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Message |
    
Howard Brown
Chief Inspector
Username: Howard
Post Number: 637
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, June 26, 2005 - 9:37 pm: | 
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From the efforts of Nina Thomas, we have this offering regarding Aleister Crowley and Vittoria Cremers....
Crowley claims that while living in New York in 1912 he met a lesbian lady in her fifties named the Baroness Vittoria Cremers, who was married to Baron Louis Cremers of the Russian Embassy. He may have met her, but it was not in 1912, Edward Alexander Crowley is listed on a 1914 Ellis Island ship manifest as (Age 39, widowed) having last been in the US in 1906. He is also listed as (Age 30, married) arriving in 1905. Although Cremers may have been in the US at the time, Crowley was not.
HowBrown
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Jeffrey Bloomfied
Chief Inspector
Username: Mayerling
Post Number: 719
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, June 27, 2005 - 8:17 pm: |
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Hi Howard,
Knowing what a character Crowley was, is it possible that he came to the U.S. under an assumed name between 1906 and 1914? His comment does not say he met Baroness Cremers as Alistair
Crowley (of course, we are assuming that he did).
Best wishes,
Jeff |
Howard Brown
Chief Inspector
Username: Howard
Post Number: 639
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Monday, June 27, 2005 - 8:40 pm: |
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Hey Jeff !
The section above: "Edward Alexander Crowley is listed on a 1914 Ellis Island ship manifest as (Age 39, widowed) having last been in the US in 1906. He is also listed as (Age 30, married) arriving in 1905..."
... indicates that Crowley didn't use an alias on these three underlined dates...arriving in the good old U.S. of A., and using his real name.
...But yeah,J.B....that is a possibility. He may have come during that time you stated under an alias. Its just funny that he didn't on the other three occasions.
Thanks for bringing that up, sor...!
HowBrown
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Graham W.
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, June 27, 2005 - 5:13 am: |
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A second posting on this subject - I was interested in the reference and I think I've tracked its source to the following:
http://www.redflame93.com/JacktheRipper.html
Some misinformation but worth looking at if only for Crowley's essay on JtR, Stephenson, Cremers and O'Donnell.
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Graham W.
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, June 27, 2005 - 3:49 am: |
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This appears to be a misreading of the 'Confessions' (p.754). Crowley states that he provided an introduction to Vittoria Cremers to his 'companion' Leila Waddell, who travelled to New York in 1912. Cremers had previously corresponded with Crowley and indicated to Waddell that she would travel to Britain later in the year. At this time Crowley states that he divided his time between London and Paris and nowhere states that he was in the US. The meeting between Crowley and Cremers took place in Britain. Following this passage is the reference to Stephenson (un-named) and the 'bloodstained ties-in-the box' episode. |
Graham W.
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 28, 2005 - 7:29 pm: |
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Thanks Howard for your encouraging remarks on the Cremers thread.
Sorry to harp on about this (I know this is only a minor part of the whole JtR story) but hopefully here’s a bit of clarification. Crowley first arrived in New York in July 1900 where he remained for two or three days before proceeding by train to Mexico City (there is no confirming Ellis Island listing under Crowley for this trip except in the 1914 manifest – see below). He remained in Mexico throughout the remainder of 1900 and returned to the US in April 1901 passing through Texas and travelling to San Francisco where he remained for one week before taking ship for Hawaii on 3 May.
His second trip to the US occurred in 1906. In May 1906 he arrived in Vancouver from Japan, after spending the latter part of 1904 in Europe and most of 1905 and early 1906 in Asia (India, Burma, China Vietnam &c). The arrival date for an Edward Crowley in New York in 1905 (posted above) is for a different Crowley. From Vancouver Aleister Crowley travelled overland to New York via Niagara Falls and sailed for England, arriving in Liverpool on 2 June 1906.
On neither occasion is there any reference to a meeting with Cremers (from my earlier post their first meeting took place in Britain in 1912).
Cremers was almost as peripatetic – according to the O’Donnell account she arrived in Britain from the UK in 1888 and returned to New York in 1889. She returned to Britain in 1890 where she may have remained for some time. The Ellis Island accounts have her arriving back in New York in January 1893. A third trip to Britain followed in 1906 with her returning to New York in November 1907. Her meeting with Leila Waddell in New York took place after March 1912 (date of arrival of LW) – according to Crowley he paid for Cremers’ fare from New York (after this date) in order to manage his organization in Britain. In late 1913 Crowley dismissed her on a charge of embezzlement and she returned to the US, arriving in January 1914 by the ‘Majestic’ (Crowley was later to follow in the ‘Lusitania’ in October 1914). From the 1914 manifest she appears to have first arrived in the US in 1875.
I have found no evidence to indicate that Crowley and Cremers met during the five years of Crowley’s exile in the US (the enmity between them was not likely to have encouraged such a meeting). Cremers returned to the UK at some time between 1914 and 1930.
Graham W.
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Howard Brown
Chief Inspector
Username: Howard
Post Number: 654
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 7:29 pm: |
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Dear Graham:
Thanks very much for this information. Its all helpful.
Peripatetic? These two had ants in their pants !
They sure did get around....
HowBrown
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Jeffrey Bloomfied
Chief Inspector
Username: Mayerling
Post Number: 724
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 8:22 pm: |
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Hi Howard,
What can you tell me about Vicky's husband Baron Louis? The reason is that I can't tell if he is German or Russian (I take it he must be Russian if they were married in the Russian embessay). However, I recently discovered a gentleman of German ancestry named Carl CREMER (not CREMERS) who was in the German diplomatic service in World War I. Can you clarify where Louis was from?
Best wishes,
Jeff |
Howard Brown
Chief Inspector
Username: Howard
Post Number: 656
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 8:45 pm: |
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J.B.
Other than what is available on sites like this one [http://www.redflame93.com/JacktheRipper.html ]
...that use this generic description of Louis Cremers..
"...the widow of Baron Louis Cremers,who was attached to the diplomatic corps at the Russian Embassy in Washington..."
...thats about it.
In the book written by Kim Farnell, Mystical Vampire, which is a biography of Mabel Collins, on page 82, the same generic description of Baron Louie is rehashed,verbatim.
Sorry to be of no help here,buddy.
Maybe one of these days,I'll get around to contacting someone in D.C. who may have more information on Cremers.
HowBrown
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Howard Brown
Chief Inspector
Username: Howard
Post Number: 662
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, July 03, 2005 - 2:54 pm: |
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...and here is that description of Cremers,according to Crowley...
http://www.itlink.se/oto/personer/aleister/confess/chapter71.html
From Crowley's confessions:
"Laylah had spent some weeks in New York with Two Little Brides. I had given her introductions to various correspondents of mine in the city; people interested in my work. One of these demands attention, both for her own sake as one of the most remarkable characters I have ever known and for the influence of her intervention on my affairs.Her name was Vittoria Cremers. She claimed to be the bastard of a wealthy English Jew and to have married a knavish Austrian baron."
Hmm...Cremers was Italian and English [ mama's side ].
HowBrown
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Howard Brown
Chief Inspector
Username: Howard
Post Number: 675
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 06, 2005 - 8:32 pm: |
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Hey folks..how about this !?
Nina Thomas did some investigating into the Russian Embassy in D.C., looking for Baron Louis Cremers....and came up empty.
But...she did find this strange bit of info:
From the Boss Lady herself....
"I was checking the Russian embassy in Washington, looking for Cremers, but unfortunatly I could not find a list of all the employees. I did however come across the Russian Ambassador who was also the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps. at the time. His name was Count Cassini.
This surname Cassini [ unusual name for a Russian,ain't it ? ] is the same surname as Vittoria Cremers' maiden name !!!!!
J.B. What do you make of this,my man? Anyone else?
HowBrown
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 4646
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2005 - 4:59 am: |
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Howard, there's a lot of stuff about Count Cassini in the "Times".
Robert |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 4648
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2005 - 5:42 am: |
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And on Google. This seems to be a descendant :
He was born in April 1913, in Paris. It is said that he entered the world in a splendid apartment on the Rue de General Lambert, upon a gold and white bed draped with pink silk. The birth was attended by a physician who arrived by carriage, after midnight, clothed in top hat, white gloves and spats.
His lineage descended from the Crusaders on one side, Teutonic knights on the other. To this day, one of his many passions is collecting full suits of armor, which he displays in his baronial townhouse on New York's posh Gramercy Park. His maternal grandfather was Czar Nicholas' ambassador to the United States during the administrations of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.
Cassini's father was a dandy who claimed to own 552 ties, and who regularly shipped silk shirts -- 50 at a time -- from Paris to London for laundering. The father eventually lost his money, his position and his pride, and became something of a mystic.
Cassini's mother was an Italian countess, a great beauty, a persistent survivor who opened a boutique and took quite ably to designing variations on current Paris fashions.
Forced to flee revolutionary Russia with their parents, Oleg and his younger brother, Igor, came of age in Florence among the displaced nobility of Europe. There they were befriended by dashing noblemen who worked as chauffeurs, and by riding masters who taught them to sit confidently astride jittery thoroughbreds.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/sunday/lifestyle/0518oleg.html
Robert |
Howard Brown
Chief Inspector
Username: Howard
Post Number: 678
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2005 - 7:23 pm: |
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Oh No !!! Another tie aficinado !!!
"Cassini's father was a dandy who claimed to own 552 ties..." Hopefully none of them were in the condition that Vittoria found 'em !
Lemme get to what I do best...creating confusion.
Okay...Oleg Cassini's grandfather was this Count Cassini...who was the ambassador in the embassy at the same time Louis Cremers was an ambassador. and who married Vittoria of the bloody ties...whose maiden name was Cassini. Is this correct so far?
Thanks for the links,Robert Chas !!!
HowBrown
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 4652
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 08, 2005 - 5:11 am: |
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Howard, we know Cremers was born St Petersburg but do we definitely know he was an ambassador or attached to the embassy?
Robert |
Graham W
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2005 - 6:22 am: |
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The Cassini mentioned in association with the Russian Embassy was Count Arturo Cassini. During the 1880s and 1890s he was one of Russia’s main players in the Far East. He became ambassador to the USA in 1903 (from memory) and his daughter Marguerite was one of the great society beauties of the period. She married Count Alexander Loiewski - their eldest son Oleg took his mothers maiden name and became famous as the dress designer Oleg Cassini.
The antecedents of both Louis Cremers and Vittoria Cassini are a little vague. According to the information associated with their marriage Louis was born in St Petersburg, Russia in 1858, the son of Louis Cremers and Anna Struse. Vittoria was born in either Pisa or London in c.1860 (depending on the source). The name she suggests for her father, Manrico, is rather rare and did not gain much currency until after 1852/53 with the production of Verdi’s opera Il Trovatore (Manrico being the ‘trovatore’ of the title).
I have some nagging doubts about many of the claims associated with these two (but no evidence to support such doubts). The relationship between the different Cassini’s may be non-existent and Vittoria Cassini’s origins may have been less grand than she claimed. Perhaps a line worth pursuing with any reference to Cremers is to search for Kremers as it would be rendered from the Cyrillic. The non-Russian appearance of Cassini (and for that matter Cremers) is not unusual. A large number of non-Russians received appointments at the Czarist court in the 18th and early 19th centuries (particularly if they were artists, musicians or scientists). There are a great many instances of these non-Russians receiving land grants that enabled them to be counted amongst the aristocracy.
Graham W |
Howard Brown
Chief Inspector
Username: Howard
Post Number: 680
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Friday, July 08, 2005 - 6:18 pm: |
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Thanks a ton for this latest great post,Graham.
One thing that has "bugged" me about Baron Louis Cremers and Vittoria may sound a little rude,but here it goes...
From the description given by Crowley, Vittoria wasn't leading the league in looks. With all due respect to her intellect, the description paints her as rather disharmonically featured,with a flattened head among other things. Maybe it was a marriage of convienience,but for an Ambassador,it seems rather strange.
Besides this,the claim that she actually served and was wounded fighting for Garibaldi,makes the marriage [ to me ] seem to be one of some sort of convienience.
Graham, your post is appreciated very much.
Robt.Chazz.......Yessir,thats a good point. We don't know for certain if Cremers was. Nina Thomas,Wonderwoman,couldn't find any verification for this. The hunt is on.
HowBrown
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Jeffrey Bloomfied
Chief Inspector
Username: Mayerling
Post Number: 742
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 08, 2005 - 7:01 pm: |
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Hi Howard,
Some ideas for possible research but not about the man we should concentrate on - D'Onston.
At the time of the marriage, it would not bave made much stir. Russian-American relations were quiet in 1913 (except for some protests made about the Mendel Beiliss Trial). But a few yeas earlier there was much more interaction. In 1905 Theodore Roosevelt negotiated the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth (New Hampshire) which ended the Russo - Japanese War. The Russian delegation was headed by Count Serge Witte, the industrialist who tried to modernize the country in the 1890s. But he probably would have required assistance from the local Embassy in Washington to learn how to deal with Roosevelt.
So - if we are to look into Ambassador Cassini and Baron Cremer, may I suggest looking into books about that peace negotiation (which led to T.R.'s Nobel Peace Prize).
As for Crowley's description of Vittoria, they were enemies by that time. He probably was not going to say much that was pleasant about her, even to the point of slanting a description of her physical attributes to be slighting against her. Given his own ugly, bald head (some of his pictures look like the late Jackie Coogan as "Uncle Fester" on a bad day), he was not one to dismiss the appearance of other people. I wonder if he would have prefered the name "the Ugliest man " or "the Ugliest beast" rather than "the evilist man" or "the great beast".
Best wishes,
Jeff |
Howard Brown
Chief Inspector
Username: Howard
Post Number: 681
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Friday, July 08, 2005 - 11:24 pm: |
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J.B.
Yeah,thats a good point about Mr. Stains ! He also looked a little like Jerome Howard on a three day meth crash, hence..Aleister Curly. Do what thou soitently will...nyuk,nyuk,nyuk !
Thats an excellent idea about information being in one of the Roosevelt books. But... Oy ! I'm gonna have to hire someone to help me read all these books ! Which is why I wish I could borrow your brain for about 2 months,because I have to get eye surgery on Tuesday [ I have something, its like that critter in Alien, popping outta my right eye..but I'll be okay they said. ].
Thanks for the lead,Jeff.
Blind Melon Brown
HowBrown
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Jeffrey Bloomfied
Chief Inspector
Username: Mayerling
Post Number: 743
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, July 09, 2005 - 12:54 am: |
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Hi Howard,
Good luck with the surgery buddy. It you have any questions about D'Onston contact me.
Jeff |
Glenn G. Lauritz Andersson
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Glenna
Post Number: 3693
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, July 09, 2005 - 3:07 am: |
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Hi Howard, buddy...
I wish you the best with the surgery too. Good luck; I'm sure there will be no problems; a friend of mine had something similar.
All the best
G. Andersson, writer/crime historian
Sweden
The Swedes are the men That Will not be Blamed for Nothing
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 4658
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, July 09, 2005 - 3:30 am: |
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Yes indeed Howard, good luck with your eye op. I'm sure you'll awaken with two perfect eyes. 
Robert |
David O'Flaherty
Chief Inspector
Username: Oberlin
Post Number: 953
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, July 09, 2005 - 8:47 am: |
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I had the same thing done, but it turned out it wasn't the eye that was a problem, it was the mirror. Good luck with the surgery, Howard.
Cheers,
Dave |
Howard Brown
Chief Inspector
Username: Howard
Post Number: 683
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, July 09, 2005 - 1:13 pm: |
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Hey thanks folks ! I appreciate the thoughts very much.
We could make this minor nippin' and snippin' a major operation, if we all jump Jeff...gangtackle him...drag his butt to the operating table next to mine...and carefully switch brains. We could do it. I know we could. I saw Steve Martin and Colin Clive and Gene Wilder do it..and so can we. We could easily make the matter of switching gray matter in a matter of time.
Then Jeff will have the hatrack.
Thanks again,fellers...
HowBrown
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Robert Clack
Chief Inspector
Username: Rclack
Post Number: 580
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, July 09, 2005 - 1:23 pm: |
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Hi Howard,
Good luck with your surgery. You should have known staring at all those pictures of Caz was bad for you.
Anyway thinking of you buddy.
Rob |
Howard Brown
Chief Inspector
Username: Howard
Post Number: 684
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, July 09, 2005 - 1:30 pm: |
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If staring at photos of Caz is bad for you, then daddy lemme go blind !
Mountain Man Sharp sent me a photo of Caz and him a while back. His head in the photo disappeared faster than my 2005 tax return. I ,er, sorta,put another photo in its place.
Thanks Bob !
HowBrown
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Howard Brown
Chief Inspector
Username: Howard
Post Number: 685
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, July 09, 2005 - 8:49 pm: |
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WHOOPS !
FOOT IN MOUTH ALERT !
**************************************************
In a post above,I erroneously stated,
"Besides this,the claim that she actually served and was wounded fighting for Garibaldi,makes the marriage [ to me ] seem to be one of some sort of convienience."
This is what happens when you get your furious note scribbling on one page, mixed in with the next page.
At no time did Vittoria Cremers claim to serve under Garibaldi. The person who did was Madame Helena Blavatsky.
My apologies for this mistake.
HowBrown
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