It is the last of the constants, where young people still curtsy, manners are excellent, the ladies are glamorous and drinking a bit too much is not only acceptable but almost mandatory.  The Veiled Prophet Ball has the panache and postiche, not to mention the champagne and tenderloin.  If you dare to talk about the past – and our town had a glorious one – the icy eyes stare at you as if you were some kind of addlehead.  So, you remember when veiled ones in the past were actually Roland Richards, Chuck Knight, Cedge Barksdale, Robert Hermann, Lou Maul and Joe Imbs?  Society babes: Anne Desloge Bates; Louise Heckman; Gertrude Bernoudy; “Lulu” Pulitzer; “Pudy” Calhoun, Ellen Conant, Rosalie Ewing, Pitti Brandin, Joanne Knight. In 1951, Mimi Koehler , who had the presence of mind to immediately afer being crowned, married Paul Ingersoll of Philadelphia, who was being shipped over to Germany.  He was part of the U.S. Army occupation.  Mimi thereby had all the fun of the ball and none of the tedious ribbon cuttings, visits to hospitalized children or whatever the queen had to do for one year. Another society type was the beloved Sally Bixby Defty, who’s now living in Bolton Landing, New York.  Update: The former Post-Dispatch editor/scribe Defty is currently meeting a deadline on the publication of a biography on her grandad, William K. Bixby, car builder, philanthropist and art collector.  Bixby’s son was a backer of Charles Lindbergh’s historic flight.
 

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