From The World of Mr. Sheraton, by Ernest Henderson (Augusta aka ‘Penny’s – Dad)
Penny, our middle-sized daughter, did on one occasion exhibit an unprecedented and seemingly inexplicable interest in her father's business affairs. As a junior at Smith College, she was spending a few days' vacation with us in Boston. Suddenly she developed an astonishing urge to see her father's hotels, particularly the Sheraton-Park in Washington, once known as the Wardman Park Hotel.
We had made some major improvements at the Sheraton-Park. The property had been modernized and wholly air-conditioned, and a two-million-dollar banquet hall and spacious exhibition facilities had been added. Eager to see the changes, I took Penny with me to Washington.
We arrived late, but this did not discourage my "shameless" daughter. Reaching for the phone, she dialed a number she apparently knew.
"Sorry," a landlady told her, “He isn't home."
"Shall I call at eleven?" Penny asked.
"Sorry," came the voice, "it's an important engagement. He won't return until late."
"How about midnight?" Penny tried hopefully.
"Sorry," came the reply, "it's a very late business appointment. You will have to call in the morning."
With all enthusiasm gone from her voice, Penny consented to join her father in exploring the new banquet hall, one of the largest and most dramatic in the country. A debutante ball was in progress, and we could look down on it unseen from a balcony not in use that night.
Eighty of the capital's most luscious debutantes, all in lovely white gowns, were being presented to Washington society, and the climax of the evening arrived as we looked down from our point of vantage. Two great orchestras joined together, the dimmers were set at a level to create the desired effect, and two searchlights cast their beams on the red-carpeted stairway as the first of the eighty debs majestically descended. Her father, an admiral, ablaze with his decorations, was on one arm. On the other was her escort for the evening, a handsome U.S. Army major, a White House aide, bearing the necessary complement of shining gold braid. While a thousand guests below stood breathless, Penny took one look at the tall, handsome major and announced, "I hate him, I hate him." As she went on, I thought I could detect incoherent references to "an important business engagement."
The next morning, it seems, an acceptable alibi was forthcoming. Perhaps, after all, the daughter of an out-of-town admiral, lacking a wide acquaintance in the capital, might have been assigned an obliging White House aide, drafted for this special occasion. At all events, all was forgiven, and a year later Penny became the bride of Major J. Carleton Petrone, Jr., a former White House aide.
The wedding reception, held on the mall in front of our Louisburg Square home, revived a famous Boston tradition, dormant for over a century. Jenny Lind was married in that same enclosed plot of grass on the side of Beacon Hill, the property of the twenty-two families whose houses abut on Louisburg Square, a garden which visitors to Boston sometimes think of as a small piece of London transplanted to the New World.
