Milestones, Dec. 14, 1931

Engaged. Horace Brisbin Liveright, Manhattan publisher and theatrical producer; and Elise Bartlett Porter, actress, divorced wife of Actor Joseph Schildkraut.

Engaged. Anita Grew, daughter of U. S. Ambassador to Turkey Joseph Clark Grew, and Robert English, secretary of the U. S. legation in Bangkok, Siam. Able-bodied Miss Grew swam the Bosporus from the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmora last August (TIME, Aug. 31).

Engaged. Peter ("Pan") Llewellyn Davies, British publisher, nephew of Actor Sir Gerald Du Maurier; and Hon. Margaret Hore-Ruthven, onetime mannequin and dancer with her beauteous twin sister, Hon. Alison Mary. Publisher Davies, orphaned in youth with his four brothers, became a ward of Sir James Matthew Barrie, was the inspiration of Peter Pan.

Eloped. Marion Snowden, 21, of Minneapolis, daughter of the late Oilman James Hastings Snowden (Snowden & McSweeney Co.) ; and Prince Geronimo Rospigliosi, 24, scion of one of Italy's oldest houses; in Rome. Miss Snowden's family, it was reported, made determined efforts to forestall the marriage.

Married. Elsa Armour, daughter of Chicago Packer Andrew Watson Armour; and Washington Irving Osborne Jr., Chicago socialite; in Chicago.

Married. Clara Bow, 26, film actress; and George F. Belham (Rex Bell), 28, Nevada cattle rancher and film cowboy on whose ranch she has been living since last June; in Las Vegas, Nev.

Married. Eugene R. Grasselli Jr., scion of the Cleveland industrial chemists; and a Mrs. Louise Hammond Blatt of Joliet, Ill.; in Manhattan.

Honored. La Argentina, Spanish dancer: with the Rosette of Isabella the Catholic, first decoration awarded by the Spanish Republic; in Madrid.

Birthdays. General August von Mackensen (82); Dr. William Temple Hornaday (77); Lord Jellicoe (72); Edward Hugh Sothern (72); William Crapo Durant (70); Robert Patterson Lament (64); Joseph Leiter (63); Gerard Swope (59); Newton Diehl Baker (60); Arthur Atwater Kent (58); Winston Churchill (57); Frank Jay Gould (54).

Died. Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, 52, famed poet (A Handy Guide for Beggars, The Chinese Nightingale and Other Poems, Rhymes to be Traded for Bread, Every Soul is a Circus); of heart disease; in Springfield, Ill. Born into a pioneer Springfield family (he was later to become preoccupied with local history, with Springfield's Abraham Lincoln), he studied for the ministry at Hiram College (Ohio) then at the Chicago Art Institute and the New York School of Art. From 1905 to 1910 he did Y. M. C. A. work, lectured for the Anti-Saloon League. Rugged, unkempt, Poet Lindsay liked to vagabond about the land, trading verses for food and shelter. His rules for hoboes: Be "neat, deliberate, chaste and civil . . . preach the gospel of beauty," avoid cities, cash, baggage, railroads; ask for dinner at 10:45 a. m., supper, lodging and breakfast at 4:45 p. m. Vachel (rhymes with Rachel) Lindsay's poetry was rich, loamy, indigenous in praise of the U. S. and its heroes. His most famed verses, however, were rhythmic, jazzy ones like The Congo, which he recited with various booming, chirping, droning, whispering effects. He was the first U. S. poet to recite at (and bewilder) Oxford University. Lately he recorded 36 poems for the Columbia University Library.