THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 10, 1995 TAG: 9509080589
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GEORGE TUCKER
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
Pocahontas (c. 1596-1617), whose marriage to John Rolfe in 1614 was the first case of miscegenation in Virginia, was one of the Old Dominion's most cherished icons long before she was metamorphosed into a 17th century sex symbol by the Walt Disney movie.
Even today, her descendants are very protective of her reputation. Still, it is a matter of record that she was already married to an Indian chief named Kocoum when she became Mistress Rolfe, thereby qualifying her as Virginia's first known bigamist.
Even though the details of Pocahontas' tragically brief life are well known, there are no humorous incidents among them. This deficiency has been amply rectified, however, by latter-day social history as the following anecdotes will show.
The first concerns a time when British and Virginia ancestral pride locked horns during the early 1900s, when a Richmond matron encountered two English grande dames in a Swiss hotel. When the two Britishers saw the traveler from the commonwealth taking tea by herself, they invited her to join them. The party proceeded normally until the name Virginia rang a bell to one of the English ladies.
``By the way, my dear,'' she asked, ``did I understand correctly that you come from Virginia?''
``Why, yes,'' the Richmond matron replied. ``It is known as the Mother of States, you know.''
``Yes, I know,'' her interlocutor commented icily. Then she added, ``You know, this is remarkable. A minor member of our family, one John Rolfe, married an Indian woman there, named Pocahontas, during the early days of the settlement.''
After that conversational prologue, she dropped this atom bomb: ``You know our family has always felt he married beneath his social standing.''
``Oh, is that so!'' the Richmond matron brindled. ``Permit me to inform you that I am a direct descendant of the Princess Pocahontas and your high and mighty John Rolfe. And let me add, I believe her father, the Emperor Powhatan, felt she was demeaning herself when she threw herself away on a British interloper of no particular distinction when she could have had her pick of the first chieftains in his tribe!''
Then there is this tale of the elegant Virginia dowager, also a direct descendant of Pocahontas, who among several hundred others claiming that distinction - legitimately or otherwise - attended the re-enactment of her illustrious forebear's marriage in the restored Jamestown church during the 350th anniversary of the founding of Virginia in 1957.
After the ceremony, the dowager was discovered by a newspaper reporter perched on the steps of the Robert Hunt Memorial Shrine near the church, daintily munching on a fried chicken leg from a box lunch.
``Well, ma'am, what do you think of all this?'' the reporter asked.
``Young man,'' the descendant of the mighty Powhatan trumpeted, ``if my ancestress, Pocahontas, could come back today and see this motley mob claiming to be her descendants, she would flee into the forest and never come out again!''
Even though Pocahontas, Powhatan's ``darling daughter,'' was received with open arms at the English Court in 1617, her direct descendant, the second Mrs. Woodrow Wilson (born Edith Bolling), had a harder time being recognized by at least one guardian of French upper class snobbery when she was in Paris in 1919 with her husband for the Versailles Conference.
During the Wilsons' stay in Paris, a duchess complained to a diplomat that the President and his wife were quite common. Coming to Mrs. Wilson's defense, the diplomat pulled out a newspaper clipping from his pocket which noted that America's first lady at that time was a descendant of ``Princess Pocahontas.'' Confronted by this evidence, the duchess conceded that Mrs. Wilson, at least, was royalty. She then promptly invited her to tea.
Later, Mrs. Wilson received a post card from her mother, who was then living at the Powhatan Hotel in Washington, the hostelry being named for Pocahontas' father. Mrs. Wilson wanted to send the card to the duchess and tell her it was a picture of her family palace. But the president, who took his diplomatic mission in Paris seriously, called a halt to the fun and told Mrs. Wilson to knock it off while she was ahead. by CNB