Berkeley Tobey

Berkeley Tobey (1881-1962)  Greenwich Village rogue and bon vivant, married somewhere in the neighborhood of eight times (a couple of times to give U.S. residency to his new spouses). Other wives included Dorothy Day, the Catholic activist now being considered for sainthood; and Esther McCoy (his last wife), the architectural historian who put modern California architecture on the map. Besides being a serial husband, Tobey was a reporter for “The New Republic,” and business manager of the socialist magazine “The Masses.” Tobey was a very close friend of author Theodore Dreiser and was a pallbearer at his funeral. In Haworth, Tobey and his second wife Virginia lived on Haworth Drive (she wanted a respectable house in the suburbs, according to Berkeley and Virginia’s son, Forrest Tobey Choate). Virginia soon left Berkeley for a shell-shocked, multi-medalled World War One solder she met at White Beeches Country Club.