Picture This: Here and Abroad, Fannie Lurman’s Suitors and Admirers Spanned Decades

—the belle of many a ball— turned down proposals from an English officer in London and a hot-tempered Philadelphia millionaire, to finally marry the man who held a six-decade courtship with her: Dorsey M. Williams.

An article written by Clint Johnson described him at that stage in life as a man “whose stalwart, six-foot-two figure is as straight today as it was 50 years ago and whose sweeping white mustache, frosty gray eyes and ruddy complexion make him look every inch the successful country gentleman.”           

Williams, an avid foxhunter for many years, was also one of the most frequent and respected judges of horse shows throughout his life. His feats of strength and marksmanship were legendary.

Perhaps one of the more colorful aspects of his life was included in his obituary on Feb. 19, 1955, in The Sun. It seems that Williams managed Folly Quarter, the estate of VanLear Black, from 1914 to 1922. Black ran a circus venture for a time and had an elephant named Alice who had taken ill. Williams’ diagnosis: “Alice is a goner unless we give her whisky and plenty of it.” It worked.

The couple had long traveled in the same social circles, having first met at the Patapsco Hunt where he was master of the foxhounds. Lurman was as accomplished a horsewoman as she was beautiful. In fact, she told an interviewer late in life that she may have married that English officer but he was to be stationed in India: “I didn’t want to go that far away from my father or my horse.”

Horses were often on her mind, even when it came to attire. In that same interview, she recalled a hunt ball in Philadelphia where she and her younger sister, Kitty, had pink coats made like the men’s hunting coats, which they wore atop white satin dresses. She said “people still occasionally talk about that hunt ball, when Kitty and I work pink riding coats and red satin slippers.”

Although she described herself as “not the marrying kind,” she knew that she was the love of Williams’ life: “He’s a wonderful, good man. Never looked at another girl in his life.”  In fact, it is said that he built three “dream houses,” which he sold while waiting for her to accept his proposal.

Their wedding guest list was an unusual one—consisting of doctors, nurses and a few old friends—as it took place on April 25, 1947, in a tenth floor room at University Hospital where she was recuperating. In a story written by Margaret Dempsey, she lamented: “These doctors wouldn’t let me have a reception with champagne. They were afraid it would have been too much excitement.”

The Catonsville Room has a copy of her 1890 passport application in which she is described as age 20, 5 feet 9 inches tall, with high forehead, straight nose, oval face, blue eyes and light brown hair. Many would consider these elements of a classic beauty.

So it is no wonder that another admirer, Alfred Jenkins Shriver, selected her from his social circle, to be one of the 10 Baltimore belles to be immortalized in a mural to hang in a building to bear his name on the Homewood campus of his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University. Shriver himself has been described as a “clubman, bon vivant, philanthropist and a bachelor.”

The will, written in Shriver’s own hand, and filed in Orphans Court a week after his death in 1939, stated that each of the women should be painted as “she was at the height of her beauty.”

Two women, one the strong-willed Fannie, expressed objections to their inclusion soon after the terms of the will were released. Later, in a 1946 story in The Sun, Lurman stated: “But I see no point to saying anything about the matter. The Hopkins trustees will probably not accept the gift.” How wrong she was.

However, Shriver Hall was not built until 1954 nor were the murals installed in it until 1956, by which time only one of the “beauties” was still alive. Although the Frances Lurman seen in the mural bears scant likeness to images of her housed in the Catonsville Room, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It was reported that the remaining belle, DeCourcy Wright Thom, who was present for the unveiling, said: “Mr. Shriver would have approved.”