Civil Servant's Romance

At 3:20 a.m., into the little Welsh port of Fishguard, the motor vessel Innisfallen slipped last week on its regular ferry run across St. George's Channel from Cork. Below decks a cargo of Irish cattle and pigs bellowed and squealed. Higher up, in a snug cabin, a heavyset, greying gentleman of 64 and a red-haired girl of 25 slumbered, as they afterwards said, undisturbed. The noisy beef and bacon had been put ashore long before the two passengers emerged and a newshawk obtained their first honeymoon interview.

"I am Harold Ickes here, not Secretary Ickes," expostulated the gay and youthful groom in a bright blue suit. "I am not thinking of official business."

A few hours later in London's Paddington station, the newlyweds ran a gantlet of the press. Their taxi was followed into Hyde Park by cabs full of newshawks, shouting questions. Finally the Secretary of the Interior stopped his cab, got out, stormed: "Are these newspaper men's manners?"

His bride soothed him, they posed for pictures, but he balked at taking off his hat. Then they were permitted to escape, on a honeymoon which may last until Labor Day.

The Cabinet's only unmarried member had taken the wise women of Washington by surprise. They had known that an earnest, athletic girl, sister of the wife of his late stepson Wilmarth, had visited in his Washington home on and off since 1935. She had worked at small jobs in the Interior, helped run his empty home for him, accompanied him to social functions, helped him select and decorate his country place, "Headwater Farm" near Olney, Md. During his illness last year she visited his hospital bedside almost daily. Their relationship had seemed like that of father & daughter.

This model young woman, Jane Dahlman (Smith College '35, cum laude), is the daughter of Lawyer Louis A. Dahlman of Milwaukee. Her mother was a Chicago Cudahy, daughter of Patrick, of the packing family, sister of John, who now functions as U. S. Minister to the family's native Ireland. When Miss Dahlman left two months ago to visit Uncle John in Dublin, no one suspected that "Honest Harold" Ickes would slip away to marry her. But slip he did and very proud he was, too, of the slick way he did it.

He had a friend buy a ticket for him on the Normandie in the name of "R. G. Sucher."*At sailing time, "R. G. Sucher" was aboard but not in evidence. At Dublin he slipped ashore unrecognized, and two hours later was saying "I do" in a little Presbyterian church on Adelaide Road. A member of the U. S. Legation was his best man. He resumed his own name for the ceremony but the clergyman did not twig.

"What shall I describe you as?" he asked.

"I am a civil servant--sometimes," beamed Honest Harold Ickes.

*Ralph Gunn Sucher (pronounced "Soo-shay") of Peoria, Ill., now of Washington and Manhattan, was once secretary to the late great Senator "Fighting Bob" La Follette of Wisconsin, married his daughter Mary (since divorced). After long experience as a Washington news hawk, he turned lawyer, is now counsel to the New York Power Authority.

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