Princess and Groom
When Did They Meet?
From perhaps 1927 on, Herman Jud would have been working at Gold Coast events, eyeing the horses, visiting other stables, and chatting with anyone who stopped by to look over the horses he tended. When news of the couple’s wedding broke in 1946, after nearly two decades of their each attending equestrian events without anyone’s linking them romantically, the news reports all outlined the same basic story:
- The couple first met c.1937, when Herman worked at the Meadow Brook Club
- They were attracted to each other, but
- They decided to do nothing about it until Nancy was older
- The uncertainty of World War II caused further delays
- When Herman returned from the war, they at last were free
Well... maybe. One can quibble – there could not have been a lot of concern that Herman would not come back from the war, as he did not enlist until October 1943, and then was posted stateside as an instructor. Of course, there may have been other considerations, involving Nancy’s fiancé or her father, both of whom had wartime military duties.
Regardless, the assertion that Xenia and Herman first met in 1937 rankles me. Early in the 1930s, Xenia’s mare Jada was a steeplechase champion who attracted lots of attention for herself and for her owner. Xenia also rode in fox hunts in those years, including one with more than one hundred riders, hosted by the Meadow Brook Club, where Herman later was said to have worked. One expects that they would have met long before 1937.
Mystery Man?
In this vein, my suspicious mind leads me to include the following photograph. It was taken at the 1930 running of the annual West Hills Plate, a prestigious, notoriously difficult, and outright dangerous steeplechase event that traversed adjacent private estates in the Town of Huntington.
Brooklyn Daily Times, November 7, 1930
There are many photographs of Xenia walking around at horse-y events, but I have not found another in which she is walking with a man. The caption’s wording -- “Princess Xenia of Greece and friend” – deliberately suggests he and the newly divorced princess are more than acquaintances.
I find this man’s stature reminiscent of the Herman Jud in the “Cousins” newspaper photo we saw earlier. Could he be Herman? His garb is pretentious for a youth of 19 who works in a stable, but Herman may have been trying to impress people. Moreover, one might infer from Herman’s Buick that he was capable of saving his earnings when he wanted to buy expensive things.
Regardless, I’m not implying that Xenia (or Herman) was involved in anything shameful in 1930. I just find it hard to understand how it took about a decade of attending the same events, weekend after weekend, for Xenia and Jud to finally notice each other.
Til Death Do Them Part
Nassau Daily Review-Star, August 13, 1946
The article above is typical of how the news media reported the wedding. There were slight differences from one report to another (e.g., the New York Times mistakenly reported that Henry was an Army veteran), variations which suggest that the different wire services and papers conducted hurried interviews with whomever answered the telephone at the church office.
At the end of 1946, a single-page American Weekly story (some of which is shown at the start of this article) was published nationwide. It reported that after four months of marriage, Xenia and Herman were enjoying their low-profile life in Glen Cove. The home in which they lived, set far back from the road, still stands today.
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