What's in a Name?

Alongside cabins named Oraton and WySoMiSh (Wyoming, South Orange, Millburn and Short Hills) in the Oval Girl Scout camp in South Mountain Reservation stands Nathalie Kip Cabin.

Local girls camping at The Oval may not realize, but Nathalie was a daughter of South Orange in the years before Maplewood was a separate community. Her family built and lived in the Kip-Riker Mansion, which is now the older part of Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel.

Nathalie's mother, Katharine Flower, was a Gilded Age darling when she married Ira Andruss Kip, Jr. on Feb. 14, 1893. Katharine and her parents lived on Madison Avenue in New York City. Her father, John D. Flower, was described as a “banker” in the Biographical Directory of the State of New York. That descriptor seems modest; he ran the firm of Flower & Company, sat on the New York Stock Exchange, served as a Vice President of Kingston and Pembroke Realty and a director of U. S. Casualty Company, and was an active member of the fledgling Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New England Society. Katherine’s political pedigree was equally august. When she married, her uncle was the sitting Governor of New York.

One society column described Katharine’s wedding as “The most important of those marriages” seen in the 1892-1893 season.

The wedding took place in St. James’s Church on Madison Avenue in New York City. Four hundred guests filled the church; notables included the Governor, the Lieutenant-Governor, Mayor William R. Grace of New York City, and the former Mayor. The reception was attended by 600 guests.

The description of the wedding was followed by a short list of notable gifts that the bride received. These included “a solid-silver tea service” from the Governor, and, from the bride’s parents, a “handsome house” on Hamilton Road in South Orange. The groom’s parents “furnished the house and gave a fine team of horses and several carriages.”

By early April of the year, Mr. and Mrs. Kip had returned from their honeymoon and settled in South Orange.

Ira is described variously as a “banker,” a “manufacturer,” and a “merchandise broker.” During the 1890s, he became a director of the Brooklyn Elevated Rail Road Company and held a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.

By 1900, when her father died, Katharine had three children, John Flower Kip, Catherine Kip, and Ira A. Kip. (A child named Mary died in infancy.) The details of his will, as reported in the newspaper, name the children and Katharine as heirs.

Perhaps it was then that Katharine and Ira set their sights on Scotland Road. In 1900, Ira was serving his first of two terms as Village President. They bought property in that year for $27,000, according to a letter quoted in Images of America: South Orange Revisited, and spent about $100,000 on its construction and décor. By February of 1903, their new home, 432 Scotland Road, was complete. It was modeled on Haddon Hall, an eleventh-century manor in Derbyshire, England.

The new home was on display for the first time on Feb. 14, 1903, when Katharine and Ira hosted a reception marking their 10th wedding anniversary.  The New York Times reports that, in celebration of their “tin” anniversary, the Kips received “many tin presents.” Katharine Kip stood in the Louis XVI drawing room and “received unassisted.”

It would be difficult to overstate the breadth of Ira A. Kip, Jr.’s activities during this period. Besides serving South Orange, he was a member of both the Holland Society and the New England Society, and the Essex County Country Club. Kip was a founding member of South Orange’s Field Club, and a regular golfer at Baltusrol. In addition, The New York Times reports on his victories with his yacht, “The Onion II,” his Chairmanship of the annual Orange Horse Shows, and even a fling with amateur dramatics.

The Kip family, which had grown with the birth of daughter Nathalie in 1903, located on Ridgewood Road, possibly where Walnut Court is now.

During the war, Katharine Kip lent her Leek Island vacation home in the Finger Lakes for the use of convalescent soldiers. That hospital was overseen by a South Orange doctor, Mefford Runyon. Shortly after the war, Katharine and Ira divorced. Katharine married Mefford Runyon and moved to his home at 18 Academy Street. Runyon was also Surgeon-in-Chief (and owner) of a private hospital located at 516 Prospect St. (Then South Orange, now Maplewood, this building is now the .)

In 1921, Nathalie Kip fell from a horse, according to a member of the family, and died on March 18, at age 15. Services on March 21 were held at the Academy Street home and she was buried at the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Tarrytown, NY.  Her father, an avid horseman, reportedly sold his horses and never rode again.

The details of a cabin came to be named for Nathalie are lost to history, at least for now. This writer would be very grateful for any insights or information. (Contact marciaw@patch.com.) For now, local Scouts can know that an Oval cabin has a history that's close to home.