"Handsome Mrs. J. Philip Benkard, who is just about as social as anyone can get, but who would rather talk about the days when, as Ann Swinburne, she was a belle of the light opera world, became a bride for the third time in Monte Carlo.
News that Ann is now Mrs. Charles Andrews Munroe will come as a surprise to her friends here, but if won't surprise anyone to learn that her two sons, Rudolph Schirmer and Philip Benkard, were on the spot when the knot was tied.
Ann has always been extremely devoted to the boys. There was a time when she closed up her Newport villa at the height of the social season and leased a shloss in the Austrian Tyrol near Saltzberg, just so Rudy could continue with his music studies.
Her first marriage to Rudolph Schirmer made Ann a happy young girl. She pitched in and took an active role in the music publishing business in which Schirmer was a partner and won renown as a beauty with brains.
When Schirmer died, Ann wrapped her life in her young son Rudy and it was some years later that socially-prominent banker, J. Philip Benkard, made her his wife.
Young Philip was born of this marriage and everyone knew that the former singing star of such Broadway hits as "The Madcap Duchess" and "The Count of Luxembourg" had once again made an ideal match.
Then tragedy struck. Benkard, a lieutenant colonel in World War I, was stricken with a heart attack as he took part in an Army day parade and it proved fatal.
As for Charlie Munroe, it's his second marriage. His wife, the former Rhea Logan, Chicago, died in 1933.
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