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ANASTASIA (Anna Anderson) & JACK MANAHAN
The Cinderella Story Turned Upside Down
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At this site Anna tells her own story. They were neighbors. We were friends. I was the reporter who wrote about Anna for her hometown paper and the Associated Press. Here you'll find pictures, stories, and personal anecdotes unknown outside Central Virginia. If you want to skip it all and go to my conclusions, click this.
That odd picture was taken in the Manahan living room in 1969, exactly 30 years before this Web page was created. Jack Manahan and I had been friends for years. Shortly after they married I asked them to pose with something in the room that best represented the new spouse. Anastasia is holding Jack's invitation to the Richard Nixon Presidential Inauguration. Jack is holding a print illustrating Anastasia's father, Czar Nicholas II. Individual photos of Jack and Anna that were taken that same day are available on a ceramic mug as an unusual gift or souvenir. You can see them and buy them HERE. This is the story behind the picture from my newspaper column.
B-6 THE DAILY PROGRESS, Charlottesville, Va.
Grounds for Comment Anastasia Weds
Such events cross-comb the hairs of time into tangles it will take many years to unravel. To help historians keep track of the Anastasia affair, we spent an afternoon with the Manahans, recording events on paper and film. The bare facts first. John E. Manahan, 49, of Albemarle, and Anna Anderson, 67, of Germany took out a marriage license at the Albemarle County Court House on the morning of Dec. 23, 1968. That afternoon, they were married in a civil ceremony by Charlottesville City Sergeant Raymond C. Pace in his office at the Corporation Court House on High Street. Attending the ceremony was Archbishop Gleb Botkin of the Church of Aphrodite, an old friend of the bride. "Why marry?" was the most obvious question. There were two answers. Said Jack, the millionaire artifact collector and former bachelor college professor who describes his present activities as farmer, dairyman, writer, lecturer, and gratuitous consultant on matters historical: "I spent five years looking for a wife. We married for congeniality, mutual respect, and because Anastasia likes Virginia and wants to stay here. She had other suitors and preferred me. "But if you ask her," Jack said as Anastasia listened, "she'll say she married me because she wanted to live in America and her six-month visa expires Jan. 13. "This isn't true. We had every reason to believe the visa would have been extended automatically for another six months and we have a letter from the immigration service to this effect. After that, a special act of Congress (they're relatively common) could have allowed her to stay probably indefinitely." Asking Anastasia why she chose to marry after a widowhood of almost 50 years, she frankly stated it was her belief the German embassy wanted her to return to Germany and she preferred to live in America. Yes, she agreed, the six-month extension was probable, but there are inevitable complications dealing with the German embassy, with officials in Bonn, and with officials in her home district in Germany. Also, she later noted, her house in Germany which she believed was fully paid for, now mysteriously has a mortgage for which settlement is demanded. Her financial affairs in Germany had been handled by friends, she said, and the state of her finances were often an unhappy perplexity. "People lived on me as though I were the milk cow of Europe," she complained later at dinner. "Jack is a highly agreeable and nice person," she said after discussing a list of past suitors that included a relative of the king of Denmark and a Californian named Finnegan. It was noticed that above the Manahan fireplace, bracketing a Christmas card from Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley, were two Christmas cards signed Don Finnegan. Jack said he first met Anastasia last July when she came to the United States for her first visit here since the late 1920's. He'd been interested in the Anastasia vs. history affair for 10 years, he said, and earlier this year invited Anastasia sight unseen to come to Virginia as his guest. (The name Anastasia is being used here for convenience. Mrs. Manahan, the former Anna Anderson, has claimed for more than 50 years to be the youngest daughter of Czar Nicholas II of Russia who, historians generally hold, was murdered along with his whole family during the Bolshevik revolution. (Mrs. Manahan maintains she survived the family slaughter and the truth of her claim is a point of honest debate among those with the most complete knowledge of the affair. One effect of her claim is that no history of the Czar and the Russian revolution can discuss the family murder with accuracy now without a reference to Anna Anderson, at least by footnote.) Money is often mentioned in connection with the Anastasia affair since the Czar supposedly deposited 10 million rubles or more in the Bank of England before the revolution, money that supposedly has grown through interest to an amount some estimate at $28 million or less, but by others at more than $80 million. One source is on record stating the Bank of England has no account for the Czar, but Anastasia says he had money in banks all over the world. Manahan said a small amount of cash was distributed to near relatives of the Czar in 1928, and 10 years later six members of the Romanov family received cash "advances" of about $140,000 each. He declines to speculate how much might be available to the Romanov survivors but believes no distribution of funds will occur during Anastasia's lifetime. It might be noted here that Anna Anderson Manahan is merely the best known and most widely recognized of several claimants to the Anastasia title, most of whom have written books, sold stories to magazines, or otherwise announced their claims. There was also a woman in Holland who shortly before her recent death claimed to be a secret, hitherto unknown fifth daughter of the Czar whom historians believe had only four daughters and one son. This is mentioned only because Manahan thinks the truth of the Dutch claim is not out of the question. The case of Anastasia vs. history has many facets. What are the Manahans' plans for the future? "We'll live in Virginia," Jack said, "and perhaps do some traveling. I'd like to spend some time in Germany." "France," suggested Anastasia, "maybe we go to France. We live here in town, or we live with my cats on Jack's farm in the country, we live everywhere. "Except Russia. I never go back to Russia" Maria Rasputin's Endorsement and Her Interview Among the scores of people who knew Anastasia as a little girl at home in her palace was Maria Rasputin, daughter of the infamous Gregori Rasputin. Maria was 3 years older and they played together. They shared memories no one but Maria and the genuine Anastasia knew.
That and much more were in my front page story reporting Rasputin's endorsement. In November Maria returned to Virginia to talk Anastasia into coming to Los Angeles for the party circuit. Hollywood parties were the schtick of Maria's longtime patron, a glitz-chasing, Hearst Publications writer named Pat Barham. Be Anna royalty or not, she acted like a Grand Duchess and flatly refused to dine out on her persona. (She wouldn't be caught dead in Los Angeles, Jack later said.) Before Anna turned Maria down (which caused Maria to "take back" her endorsement) I interviewed Rasputin and wrote it up in a column published Nov. 17, 1968. The title "Kind Rasputin" is a triple entendre, two in English and one in German.
We had a pleasant encounter with history last week by taking the daughter of Rasputin, "the mad monk of Russia," to the Gaslight for a hamburger. She was in town over the weekend with her friend Patricia Barham, a film and theatre columnist from Los Angeles. While here, they tried and failed to get the apparent Grand Duchess Anastasia to leave her Albemarle County farm for L.A. smog. The apparent Grand Duchess is, of course, Anna Anderson, the woman who has claimed for 50 years to be the surviving daughter of the last Russian royal family. If you missed the social news of the summer, Anna moved here from Germany in August and may settle permanently in Albemarle. Rasputin's daughter, Maria, has been in the U.S. since 1937 and in Los Angeles since 1965. As was reported during her earlier visit here in August, she came to this country as a circus animal trainer with Ringling Bros. We learned this trip she was a member of the Hagenbach Brothers animal act, a job she took after several years touring Europe as a Russian folk dancer. Making a living was a problem for Russian emigres during the 20s and 30s and Maria grabbed at an offer to go on the stage. Girls like Maria who spent their childhood having tea with the Czar's children every Wednesday weren't trained to make a living, but Maria had some talent and endless spunk, it appears. For although Maria was mauled by a bear in Peru, Indiana, she stayed with the circus until the traveling show played Miami, Florida, where she quit and went to work as a riveter in a defense shipyard, she related Saturday night. She stayed in defense plant work until 1955 when she was laid off because of her age, 66. Since then she has been working in hospitals and baby sitting for friends. Since credibility gap had yawned intrusively into the conversation, we asked her how she got into the animal training game, and where she got the courage to whip up on lions and tigers. She learned in London, was her unelaborated answer though she noted, "After you've been the target of a revolution, nothing scares you anymore." Gregori Rasputin, her father, was tied in with the Russian royal court as religious advisor. That lasted until personal enemies decided Rasputin-style religion was going too far and they ended him in a legendary assassination said to involve poisoning, stabbing, and drowning. Maria said she had it rough in the Bolshevik revolution the year after her father was murdered and eventually left Russia for Berlin, Bucharest, Paris, London, and Miami. Her English vocabulary isn't all it might be, she readily admits. She says she speaks Russian best but also German and French. When the time came to write a book - and virtually every notable Russian emigre wrote at least one in the decade 1925-1935 - she dictated her memoirs and the result was, "My Father," an anecdotal book on Rasputin published in 1932. Her friend Pat Barham is in the throws of re-write on a second Rasputin book based on Maria's recollections. She intends to call it, "The Rape of Rasputin" and described it as "sexsational and exciting" but not funny. Maria claims a leaning to be psychic and Pat affirms that on election morning two weeks ago, Maria said that Mrs. Richard Nixon had come to her in a dream and smiled. Maria has "signs" like that often, Pat said. "Little Mother," Pat calls Maria for her continual worrying about handbags within reach of strangers in restaurants, suitcases open in hotel rooms, and columnists getting a comfortable chair for interviews. Since being interviewed is an old game for Rasputin's only legitimate daughter, she talks willingly and seemingly without reservation. This prompted Gaslight owner John Tuck to volunteer that the father of one of his boyhood chums was one of the band of assassins that did Rasputin in. "Why didn't he like my father?" Maria asked with genuine curiosity. John didn't know, or at least didn't say. "My father was a kind man," Maria later said when we returned to her hotel. "Once he was savagely attacked by the most powerful newspaper in Russia. Friends asked why he didn't close the paper down since he could have done it like this," she said with a snap of fingers. "Let them write about me," her father reportedly said. "Let them make money." Maria described him as "a kind man who would never have closed the paper." Historians may not agree Rasputin was kind but there's no doubt Maria is thoughtful. "When you leave the hotel, stop at the desk," she said as the interview closed. We did and found waiting a pot of white chrysanthemums to carry home through the season's first snow flurry.
I took a photo of Maria and Anna and put it on a ceramic mug for sale at Zazzle. You can get it here.
The Royal Children Five photos whose authenticity is beyond question
THE DNA TESTS AFTER ANNA ANDERSON MANAHAN DIED Many people are convinced the widely-reported DNA testing that was done on tissue and hair that was said to be Anna's proved nothing. While the DNA testing itself was done by honest professionals, the samples they were given to test were almost certainly rigged. The DNA experts had no way to know that, and they said as much. The truth is, there's no evidence the tissue and hair they tested actually came from Anna Manahan. Briefly, here's the case for Anna before the DNA tests
Here's a letter to another newspaper, the Cville Weekly
But not everyone. The few still questioning it have more going for them than small numbers would suggest. For one, none of the DNA findings would be acceptable as evidence in a US court due to grievous flaws in provenance and possession. Of the samples termed "Anna Manahan DNA," only one has any serious claim to authenticity - the piece of intestine. The hair? No one knows the origin of the hair. The world is relying on, "Hey, a North Carolina shopkeeper who outbid everyone else for cartons of Jack's books packed by Althea Hurt, says he found a box of hair in one carton. Trust me: he did, and it's Anna Manahan's hair." Is there a court anywhere in the world that would allow that as evidence? We can accept that the North Carolina book dealer is not churning publicity to generate payback for his high bid. We can believe that Althea Hurt doesn't know a box of hair from a book. But we know Jack Manahan as legendary for being a life-long packrat. The hair could have belonged to his mother, or could easily be one of the thousands of curios he bought on his habitual buying trips here and abroad. Only our romantic simplicity makes it Anna's hair. So it's the intestine we rely on, kept under lock and key and anonymously cataloged at Martha Jefferson Hospital. Not at UVa Hospital, where with the most careful cataloging they still managed to switch babies. At Martha Jefferson a mistake is ... impossible. But Martha Jeff is in Charlottesville and the DNA test was done in England. In the course of getting it from here to there the sample passed from hand to hand. So much for the thread of secure possession. For all anyone knows, the worldwide Russian Nobility Association could have provided a substitute courier for a brief but important few hours. Conspiracy theory: Is it reasonable to think this group of Romanovs ignored the travel route of that telltale tissue, considering they had already committed a fortune and more than 50 years to discredit Anna Anderson's claim? The truth is, with Anderson dead, discrediting is more important now than when she was alive. Why? Had the Anderson DNA checked out, Manahan heir Althea Hurt, who already demonstrated she will fight for her property rights all the way to the supreme court, could lodge a legal claim to much of what these distant relatives of the Czar inherited since 1917. They remain unchallenged heirs to their prized possessions only so long as there is no proven survivor of the Romanov family massacre. This is to ignore? So far as the respected professionals associated with the DNA testing, had that substitution in transit happened none of them would know. Everything they are saying is the truth as far as they know it.
Jump ahead now to January, 2004, and the British medical journal Annals of Human Biology. An article there casts doubt on some DNA samples against which Anna Manahan's were compared. The DNA is said to have been too well preserved, and contaminated with "fresh" DNA. The link to read the abstract summary is here . This is what I found there: Annals of Human Biology - Publisher: Taylor & Francis Health Science. January 28, 2004 - Abstract: Background: A set of human remains unearthed near Ekaterinburg, Russia has been attributed to the Romanov Imperial Family of Russia and their physician and servants. That conclusion was officially accepted by the Russian government following publication of DNA tests that were widely publicized. The published study included no discussion of major forensic discrepancies and the information regarding the burial site and remains included irregularities. Furthermore, its conclusion of Romanov identity was based on molecular behaviour that indicates contamination rather than endogenous DNA. The published claim to have amplified by PCR a 1223 bp region of degraded DNA in a single segment for nine individuals and then to have obtained sequence of PCR products derived from that segment without cloning indicates that the Ekaterinburg samples were contaminated with non-degraded, high molecular weight, 'fresh' DNA. Aim: Noting major violations of standard forensic practices, factual inconsistencies, and molecular behaviours that invalidate the claimed identity, we attempted to replicate the findings of the original DNA study. Subject: We analysed mtDNA extracted from a sample of the relic of Grand Duchess Elisabeth, sister of Empress Alexandra. Results: Among clones of multiple PCR targets and products, we observed no complete mtDNA haplotype matching that reported for Alexandra. The consensus haplotype of Elisabeth differs from that reported for Alexandra at four sites. Conclusion: Considering molecular and forensic inconsistencies, the identity of the Ekaterinburg remains has not been established. Our mtDNA haplotype results for Elisabeth provide yet another line of conflicting evidence regarding the identity of the Ekaterinburg remains. [See footnotes below] Summary - and where I stand A brief anecdote. One day in 1977 I joined Manahan and some German prince for lunch at the Hardware Store, a Charlottesville restaurant. The royal was a Romanov here to visit with Anna. He was balding and I joked to Jack that his hairbrush would hold very few Romanov DNA souvenirs for Jack to collect. For Jack and for the royal there was nothing out of the ordinary in that remark. So here's my summary. In science it's usually safest to look for the simple answer. When money and royalty are involved, the simple answer is usually wrong. Beyond question, Anna Anderson believed she was the Grand Duchess Anastasia. Her bodily scars and damage were 100% consistent with Anastasia's. She possessed information only Anastasia would have known. Until we discover she learned these things in some other way, I believe Anna Anderson was Anastasia and the crucial DNA sample was switched in transit. Witnesses said she survived the Romanov family massacre because the jewels sewn into her clothing acted as a bullet-proof vest. She and the jewels were smuggled out of Russia by Alexander Tchaikovsky, a conscripted soldier who was part of the unit assigned to dispose of the bodies. Eventually she surfaced in Berlin, mentally unstable. Her attempt for recognition by her relatives was thwarted by reports, some by her, of Romanov wealth secreted away by the Tsar for his children in an English bank. If Anna achieved recognition, the fortune would go to her and not to the relatives she needed for recognition. So they refused. By the time the great wealth was found to be not so great, sides had been taken, positions had been staked out, hearts broken could not be mended, and the past was doomed to be prologue. In the 1920s there was a much greater reason than money for one powerful, wealthy Romanov to deny recognition. The real Anastasia knew he had secretly been a traitor in 1916, and so did Anna Anderson. But that's beyond the scope of this page. The Real Romanovs by Gleb Botkin is one book that relates the details. Late in life Anna married an American, Jack Manahan. When she died, Jack became her heir. Jack grew dotty in his dotage and before he died, he named as his heir a young woman believed, rightly or wrongly, to be a fortune hunter. She wasn't, but she showed great tenacity in fighting off challenges to Jack's will. By winning it all she came into enough wealth (millions) to pursue Romanov claims around the world for the rest of her life, should Anna Anderson be proven to be the genuine article. And this heir is a lawyer. This echoed the situation of the 1920s when the son fathered by Alexander Tchaikovsky was considered a loose cannon heir who could deprive relatives of the Tsar and Tsarina of rank and inheritance. All over again in the 1990s disproving Anna's claim became a burning issue among Romanovs. This new heir's ability to pursue Anna's claims rested - not on Romanov family acceptance - but merely on Anna passing a DNA test. If Anna passed, suits to recover past dispersals could begin, and the entire Romanov family would be insecure in their possessions. The intestine tissue sample went from Martha Jefferson Hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia, to the UK by mail, and passed through many hands including customs before it reached the lab. Some of the most well-entrenched, influential, and resourceful people in Europe, including English royalty, had a huge interest in that package. Because it went by mail, no one can say with certainty that the piece of intestine that began the trip is the same piece of intestine that was delivered. All we know is that powerful people desperately needed the DNA test to fail. To the relief of Romanovs everywhere, that tissue sample failed the Romanov DNA test. It matched, they said, the DNA of Franziska Schwanzkowska, an unschooled, certified insane Polish factory worker with no Romanov connections and no access to the inside information everyone agrees Anna Anderson knew. That they happened to have Franziska's family DNA available for comparison is another tie to the Romanov machinations of the 1920s, and the latest link in the long chain of plausible denial.
Article Title: Molecular, forensic and haplotypic inconsistencies regarding the identity of the Ekaterinburg remains
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