Early Life and Family
Winnaretta Singer was the twentieth of the 24 children of Isaac Merritt Singer. Her mother was his Parisian-born second wife, Isabella Eugenie Boyer, who was possibly the model for Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty. Winnaretta was born in Yonkers, New York. After the outbreak of American Civil War, the Singer family moved to Paris, where they remained until the Franco-Prussian War. The family then settled in England, first in London, and then Paignton, Devon; there, Isaac Singer built Oldway Mansion, a 115-room palace modeled on the Petit Trianon at Versailles, which he named "The Wigwam."
Read more about this topic: Winnaretta Singer
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or family:
“In the early forties and fifties almost everybody “had about enough to live on,” and young ladies dressed well on a hundred dollars a year. The daughters of the richest man in Boston were dressed with scrupulous plainness, and the wife and mother owned one brocade, which did service for several years. Display was considered vulgar. Now, alas! only Queen Victoria dares to go shabby.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief;”
—William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)
“While one family is well-fed and clothed, a thousand others grumble.”
—Chinese proverb.