A Single Mother on the Gold Coast
Was it simply a matter of “Enough Already”?
In 1926, rumors of a Leeds divorce began to appear in the press. They may have been mere speculation, but they proved prophetic. Xenia was granted a divorce in 1930.
Why had she wanted the divorce? On that score, no one was talking. Court records probably would not provide an answer. At that time, New York State granted divorce only on the basis of infidelity – which meant that people who filed for divorce always claimed that their spouses had been unfaithful, whether or not that was true. Remember the Rogers-Astaire film The Gay Divorcee?
Perhaps Billy’s obvious inability to be a rock-steady family man was at fault, but there seem to be no objective memoirs, diaries, or biographies to verify that. Before Xenia’s mother Maria died in 1940, she wrote memoirs, but her daughters never had them published. Her grandchildren did, but not until 1988, more than a half century too late. By then, all the people who knew the truth were gone. The grandchildren who edited the memoirs had come by their family knowledge second-hand. Such knowledge is usually incomplete, misremembered, distorted, biased, and/or sanitized.
Still in High Society
It is obvious that Xenia – who years later would choose to retreat from Gold Coast society – felt a maternal obligation to educate young Nancy in the equine ways of the wealthy. Many a childhood weekend was spent at a horse show, steeplechase race, or jumping competition. At these events, socialites walked the grounds, venturing into stables to see other owners’ horses, interacting with each other, and also with the grooms and stable hands. Young Nancy would have been full of questions for the latter.
Nancy and Xenia at a horse show, 1934
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