Old Missoula

Victoria Deschamps -Cinderella Girl

MISSOULA PARENTS BLAST ROLE OF CINDERELLA

So read the headline of the Daily Missoulian on November 29, 1925.

Missoula’s Victoria Deschamps was suddenly the “Cinderella Girl” in newspapers across the whole country when a wealthy Alaska miner sought to adopt the 13-year-old high school girl. Her parents were as alarmed as the rest of the country was. A product of a long time Missoula Deschamps family, she became the focus of one of the most sensational national stories of the day.

The strange story started in a railroad depot in Portland, Oregon a few weeks earlier when John Warren (Jack) McCord met Victoria and her two sisters in Union Station. Though a wealthy 42-year-old traveling from Seattle to San Francisco, he offered them assistance at the train depot when it became apparent that they were confused. Newspapers reported that he helped with the girl’s luggage and tickets and in the process gave Victoria a friendly pat on the head, stating he would like to “steal her.” The encounter blossomed a short while later when he met them again in San Francisco. Only now he proposed adopting her for real.

What should have been an uneventful trip for Victoria was anything but when she became the focus of the wealthy mining man from Alaska who took a fancy to her. That story quickly found its way into newspapers across the entire country. She was now known as the “Cinderella Girl,” and her family was in a quandary. Like it or not she was suddenly a famous young girl.

Photographs of Victoria showing a charming looking young girl with a bobbed style haircut were making their way across the whole country. One picture from The Daily Missoulian showed her sitting ladylike in a fashionable armchair dressed in a stylish suit jacket, termed coquettish in its day, and appearing sophisticated well beyond her years.

John (Jack) McCord, a wealthy Alaska man over age 40, was now being interviewed by the press and questioned by San Francisco police regarding his intentions. He made no attempt at disguising his infatuation with Victoria  and openly revealed his plans to adopt her and assist in her schooling. He even boasted that he would like to escort her to his Alaska paradise in the summer, where he could demonstrate his wealth and success. It wasn’t an idle boast; he had been amazingly successful in Alaska.

First, McCord would need to obtain Victoria’s parents’ approval, and he went about it with passion. By early December he had made plans to visit Missoula and discuss his plans with them. Some news accounts had already falsely stated that Victoria’s mother gave her approval of the adoption, which she adamantly denied. Strangely, one news account stated that Victoria wasn’t the first Deschamp girl to be pursued by using adoption the same way.

The following day another headline in The Daily Missoulian said, “Too much sensation Stops Adoption Program.”

Victoria was currently staying in San Francisco with her two older sisters, Hilda and Blanche, while attending school there. One sister made the statement, “Too much of a sensation surrounds the adoption . . . It is off.”

When interviewed, Tony Deschamps, Victoria’s father in Missoula, said that McCord coming to Missoula would not change his mind about the adoption plan. Victoria was currently enrolled in High School in San Francisco and planned to study music there.

Nevertheless, McCord was quoted the following day, stating that he would still adopt Victoria if possible. He announced a plan to send her to a finishing school at Belmont, near there, where she could continue her music education. He then gave the press an explanation regarding his success as an Alaska businessman which included banking, mining and oil investments.

On December 1^st, McCord sought to dial down the notion that he was taking advantage of the youngster. A quote from The Daily Missoulian:

“They have got me all wrong,” he said. “Those water front Alaskans of Seattle have marked me up as an adventurer, while disregarding the proof of my substantial business connections. . . There may be a lot of Alaska that can still be considered the frontier, but we are just as careful of the morals and well-being of our women up there as you are down here. In Alaska Victoria will be as well protected as she is in San Francisco. Even at that I do not contemplate taking her up there for four years, or until she completed her education in the Notre Dame convent school at Belmont.

“Far from my being able to lavish wealth and luxuries on this girl, I may have to sacrifice a great deal if I give her the advantages that I desire to give her.

“Certainly her parents in Montana felt they should object. They have hardly been formally approached on the proposition yet. I propose to visit them and talk things over with them. Victoria’s two sisters in San Francisco, one of whom is a musician appearing in a big hotel, and the other the secretary of an executive in a mercantile establishment, sent a telegram to their parents urging the adoption. So far as I know personally they have not repudiated this move, although they were reported to have done so.

“I have heard of no investigation of juvenile court. Captain Matheson of the police department interviewed me in a kindly manner and that was all there was to the so-called police investigation. I am convinced that had not this business become a matter of the public knowledge the adoption would have gone through. The only thing against it that I can see is there is much unnecessary talk about it.”

On December 10^th, after attending a meeting in Seattle, McCord alerted the press that he planned to visit Missoula. On December 12^th he had arrived there and after meeting with Victoria’s parents gave a statement to a local Daily Missoulian reporter. When questioned about his plans he initially deferred to the Deschamps parents:

“Newspapers are necessary to our communities,” said Mr. McCord in a signed statement to The Missoulian. “Good, wholesome news is in order at any time. However, I feel that since I am in the home town of the Deschamps family that any statement should come from them and in fairness I am going to accord them that privilege.

“I found the parents as I expected, very pleasant and considerate. I shall say as before that nothing shall be done to take from them any of the happiness that they now enjoy. I have proposed to become guardian of Victoria for one year, and during that year cultivate a better acquaintance with the parents while continuing with the school program mapped out for Victoria.

“The parents have my credentials before them. I will let them answer for themselves. I hope that my heartfelt desires are not from selfish motives and that the sweetness and inspiration that may come to me through Victoria will aid me to be of greater use in the world. Wealth need not be considered.

“The more I have to sacrifice in carrying out my plans, the greater will be my return in happiness. I am not going to forget where I laid my pick and shovel.

“There are many grades of love – a parent ‘s love; love for music; schoolboy love; frivolous love, and the soulful love of those who have been softened by adversity that brings understanding, but purest of all is child love.

“Sweethearts become enemies, but you cannot lose the love of such as Victoria, for when she becomes of age and marries, I shall still have her and her family. There are many beauties in the future as created in my mind and I cannot think of this as unusual. I will be lucky to get Victoria, and I feel lucky.”

“Mr. McCord arrived on the Milwaukee yesterday morning and spent the day sitting in hotel lobbies and walking about the streets. Despite the fact that several reporters were looking for him, he was not located until late last night, when it was discovered that he had rented a ‘drive-yourself’ car for a trip to the Deschamps farm west of the city.

“On his return he was found at a local hotel and there laughingly discussed his day’s adventures and joked with the reporter who had spent nearly eight hours trying to find him. He expects to spend the day in Missoula, partly in conference with the parents, after which he will go east to Chicago, Washington D.C., New York and Florida, and from there will return to Seward, Alaska, by way of Los Angeles and Seattle. It is not probable that he will return to Missoula, regardless of the outcome of his plans.

“Mr. McCord, now 42 years old, is known as a leader in the development of Alaska. Besides his gold mining interests, he is connected with several oil companies, a steamship line, and at one time was in charge of a railroad.”

The following day McCord was still in Missoula and hadn’t relented. He was again quoted in The Sunday Missoulian about his plans:

“John Warren “Jack” McCord, Alaska mining man and oil magnate, believes that fate has smiled on his proposal that he become the guardian of 13-year old Victoria Deschamps [she was 14 years old by then], daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Tony Deschamps. He will leave here this morning with the intention of taking her from the girl’s high school of San Francisco, where she now is a student and placing her in the Notre Dame convent at Belmont, where she will be given a musical education. The plans for adoption, first advanced by Mr. McCord several weeks ago, will be sidetracked for the present, he says, but may be pushed to completion after a year or so.

“Mr. McCord spent the greater part of yesterday conferring with the parents. He said last night that he did not care to drive any bargain at this time, but that when he announced his plans concerning the change of schools for Victoria, the father and mother did not agree, nor did they forbid the step. Taking silence for consent, he is firm in his resolve to become Victoria’s guardian in fact, if not in name.

“Mr. McCord, to break the monotony of dodging reporters, was a dinner guest at the home of Mr. and Mrs. G. I. Porter last evening. He had met Miss Peggy Porter, the daughter, when she visited Alaska last summer, and part of the evening was spent talking about Seward, his home town, and other parts of Alaska.

“Later he showed his social accomplishments by taking Miss Corrine Deschamps, sister of the girl he seeks to adopt, to a dance, and while reporters were watching the hotel he patronized, and searching for the lobbies of other hostelries, he was tripping the light fantastic with several of Missoula’s young women.

“Mr. McCord will leave this morning for Washington D. C., and later will go to Florida. He then plans to return to California, arrange for Victoria’s schooling , after which he will take a steamer for Alaska, where his business interests demand attention.

“From the time the adoption was advanced, he has been kept in the limelight of publicity, and now hopes to find peace from the news-gathering and dispensing agencies. He made the trip to Missoula, he says, to show the parents of the girl he seeks that he is not a “false alarm” and that his is all that he represents himself to be. He claims to have the friendship, not only of Victoria, but of the two sisters with whom she is staying in San Francisco, and he believes that he can now see his way clear to assume guardianship over the “Cinderella” girl. Should this prove successful, he is determined to continue his efforts to adopt her through legal channels and become her guardian in fact as well as in name.”

McCord was sometimes referred to as the Iowa schoolteacher who made it big in Alaska. With a couple of partners, his early attempts at gold mining allegedly resulted in the discovery of the second largest gold nugget ever discovered in Alaska as well as a tidy reward of over $100,000 worth of gold dust. From there he expanded into several business ventures, including oil land leasing, ranching and raising cattle on the 74,000-acre island called Sitkalidak, located in the Kodiak archipelago. At one time he also leased the famous Chirikof Island near Kodiak. He was also the model for the Alaska character, Dan Appleton, in the novelist Rex Beach’s book “The Iron Rail”.’ He met Beach at Katala in 1906. Some aspects of the 1960 film ‘North to Alaska’ are reminiscent of John McCord’s life. Set during the Nome gold rush, John Wayne plays an Alaska gold miner named Sam McCord who travels back to Seattle to fetch the bride of his partner, but finds she’s already taken by another man. It is known that McCord was married at least three times, in 1919, 1927 and 1957 to a famous female attorney, Grace Doering.

McCord’s marriage in 1927 prompted several newspapers to comment on his reputation as the “Cinderella Man.” A Helena, Mt newspaper, ‘The Montana Record-Herald,’ noted that he had likely abandoned his adoption plan:

“Announcement from Denver is that McCord is there interesting Denver capitalists in a gigantic Alaskan development project. He is accompanied by his wife, who is young, beautiful and endowed with all the pulchritude that even an Alaskan promoter might desire, while Victoria, now a Missoula resident, has likely forgotten all about the would-be foster parent.”

 

If McCord later followed up on his plans to financially assist Victoria, the press did not become aware of it. Rather than Belmont College, Victoria graduated from Heald College, a business school, in San Francisco in 1929.

It’s interesting to note that the local Missoula press repeatedly interviewed Jack McCord, but apparently never spoke to the “Cinderella” girl herself. It should be noted that Victoria turned 14 in late 1925.

Victoria Azelie Deschamps was born in Missoula in 1911, the 11^th of 13 children of Antonio D (Tony) Deschamps and Margaret M Bedard Deschamps. Her father was from Quebec, Canada, while her mother was a Frenchtown, Mt. native.  She was one of nine sisters. They were Rosealba, Addie (Mrs. Leo Holznecht), Hilda, Blanche, Corinne, Helen, Victoria, Florence and Margaret. Two brothers were Tony, Jr., and Robert. Two male children didn’t survive.

She married William N MacLean in 1940 in Hamilton, Mt and had two sons, William D and James R MacLean. Her husband William, also a Missoula native, worked for Missoula Drug Wholesale and later for Davis Brothers Inc. He died in Missoula in 1964 at age 53. Victoria died in Missoula in 1992 at the age of 80. Other than a short stint in Idaho, the couple lived their entire lives in Missoula.