Eden's Retirement and Death
Eden had been told by doctors that his life might be in danger if he remained in office. In the event he was to live for another twenty years. The Edens' home was at Alvediston, Wiltshire, where he died on 14 January 1977 and is buried. The last entry in Eden's diary, dated 11 September 1976, had read; "exquisite small vase of crimson glory buds & mignonette from beloved C".
When Eden was taken mortally ill with liver cancer, he and Lady Avon had just spent their final Christmas together at Hobe Sound, Florida as guests of former New York Governor Averell Harriman, elder statesman of the Democratic Party, and his English-born wife Pamela. (Mrs Harriman was Lady Avon's exact contemporary, a débutante of 1938 who had also taken a room at the Dorchester during the Second World War. She had previously been married to Lady Avon's cousin Randolph Churchill and in the 1990s was President Bill Clinton's Ambassador to Paris, where she died in 1997.) The Edens were flown back to Britain in a Royal Air Force VC-10 that was diverted to Miami after Prime Minister James Callaghan had been alerted to the situation by Pamela Harriman's son, Winston.
Read more about this topic: Clarissa Eden, Countess Of Avon
Famous quotes containing the words eden, retirement and/or death:
“Is Eden out of time and out of space?
And do you gather about us when pale light
Shining on water and fallen among leaves,
And winds blowing from flowers, and whirr of feathers
And the green quiet, have uplifted the heart?”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Douglas. Now remains a sweet reversion—
We may boldly spend, upon the hope
Of what is to come in.
A comfort of retirement lives in this.
Hotspur. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Most of the folktales dealing with the Indians are lurid and romantic. The story of the Indian lovers who were refused permission to wed and committed suicide is common to many places. Local residents point out cliffs where Indian maidens leaped to their death until it would seem that the first duty of all Indian girls was to jump off cliffs.”
—For the State of Iowa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)