The Stowaway’s Gamble: Love, Rejection, and Scandal on the High Seas (1926)

Helena Dasu, a beautiful Romanian woman, stowed away on an Italian liner for love. But instead of a romantic reunion, she faced rejection and deportation. This real-life saga of passion, betrayal, and scandal unfolded across Europe and America, culminating in a dramatic marriage and an even more explosive divorce.

Miss Helena Desu, a Beautiful Romanian Stowaway Girl Whose Love for Her Philadelphia Sweetheart, Professor J. St. Mark Longaker, Brought Her to America as a Stowaway on an Italian Liner and Sent Her Back Again. Her Sweetheart Following Her to Europe on Another Ship Proclaimed Their Ulitimate Marriage as Resting with the Gods--Venus and Minerva. Standard-Speaker, 25 August 1926. GGA Image ID # 19f7fa28ba

As we say at the University, our marriage is in the Ultimate—not in the specific." Such was the prudent answer of the very cautious Professor Longaker when asked his intentions regarding Helen Dasu, the beautiful girl who had recklessly stowed away and come to America because of her love for him.

However, according to Helen Dasu herself, there was a time when Professor Longaker was not so philosophically indefinite, or at least not regarding herself. Under dreamy Italian skies, drifting on the Mediterranean, angling for— gay-colored fish and still gayer-tinted hearts, he had caught the romantic spirit of the land. Love had flared high, and they had sworn vows for all eternity.

But that was all in the past. J. St. Mark Longaker had returned to his own country. Once hacked in Philadelphia, caught up in the conventions of the academic world, she had transformed the gay-hearted lover of Italy into the prim and proper teacher demanded by faculty tradition.

Professor J. St. Mark Longaker, Ph.D. of the University of Pennsylvania on Whose Account Beautiful Helen Dasu Stowed Away to America, Only to be Deported. Standard-Speaker, 25 August 1926. GGA Image ID # 19f8ba212b

Months went by. Back in sunny Italy, pretty Helen Dasu grew impatient. When she was threatened with Ellis Island for having no passport, she did not worry. She believed her sweetheart would somehow get her admitted to America, perhaps as his wife. So, on the spur of the moment, she stowed away on the S. S. Conte Biancamano.

But Professor Longaker did not marry the beautiful stowaway. Instead, she was deported on the same steamer she had arrived on. And instead of seeing her off on her return voyage, he merely sent his excuses. He promised that he would follow her to Italy on another steamer. It was a matter of the ultimate rather than the specific.

J. St. Mark Longaker comes from one of the most exclusive and socially prominent families that married out of the Virginia aristocracy into Philadelphia wealth. He has been taught to do the right thing conventionally all his life. It was considered natural when he had completed his university course to continue his literary studies and eventually take up the sheltered life of teaching at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Research work in Italian literature led him to sunny Italy on vacation, and their adventure and a pretty unacademic love affair caught him.

When Helen Dasu first met him, he was visiting some English friends on their yacht. She was a true lady of romance, educated in England, strikingly beautiful, of Rumanian origin, seemingly with all the leisure and tastes that indicate wealth.

According to their mutual friends, it was a case of desperate love at first sight. The two were constantly together during the rest of the yachting trip on the Mediterranean. Long, sunny days of lovemaking were followed by the languorous moonlit nights of the South. Whether fishing from the sides of the yacht, dancing after dinner, or swimming in the warm waters of some hay, the beautiful girl and the young college professor were inseparable companions.

Afterward, the girl took up residence on the Island of Capri, and the professor also went to Capri. The cloistered routine of the university faculty club was far away and forgotten. According to Helen Dasu, the romantic Italians looked upon them with apparent favor. They lived in an atmosphere suggesting the world drew its happiness from their deep and ardent love for each other.

But lovely days could not last forever. September came, and with it, the approach of Professor Longaker's classes. He must leave Italy and return to America. His pay as a teacher was his only source of income. If he and Helen Dasu ever expected to live an idyllic life in Italy, the money must come from his family. They must be convinced that it would be a wise move on his part to marry the beautiful girl and continue his research work in Homan literature.

So, the love-struck young professor returned to his own country and the arms of his proper family. They did not discourage him when he proclaimed his love for the beautiful Helen Dasu and his plans to marry her and live abroad. They merely asked him to wait for the academic year's end and then decide. So, pouring out his heart and hopes to his far-away sweetheart, promising to write daily and asking her to wait for a short eight months, Professor Longaker took up the old round of his daily life at the University.

But while Italian literature may be romantic, the atmosphere of teaching it to a class of sophomores who would far rather be enjoying the beauties of nature on the football field is the very reverse. The academic life has a charm, the charm of security, but it has no place for passion or adventure. Also, the calm aloofness of the scholarly world and the white-whiskered decorum of the faculty circles lent no encouragement to a love-sick young professor.

It was, therefore, natural for young Professor Longaker to drift more and more out of touch with the golden days of Capri. Exaltation gave way to primness, and by mid-year exams, the onetime adventurous lover had become once more the academic model. According to her statement, his letters to Helen Dasu became more stilted, their wording more cautious, and plans for the future increasingly vague.

It Was Not Until the S. S. Conti Biancamano Was Far Out to Sea That Anyone Questioned Helena Dasu's Presence in the Gay Party of Her Friends Who Were Bound for New York. GGA Image ID # 220c565a14

Back in Italy, Helen Dasu perhaps felt the change. At any rate, one night, while seeing John off to America, a sudden idea struck her. She would cross the Atlantic and visit her sweetheart. Once decided, she became the life of the farewell party—to such an extent that no one questioned her presence until the S. S. Conti Biancamano was far out to sea.

There are many ways of treating stowaways. But what could Captain G. Turchi do with such a beautiful girl who confessed to him that she had stowed away because of an aching heart? Not manacles, certainly. The honor of Italy and the Lloyd Sabaudo Line was at stake. So, a comfortable second-class cabin was assigned to Helen Dasu, and she was allowed the entire run of the ship.

The newspapers notified Longaker that the most beautiful stowaway who had ever entered New York had come out of love for him. He hastened to New York to see her.

But no romantic marriage followed. Professor Longaker maintained his dignity to the last. Beautiful Helen Dasu was deported and said that after all. she would "rather be married in her homeland than at New York City Hall, like a gypsy."

However, Professor Longaker sailed for Europe a few days after the S. S. Conte Biancamano sailed with his sweetheart.

When asked about his destination just before he bailed, he said he would immediately rush to Italy and his beautiful friend once in Europe. There- along the shores of the Mediterranean, he could once more renew his love for adventure and his adventurous love. Asked if wedding bells would at once ring, he said:

"That is in the hands of the gods."

When pressed as to which gods, he admitted the marriage question rested with Minerva and Venus, the goddesses of wisdom and discretion on the one hand and love and adventure on the other.

They were married in Rome, Italy, on 6 August 1927. The Professor was 26, and Helen was 33.

Photograph of Helena Dasu circa 1927. GGA Image ID # 19f90edc66

The Rest of the Story

Plaintiff John Mark Longaker is a native-born American and a full professor of English literature at the University of Pennsylvania. Defendant Helena Dasu Longaker was born in Germany of White Russian ancestry. At the time of the hearing in 1954, he was 53 years old, and she was 60 years old. The parties were married in Rome, Italy, on August 6, 1927. No children were born in this marriage, but she had a son by prior marriage.

The parties lived in Philadelphia until 1939 and then moved to a house at 201 Rhyl Lane, Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, purchased by the plaintiff and his father. The entireties conveyed the property to the parties as tenants on July 6, 1945.

It was sold in 1954, after the institution of this action, and the proceeds were divided equally between plaintiff and defendant, her share being approximately $9,000.00 in cash.

The parties got along reasonably well until about 1945. However, on Thanksgiving Day evening, 1930, she struck the plaintiff on the head with a mirror. From 1945, the parties had considerable trouble, which had become increasingly worse until the final break on October 10, 1953, when the plaintiff moved to the Normandie Hotel in Philadelphia.

Plaintiff substantiated a considerable portion of his testimony by a police officer and their neighbors, Leopold Mamolen, Esq., Dr. William A. Shannon, and James F. Warren. The defendant produced no witnesses to corroborate her testimony, notwithstanding her son, who lived with the parties for many years in a former marriage and is now a grown man.

He was present at some hearings but did not testify for his mother. The main difficulty arose because of her quick temper and her growing addiction to alcohol. She became bored because her husband, on account of his duties at the University, could not take her out enough.

She admitted, however, that he provided the funds from his moderate salary as a university professor to send her to the mountains of Mexico for four months in the summer and to Florida for the winter for the last eight years before the separation.

When she was home during the spring and fall, she admitted that she started to drink because he did not take her out to have some distraction. She said: ". . . he works so hard at the University. But he can't expect me to hibernate all winter, I mean, between trips. So that is the reason I drank."

She admitted to placing herself in St. Luke's Hospital a half dozen times when there was nothing wrong with her to escape boredom, even though this extra expense placed a heavy financial burden on him. She purposely did this to hurt him, and when she did not get her way, she would say, ". . . Get out your checkbook; I'll go back to St. Luke's Hospital."

Defendant admitted clawing him with her fingernails innumerable times, knowing it would embarrass him because he had to appear before groups of people and students; handing him a razor blade and saying "Go ahead"; throwing pictures (or anything she could grab) at him; hitting him over the head with a flashlight in the spring of 1951 in Florida, which put him in the hospital for five days (and this was done when she had not had a drop to drink); throwing bric-a-brac through the windows of their home; that policemen brought her home and on one occasion in 1945 in Cuernavaco, Mexico, being locked up all night in the police station because she had too much to drink; going to Mr. Mamolen's home at 5:00 or 5:30 a.m. and borrowing or stealing whiskey or wine; taking a bottle of whiskey from the Liversidge home; going into the homes of three neighbors and getting whiskey; hearing lousy language at the state hospital and getting a delight out of "throwing them in his case"; running out of the house at times, screaming and yelling vile language; slapping and scratching Dr. Shannon because he said she was drunk; calling her husband's parents Lutheran swine (plaintiff's father was a retired Lutheran minister); that Mr. Mamolen found her husband bleeding (after she had struck him in the head with a lamp on August 26, 1945) and took him to Dr. Shannon; that her husband drank less than she did during the latter period of time they were together. He testified that for the last six years, he drank virtually nothing. She admitted that she was declared normal by the staff at Norristown State Hospital.

In 1947, she signed and issued checks in her name drawn on First National Bank of Philadelphia, where she had no account. In September 1950, she laid a picture of the plaintiff's father at the plaintiff's place at the breakfast table on which she had written: "He lived and died with lies! Lies and sin! And so will you." In May 1953, she hurled and ruined an alarm clock. She brandished scissors and a razor blade at the plaintiff and called the plaintiff an "f- son of a bitch" and a "university stinker."

The defendant made herself thoroughly obnoxious in the vicinity of her residence. Neighbors had to lock their doors to keep her out. On occasions when she lost her temper, she threatened to set fire to the house, called the plaintiff vile names, and told him she would "do him in."

She annoyed the Lower Merion police and the police in other towns where she vacationed. One could amplify the above, but it would unduly prolong this opinion. Although she subjected her husband to many indignities and acts of cruelty, she says he should not have a divorce because he loved her. She admitted that they never had any real reason to quarrel.

We are convinced that the plaintiff loved the defendant and did everything possible to make her happy and give her all the luxuries and comforts his moderate salary would permit. She admitted he tried to stop her from drinking. Did her course of conduct cause him to suffer? Did it cause him humiliation?

We believe that it did. During the summer of 1953, when she was in Mexico and he was in Philadelphia teaching in summer school to earn money to pay the bills, he wrote her letters expressing his love for her. But finally, he wrote her: "Darling Nush, Please sober up. Otherwise, I have no choice — I must get out. Lovingly, M." She replied on the same paper: "Hah-Hi, you louse. Go to hell."

We agree with what the court below said in this connection: "We believe that the plaintiff was stating the fact when he stated that he formerly stayed with her as long as he did because he hoped against hope there might be some change' for the better.

Instead, in September 1953, she had hardly returned from Mexico when she assaulted him with a razor, threw a framed photograph at him, and began getting drunk again and annoying neighbors and police. Her taunting of the plaintiff when she was brought home on October 8, 1953, was the last straw.

Some incident is bound to be the final straw… The plaintiff loved the defendant intensely, and for years, he glossed over the indignities to which he was subjected. The fact that he was more loving, patient, and longer-suffering than many, or perhaps most, men of his position and stature will not bar him from obtaining relief."

The Plight of the Proud Professor and the Pretty Stowaway - 1926. Excerpt from Longaker v. Longaker, 184 Pa. Super. 652, 656 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1957)

Recap and Summary of "The Plight of the Proud Professor and the Pretty Stowaway (1926)" 🎭🚢💔

This captivating story blends romance, adventure, and societal expectations, revolving around Professor J. St. Mark Longaker of the University of Pennsylvania and Helena Dasu, a beautiful Romanian woman who stowed away on an Italian liner out of love for him. What begins as a passionate Mediterranean romance turns into a tale of heartbreak, rejection, and scandal, culminating in marriage, conflict, and an explosive divorce decades later.

The story’s unique blend of love, transatlantic travel, and high society pressures makes it an intriguing historical account for multiple audiences, including:

Teachers and Students 📚 – Provides a real-life drama set against a backdrop of early 20th-century immigration policies, gender roles, and social class expectations.

Genealogists 🧬 – Offers insights into intercontinental relationships, cultural assimilation, and family histories.

Historians 🏛️ – Highlights romanticism versus reality in early 20th-century transatlantic travel, including stowaway stories and social class struggles.

Maritime Enthusiasts ⚓ – Showcases ocean travel aboard luxury liners, particularly the S.S. Conte Biancamano.

Most Engaging Content ✨

🔹 A Love Born Under Mediterranean Skies 🌊 – The idyllic romance between a scholarly professor and a stunning Romanian woman, played out aboard a yacht in Italy, feels like a classic novel. The description of their passionate days and moonlit nights adds cinematic depth to the story.

🔹 The Stowaway's Bold Gamble 🎭 – Helena defies immigration laws and social norms, risking deportation just to reunite with her lover. Her charm and beauty even persuade the ship’s captain to grant her a first-class cabin rather than treating her like a common stowaway.

🔹 The Professor’s Cold Feet ❄️ – Despite his previous vows of eternal love, Professor Longaker abandons Helena to her fate, sending only his excuses rather than assistance. His social and academic obligations outweigh his romantic inclinations.

🔹 A Dramatic Reunion (or Is It?) ⚖️ – Rather than rescuing Helena, the professor's delayed response and philosophical detachment ("our marriage is in the hands of the gods") reinforce the tragic and ironic elements of their story.

🔹 Marriage, Alcohol, and Turmoil 🍷💥 – The couple eventually marries in Rome (1927), only for their love story to spiral into a cycle of fights, addiction, and domestic drama over the following decades. Their divorce trial in 1957 exposes years of abuse, mental struggles, and social scandal.

Noteworthy Images 🖼️

📷 "Miss Helena Dasu, a Beautiful Romanian Stowaway Girl

This captures the allure of Helena Dasu, emphasizing her beauty and charm, which played a pivotal role in her transatlantic adventure.

📷 "Professor J. St. Mark Longaker, Ph.D. of the University of Pennsylvania"

A contrast to Helena’s passion, this image represents academic rigidity and societal expectations, highlighting his hesitation to embrace the romance he once pursued so passionately.

📷 "Helena Dasu’s Presence in the Gay Party of Her Friends Who Were Bound for New York"

Suggests an exuberant and carefree spirit, reinforcing the adventurous and rebellious nature of Helena, which ultimately led her to stow away.

📷 "Photograph of Helena Dasu circa 1927

A post-deportation image, marking the transition from hopeful stowaway to real-life wife, before their love story descended into turmoil.

This extraordinary story is both romantic and tragic, offering rich material for discussions on love, class, immigration, and the limits of personal freedom. 🎭🚢💔