Carry Me BACK The Real Gatsby, And Moore

Carry Me BACK The Real Gatsby, And Moore

By Jimmy Hatcher

Mickey Rathbun, the daughter of my late pals, Sheilah and Duffy Rathbun, has written a beguiling book about her grandfather, George Gordon Moore, a high-goal polo player in the days of alltime great Tommy Hitchcock in the 1920s and ‘30s. It’s called “The Real Gatsby: George Gordon Moore.”

I was working for Averell and Pamela Harriman when I first heard the name of George Gordon Moore. He owned a California estate, Rancho San Carlos, where the team of Hitchcock, Averell Harriman, Winston Guest and Jock Whitney went one winter to play polo.

It seems the weather was better in California than it was in Florida. Tommy Hitchcock was getting married and wanted to go to Hawaii for his honeymoon.

So Averell Harriman, who just happened to own the Union Pacific Railroad, produced a train for the trip and each player had his own private railroad car. Since Liz Whitney and Jock were not yet married, Liz also was accompanied by a chaperone.

I once asked Liz about the chaperoned polo trip and she said yes, it was true and that, “Jock had Averell put Winston Guest’s railroad car behind the horses, the better to keep Winston away from me.” Liz was one of the most beautiful women on the planet, and she was an equally world-class horsewoman.

But back to Mickey Rathbun’s terrific book. It finally lets us know how her grandfather became so rich, and also how he became so poor.

In Middleburg, where Mickey grew up, we had always heard that Sheilah Rathbun’s father—Mr. Moore—was the illegitimate son of King Edward VII. It was said that a check addressed to Sheilah still came to the Middleburg post office every month.

The book explores that rumor, and keeps the reader thoroughly entertained. And who exactly was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s role model for Mr. Gatsby? That’s also covered, but I’ll let the author tell the rest of the story

See also pages 64-65 Mickey Rathbun’s story of “The Real Gatsby: George Gordon Moore.”