Elena Mumm Thornton

Elena Mumm Thornton Wilson (August 27, 1906 in Rheims, France – July 1979 in Wellfleet, Massachusetts) was an editor, literary socialite, and 4th wife of Edmund Wilson, famed essayist and critic. Elena was a central figure in Edmund Wilson’s journals and edited the final volume after his death.

The aristocratic childhood

Born Helene-Marthe Mumm von Schwarzenstein, Elena was the daughter of Peter Arnold Hermann Gottlieb Mumm von Schwarzenstein, grandson of famed champagne producer G.H. Mumm, and Olga de Struve, daughter of Karl de Struve, the Russian Ambassador to the United States. On her mother’s side, her aunts and uncles included Prince Peter and Princess Vera Mestchersky, Count and Countess Ellinka Orloff, and Boris and Maxine Slater de Struve. Boris de Struve was a Russian attaché to Washington. Elena's sister, Olga, managed the racing stables of Whitney heiress Dorothy Paget. The De Struve family descended from a long line of famed astronomers, the first of whom had moved to Russia during Czar Peter I the Great’s cultural and scientific revolution. By the Fifth generation, they had married into prominent Russian imperial families and European aristocracy: Most prominent of Elena's great-aunts and great-uncles were the Vicomte Eugene Melchior de Vogüé, philosopher and author, Victor, prince Galitzine, and General Michael Nicolaivitch Annenkoff, Governor General of Trans-Caspia, 'conqueror' of Bokhara, and builder of the Transcaucasia railroad. Elena's 2nd great-grandfather, General Nicholas Annenkov, was Comptroller General of the Russian Imperial Court.

On her father’s side, she was descended through a long line of ancient Prussian nobility, traceable to 1359 in Cleves, Prussia. On March 31, 1873, Kaiser Wilhelm I renewed the Mumm patent on nobility, conferring the “Mumm von Schwarzenstein.” Elena’s branch had been famed for its champagne and white wine production, with estates founded in Rheims, France, in 1827 and in Johannisberg, Germany, in 1822; however, after World War I and World War II, the French seized the family’s French properties and retained the Mumm champagne name as war time reparations. The family no longer produces champagne under its original patent, but has produced white wines continuously on its German estates. On her paternal side, Elena was related to the Barons von Radowitz and the Passavant family, powerful industrialists and bankers. One of the family banks was a founding member of a banking consortium that would grow to become the Swiss Bank Corporation, now merged into UBS AG, the world's largest manager of private wealth assets. Her uncle, Baron Walther von Mumm, was a prominent sportsman, even filling in on the German bobsled team at the 1932 Olympic Games.

With such wealth and contacts, Elena enjoyed a privileged childhood: She was educated by private tutors in Switzerland and France and spoke fluent German, French, English, and Russian. She attended art school in Munich and in Paris with fellow students and friends: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Simon Elwes, Guy Arnoux, and Conrad O'Brien-Ffrench. While in Paris, Elena and her mother would call on aristocratic Russian exiles of the Russian Revolution, many of whom had been forced to flee their palaces with little money. In her memoirs, Princess Tatiana Metternich recalled how Olga and Elena would drop by and bring some extravagant gift to momentarily make them forget their reduced circumstances. Later, when Tatiana married Prince Paul Metternich, the owner of Schloss Johannisberg, she often visited with the Mumm family at their villa next door . During World War II, American soldiers briefly took over and ransacked the villa while Elena’s brother, Brat, was in a POW camp in France.

Marriage 1: Jimmy Thornton

In 1930, Elena met James Worth Thornton, who was working and studying in Germany. He was the son of Sir Henry Worth Thornton and Lady Virginia Blair. James and Elena married in 1931 and soon after moved to Montreal, Canada, living among the English-speaking elite. Edmund Wilson would later write that her years in Canada were “stuffy”, as she was surrounded by conservative, conventional people, including her own husband. She seemed to get along better with the more gregarious Sir Henry. However, by 1933, Sir Henry had been forced to resign his position, lost most of his wealth, and moved to New York City, where he later died of complications from surgery. James and Elena followed Sir Henry to New York. In these reduced circumstances, Elena took a job as an assistant editor at Town & Country (magazine). It was as an editor that Elena met and began to work with Edmund Wilson; before long they had fallen in love, fled to Reno, Nevada, divorced their respective spouses, and remarried (1946).

Marriage 2: Edmund Wilson

After the whirlwind honeymoon, in which Edmund tussled with photographers and reportedly received a kick in the rear that left an imprint on his pants, the couple began a 25-year marriage that, while largely successful, was frequently threatened by Edmund’s drinking, habitual infidelity, and long absences away from his wife and children. However, Elena proved to be tolerant and attuned to Edmund’s domestic needs , often playing hostess to family members and the literary cognoscenti that paid tribute to Edmund at his Wellfleet, Massachusetts, home. The couple was also very close with Elena’s childhood friend and Wellfleet resident, Nina, and her husband Prince Paul Chavchavadze. Princess Nina Georgievna of Russia (nee Romanov) was the daughter of Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia (1863-1919) and Princess Maria Georgievna of Greece and Denmark. Prince Paul was a Georgian nobleman.

After Edmund’s death in 1972, Elena assisted in the editing of Edmund’s journals, the first two volumes of which were finished by Elena’s death in 1979. Her private papers and family information are stored at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

Family

1) Helene-Marthe Mumm von Schwarzenstein married James Worth Thornton and had issue:

• A)Henry Hermann Mumm Thornton (b. 1932); married Rita Daphne Sellar and had issue:
  • b) Dr. Sandra Christine Thornton-Whitehouse married Sheldon Whitehouse, US Senator from Rhode Island

• • 1) Mary Elena Whitehouse

• • 2) Alexander Whitehouse

• • b) Elena Martha Thornton Kissel married Michael Case Kissel, 3rd great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt

• • 1) Siena Case Kissel

• • 2) Lucy Elena Kissel

• • 3) Rosalie Thorn Kissel

• • b) Nina Rosalie Thornton McMann married Joseph Michael McMann of Martha's Vineyard

• A) Married to Deborah Anne Speno, granddaughter of Frank Speno, founder of Speno Railroad Ballast Cleaning Co. and had issue:
  • b) James Speno Mumm Thornton married Sara Lynn Russell of Connecticut

• • 1) Keely Mumm Russell-Thornton

• • 2) Henry Hart Russell-Thornton

Married to Edmund Wilson and had issue:

• A)Helen Miranda Wilson, artist and beekeeper