Early Life
He was born as Rafael María José Pedro Francisco Borja Domingo Gerardo de la Santíssima Trinidad Merry del Val y Zulueta at the Spanish Embassy in London, England, to a Spanish diplomat, as the second of four sons. His mother was Sofia Josefa de Zulueta (died 1925), elder daughter of Pedro José de Zulueta, count of Torre Díaz, of the London bank of Zulueta & Co., and his wife, Sophia Ann Wilcox, who was of Scottish and Dutch ancestry. The Zuluetas were an old Basque family ennobled as counts de Torre Díaz in the nineteenth century. His father was Rafael Merry del Val (1831–1917), Marquis of Merry del Val, secretary to the Spanish legation in London, a monarchist supporter of Alfonso XII and nobleman. The del Vals were an Aragonese family originally from Zaragoza, claiming descent from a twelfth-century Breton crusader; the surname Merry came from a line of Irish merchants from County Waterford, Ireland, who settled in the late eighteenth century in Seville, Spain. His elder brother Alfonso, marquess of Merry del Val (b. 1864), was Spanish ambassador to the United Kingdom between 1913 and 1931.
Read more about this topic: Rafael Merry Del Val
Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)