Bonus Time: Podcast Style
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Back in May I did a guest appearance on an Atlanta-based podcast called Trashy Divorces. It’s a delightfully decadent show that digs into the juicy details of celebrity splits, and I highly recommend it if you appreciate old Hollywood gossip.
I was invited to share a Candler family story for a special Patreon-only bonus feature. I decided to tell a tale that won’t feature in my book and probably won’t appear on this site because it’s not about Asa Jr. It’s about Asa Sr. If you have an hour and an interest in the media circus that surrounded the Candlers in the early 1920s, I invite you to listen to the story of New Orleans socialite Onezima DeBouchel and her brief but tumultuous engagement to Asa Griggs Candler, founder of Coca Cola.
Ms. Onezima DeBouchel and Asa Griggs Candler, Sr., St. Louis Post Dispatch Oct 22, 1922
Onezima DeBouchel claimed that Asa Sr. had fallen in love with her and intended to marry her until his family intervened and forced him to break it off. In one colorful interview she described an encounter with Asa Jr., which is how I stumbled across this delightful story. From my research notes:
ODB said she tried to avoid Atlanta and get together with him outside of town but couldn’t. So with her “nerves at a breaking point” she went into Atlanta and convinced him to meet her, but he brought his son. Quotes:
“I am alone and a defenseless woman in a town that you are supposed to own. But if you think you need a bodyguard, assuredly bring one along.”
“…A few minutes later, Asa G. Candler, old broken and timorous, entered the hotel. With him was Asa G. Jr., dark and glowering.”
“His son, his personal bodyguard, was immediately recognized as a purse-proud, red-faced, self-important little man. He revealed commonality in every feature and in every word.”
He would slip and say “darling” before correcting to "Mrs. De Bouchel," “…and then look in a frightened, sheepish sort of way at his son, who would glare at him and then glare at me and then glare at the ceiling and the floor and anything else he could glare at.”
She claims he said, “Oh my darling, he cried, heartbrokenly. I’d marry you this minute if I could. But I can’t. I’m up against a stonewall. This is breaking my heart. You are as dead as though you were in your coffin, and I wish I, too, were dead.” She adds about Asa Jr. that upon hearing this, “I thought his puffy little son would explode.”
If you don’t mind a bit of rambling, circuitous storytelling, give it a listen!
Bonus Divorce: Coca-Cola TrashCandy, 1920s Atlanta style....
