ok, so i have sat up til this late hour watching a ket fundraiser special showing of thomas clark's 11 ky treasures.....why 11?.....nobody knows because clark died at 102 before publishing this list himself......one of his treasures included the speed museum in louisville...and in the ky room there is a portrait of Sally Ward ..here is a bit from a Clark book....
From the chapter “Born to Be a Princess,” a portrait of Sally Ward (Lawrence Hunt Armstrong Downs 1827-1896), a Southern Belle who easily outdoes Scarlet O’Hara:
It did not take the young widow Lawrence long to get back into the social whirl. She made her first public appearance at the famous ball given in honor of Madame Octavia Walton Le Vert, daughter of the governor of Florida. No one could tell from her frolicsome manner that she had undergone “that horrible experience at Boston.” It seemed that divorce had only increased her attractiveness. She now drew men to her because they, perhaps, found her as a divorcee more exciting than before. Outwardly she was the same lively girl who had dashed through the Louisville market house on her pony, or the one who had presented the colors to the Louiville Legion.
Her indulgent parents gave a grand coming-out party in her honor. Again Sally was the center of attraction. At ten o’clock the Ward house was fully lighted, and Cunningham’s band struck up the grand march. The gay dance kept up until one o’clock, and then dinner was served. After the dinner the band played again, and the ball continued in a lively vein.
Never before in all her experience of dazzling hilarious Kentucky parties had Sally reached the grand heights which she attained that night. When the evening began she appeared as Nourmahal from “The Light of the Harem.” She wore “a pink satin shirt, covered with silver lama, the bodice embroidered with silver and studded with diamonds; the oriental white sleeves adorned with silver and gold; the satin trousers spangled with gold. Her hair was braided with pearls and covered with a Greek cap; her pink slippers were embroidered with silver,” and splendid jewels formed extravagant decoration for the whole costume.
When the ball began once again after supper, Sally appeared in a second dress, this time as Nourmahal “at the Feast of the Roses.” The dress was “white illusion dotted with silver, with a veil of silvery sheen and wreath of white roses, and white silk boots with silver ankles. She bore the charmed lute.”
mm notes- the curator of the speed museum told a story about sally ward's short first marriage.....at a ball in boston her mother-in-law was furious at the low-cut dress she wore to a ball, and said to her....'sally, take that dress off this instant.....'.....and she did....right then and there.....which was something of a scandal in the antebellum era.......the curator noted that she was the sole reason that woman today dress up to attend the derby in louisville...she made it the thing to do......she should have been a ky treasure in her own right...not somebody mentioned in passing because her portrait hangs in a museum.....we need more sassy women like her..........
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