patton Totten 2011, pp. 26–7
  3. ↑ Boston Herald 1923, p. 3
  4. ↑ Patton Totten 2011, p. 27
  5. ↑ Blumenson 1996, p. 854
  6. ↑ Boston Globe 1946, p. 9
  7. ↑ Boston Traveler 1946, pp. 1, 26
  8. ↑ Fitchburg Sentinel 1946, p. 9
  9. ↑ Boston Herald 1941, p. 3
  10. ↑ Boston Traveler 1942, p. 23
  11. ↑ Boston Traveler 1946, p. 26
  12. 1 2 Irving 2010, p. 185
  13. ↑ Irving 2010, p. 192
  14. ↑ D'Este 1996, p. 743
  15. ↑ Patton Totten 2011, p. 260
  16. ↑ Blumenson 1985, p. 137
  17. ↑ Patton Totten 2011, p. 260-1.
  18. ↑ Korson 1945, p. 283
  19. ↑ Irving 2010, pp. 313, 346, 387–8, 406–7
  20. ↑ Elson 2002, p. 309-10.
  21. ↑ Irving 2010, pp. 185, 312, 392
  22. ↑ Patton 2004, p. 288
  23. ↑ Jordan 2012, p. 477.
  24. ↑ Lande 2002, p. 175
  25. ↑ Blumenson 1996, p. 656
  26. ↑ Blumenson 1996, p. 855
  27. ↑ Blumenson 1996, p. 856.
  28. ↑ Irving 2010, p. 406
  29. ↑ Irving 2010, pp. 406–7
  30. ↑ D'Este 1996, pp. 744–5
  31. 1 2 Irving 2010, p. 407
  32. ↑ Boston Traveler 1946, p. 1
  33. ↑ Stanley Hirshson, General Patton: A Soldier's Life (2003) p 535
  34. ↑ Dennis E. Showalter, Patton And Rommel: Men of War in the Twentieth Century (2006) pp 412-13
  35. ↑ Carlo D'Este, Patton: A Genius for War (1995), p 742.
  36. ↑ Blumenson 1996, p. 854.
  37. 1 2 Parade 1981, p. 10.
  38. ↑ D'Este 1996, p. 925
  39. ↑ Patton 2004, p. 288.
  40. ↑ Daily Beast 2014.
  41. ↑ Blumenson 1996, pp. 529, 854–5
  42. ↑ D'Este 1996, p. 744
  43. ↑ D'Este 1996, p. 806-7.
  44. ↑ Boston Herald 1946, p. 10
  45. ↑ Washington Post 1946, p. 8.
Footnotes
  1. ↑ "[She]... started making a play for Georgie as far back as Bee's wedding... There was gradually no doubt in our minds that she was after just one thing... [Georgie] made a damn fool of himself. I was stunned... I [got] her dates with all my beaux... but none of them dated her more than once. I finally asked a beau ... why this should be, and he said he guessed it was because she acted as if she wasn't a bit interested." According to the General's grandson Robert (p. 233-4), "after Georgie and Jean returned from their trip thogether [to another Hawaiian island to buy horses for the army], neither Beatrice nor Ruth Ellen doubted they'd become intimate."[17]
  2. ↑ "I was invited to a conference in Austria. It was a critique, and we sat with a whole bunch of colonels and generals... It was after the war in Europe was over, but we were still fighting in Japan... Afterward, we had a social. Patton’s niece had come over... and a young major took a fancy to her. Then it came time that the general wanted to leave. Well, when the aide tells you that the general is leaving and he’s got his niece with him, you let the niece leave. But this major kept talking, and Patton had to wait. The major was doing all the talking, nobody else. The next day he was transferred to the Pacific."[20]
  3. ↑ "He canceled his plans, and that night a frustrated Third Army headquarters threw a late-night party, where the hostess, Patton's 'niece' Jean Gordon, plied staff and generals with bourbon until they all got roaring drunk. 'Everybody was pretty high when I got there,' a confused general Eddy wrote in his diary. 'Frankly, I didn't know what was going on.'"[23]
  4. ↑ "When Codman [Charles; Patton's former aide] wrote to Patton in September 1945, he closed with: 'Very best to yourself and Gen. Gay, George [Murnane], Francis [Graves; Patton's new aide] - in fact the whole household - not forgetting Sgt. Meeks, the ladies of the Croix Rouge, and Willie.'"[27]
  5. ↑ "'Jean was a lovely young woman of great charm, intelligence and sensitivity... She understood and loved him. Although she was modest and unassuming, she had the same background of wealth, social position, and culture, as he did... [She] graced his table when he entertained important guests... She had a delightful sense of humor and was as witty as he was, and as interested in as many things... [She] was a bright, warm touch, a feminine touch I am sure he needed and appreciated...'"[36]
  6. ↑ "'Jean tried to drive the memory of him out of her mind, but she couldn't. She grew steadily more depressed and morose... [She] was a sensitive, responsive, high-strung young woman. The two men in her life who meant the most to her were gone. There seemed nothing or no one to live for. She borrowed a friend's apartment in Manhattan, turned on the gas, and turned off her life.' [37]
  7. ↑ "'The truth about Jean was that she fell in love overseas with a married officer... [Daddy] kept a watchful eye on Jean, as he would on any member of his family. But to say or imply that Daddy had been sleeping with Jean Gordon for 12 years and that she joined him to continue the affair - that's hogwash.' According to D'Este (p. 806-7), after she learned of the relationship between her father and cousin in Europe, Ruth Ellen referred to Jean in her unpublished memoir My Father as I Knew Him as 'the Faithless Friend.'"[37]
  8. ↑ "Stories circulated through the family after Jean's death that she left a suicide note declaring: 'I will be with Uncle Georgie in heaven and have him all to myself before Beatrice arrives.'"[39]
  9. ↑ Helen Patton, one of the General's grandchildren, confirmed such a stance in a recent interview: "'My grandfather was very sexual... [His affair with Jean Gordon] caused my grandmother an awful lot of pain. She played the stiff-upper-lipped wife, while Jean had the means and flexibility to become a nurse and accompany my grandfather.' A few years ago Patton met a French soldier who knew Gordon, and who confirmed the love and devotion she felt for her grandfather. 'Love was important to my grandfather’s ability to do his work. My grandmother’s love also held him up, and he was devoted to her. These were two women who loved him in completely different ways, and that’s OK.'"[40]
  10. ↑ "[She] asked her brother, Fred, to arrange for a room at a Boston hotel, where she would like to meet with Jean Gordon... Beatrice, the last to arrive, entered the room quietly... [She] suddenly pointed her finger at Jean and recited the deadliest course known to Hawaiians: 'May the Great Worm gnaw your vitals and may your bones rot joint by little joint.' ...Jean's face suddenly turned 'from rose to pearl to gray.' The cold, hostile expression on Beatrice's face so appalled her brother that he fled from the room. 'Fred said that there was so much malevolence in the room that he jumped up and grabbed his hat and ran out, and only slowed down when he reached the street.' ... Beatrice's jealousy of Jean Gordon was that of an older woman for a young and attractive mistress who has stolen her husband's interest... Jean told a friend that... with the war now over, perhaps Patton's death had been a blessing in disguise. ('I think is better this way for Uncle Georgie. There is no place for him any more, and he would have been unhappy with nothing to do.' (Blumenson, p. 856)) [She] had an understanding of him that was insightful and not frivolous, ample reason for his wife to deem her a serious rival. Beatrice, out of love, could forgive Georgie's indiscretion, but Jean she was determined to punish."[43]
  11. ↑ "Police listed the death as suicide, but the woman left no notes to explain her action. She lay on the floor in a negligee. Pictures of General Patton were strewn about her. There were four jets open on a small gas range nearby." Boston Globe reported that "Miss Gordon was found at 1:45 A.M. seated in a dressing gown on a chair... while gas hissed from four open jets of the kitchen range." Some newspapers, such as the British Daily Mirror (Patton's Niece Kills Herself; Daily Mirror, Wed 9 Jan 1946, Page 8), in accordance with Associated Press simply noted that Jean Gordon had been grief-stricken since her uncle's death, while others, like Boston Globe and Chicago Tribune (Found Dead; Chicago Tribune, Wed 9 Jan 1946, Page 3), attributed her death to war nerves.[45]
References
  1. ↑ "Hitler historian loses libel case". BBC News. 11 April 2000. Retrieved 2 January 2010.
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