A Woman to Know: Marion Barbara "Joe" Carstairs
Dull is a word that should be torn to pieces to see what it is made of. — Joe Carstairs
Dull is a word that should be torn to pieces to see what it is made of. — Joe Carstairs
(image via Wikimedia Commons)
In 1911, 11-year-old Marion Barbara Carstairs was driving her Standard Oil heiress mother mad. The tomboy insisted on wearing boys’ clothes, changing her name from “Marion” to “Joe” and chucking all “lady-like” expectations out her manor window. Her mother pronounced her insane and shipped her off to boarding school in Connecticut, hoping a charm school education would shape her daughter into a society darling.
Joe became a society darling; just not in the way in her mother expected.
By the time she escaped boarding school to drive an ambulance in World War I, Joe was already a legend. She’d asked a male childhood friend to marry her so she could receive her Standard Oil trust money ahead of schedule (predictably, her mother was livid). Joe used the inheritance to start a women-only car garage, “X-Garage.” The drivers chauffered Joe and her queer friends around the London nightlife scene. Once her mother died in 1922, Joe requested an annulment to her sham marriage, citing “non-consummation.”
Tabloids delighted in Joe’s eccentricity. She covered her arms in tattoos and amassed a rare doll collection, including a 12-inch-tall Steiff doll she named “Lord Tod Wadley.” She counted Tallulah Bankhead, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Oscar Wilde’s niece, Dolly, among her many lovers; spent millions on speedboats and racing yachts; and even won numerous titles in the sport, becoming known as “the fastest woman on water.”
In 1934, Joe purchased an island in the Bahamas for $40,000. She set up Whale Cay as a marvelous escape for herself and her wild crowd, eventually adding four other islands to her portfolio.
Later in life, Joe obsessively recorded herself on audio tapes in hopes of one day writing a memoir. But she passed away in 1993 before she could do so — and naturally, she requested her beloved doll Lord Tod Wadley cremated alongside her.
Add to your library list:
The Queen of Whale Cay (Kate Summerscale)
Eat My Dust: Early Women Motorists (Georgine Clarsen)
Read more:
A Brief History of the Lesbian Heiress (Autostraddle)
No Ordinary Joe (Stanford Magazine)
Butches and Tomboys of the Early 20th Century (Autostraddle)
See more:
The Property and Collection of Marion Barbara “Joe” Carstairs (DOYLE)
Watch more:
The Eccentric Story of LGBTQ Joe Carstairs (Shady Ladies)
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A Woman to Know: Marion Barbara "Joe" Carstairs
She was also very close friends with a Jamaican socialite called Blanche Dunn who even resided with her why is this not mentioned?