Virginia Loney

Virginia Bruce Loney (born May 19, 1899 in Skaneateles , Onondaga County , New York , † April 4, 1975 in Southampton , Suffolk County , New York) was a member of the American high society , especially the US state of New York . She came from the long-established, wealthy Loney and Brown families, from which large landowners and lawyers emerged.

Loney became known as one of the youngest millionaire heirs in United States history in 1915 , when she was less than 16 years old when she inherited all of their fortunes after the death of her parents. The American media shaped Loney's image as a “poor little rich girl”, a title that was otherwise more likely to be given to Shirley Temple , Mary Pickford and Gloria Vanderbilt . Later, her marriage to the aviator Robert H. Gamble and especially the long war of divorce including the kidnapping of her two children by her own father made headlines.

Family and origin

Virginia Loney was the only child of Allen Donellan Loney (born October 20, 1871) and Catharine Wolfe Brown (born April 30, 1877). Allen was a wealthy stockbroker , landowners and horse breeder and was originally from Baltimore ( Maryland ). He was the son of William Amos Loney (1822-1914), who had made a fortune as a wholesaler and real estate agent , and his wife Alice Louise Allen (1844-1907). Catharine was the daughter of George Bruce Brown and Virginia Greenway McKesson. Virginia was a cousin of motor sportsman David Bruce-Bown and a great niece of attorney Henry Donellan Loney.

The Loney family regularly spent summers in the small town of Skaneateles , New York, where Virginia was born. There they lived on the Roseleigh estate built by Virginia's paternal grandparents. Virginia Loney learned to swim in Lake Skaneateles. All three were known to be good riders . Whenever they were in New York, the family resided in the prestigious hotel The Gotham on the corner of 5th Avenue and 55th Street. For most of the year, Virginia lived with her parents at the Guilsborough House manor in Northampton in the East Midlands , England , where the family held dinners, horse shows and fox hunts. The Loneys traveled extensively and regularly crossed the Atlantic Ocean on the most popular ocean liners of the time, including the Cedric , the Amerika , the Campania , the George Washington and the Mauretania . They were also on board the Olympic when she received the emergency call from her wrecked sister ship in April 1912 .

On the Lusitania

After the outbreak of World War I , the Loneys left England and returned to New York in September 1914 on board the Celtic of the White Star Line . Allen Loney drove back to Europe shortly afterwards to support the British Ambulance Corps, which arranged for wounded soldiers to be transported. He made three of his own vehicles available to transport injured soldiers from the front to nearby military hospitals or hospitals. Catharine Loney also wanted to help and in the spring of 1915 decided to travel to England to take care of the injured in a convalescent home.

When Allen Loney learned that Catharine and Virginia wanted to take the Lusitania to Liverpool , he took the next ship to the United States, the Adriatic , to accompany his wife and daughter. On April 21, 1915, they booked suites B-85 and B-87 and boarded the luxury steamer on May 1 in New York as first class passengers. The family was accompanied by Virginia's French governess Elise Boutellier, who had worked for the family for many years. On board the family was often accompanied by the Canadian businessman Joseph H. Charles, President of the Musson Book Company in Toronto , and his daughter Doris.

When the ship was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine off the Irish coast on May 7, Virginia was in her cabin. She ran into the corridor and was carried to the boat deck by the movement of the crowd . On the port side she found her parents with Alfred Vanderbilt . Her father distributed life jackets to bystanders but kept none for himself. When the overcrowded port 14 boat was about to be defrosted, Allen Loney insisted that his daughter get in. After some protest she gave in and let Alfred Vanderbilt help her into the boat. Number 14 was the last boat that left the Lusitania ; it was only a few meters away from the ship when it sank. The movement of the Lusitania caused No. 14 to rock, throw its occupants into the water and capsize . When she surfaced and turned back to the ship, she could see her parents waving at her from the sloping boat deck. Virginia Loney, along with dozens of others, was caught in the ship's suction and dragged underwater. When she reappeared, the Lusitania was gone. She was dragged into another lifeboat and taken to Queenstown with other survivors on a fishing cutter . Her parents and Elise Boutellier were killed in the sinking; their bodies were never found. Alfred Vanderbilt was also among the numerous fatalities.

"Poor rich girl"

After Virginia had spent her 16th birthday at Guilsborough House without her parents, she returned to the United States in June 1915 on board the St. Paul , where she first lived at her uncle George McKesson Brown's West Neck Farms in Huntington on Long Iceland lived. Shortly before her death, Catharine Loney had drawn up a new will that made Virginia the sole heir to the family's fortunes of more than $ 1.5 million (in monetary terms at the time ) when she turned 21 (a very large sum in 1915) . Virginia also received $ 45,000 in assets, her mother's jewelry that didn't go down with the Lusitania , $ 12,000 from a great-aunt's trust fund, and a car. Various American newspapers, especially the New York Times , reported Virginia as a "poor, rich girl" and made her story public.

Mary Bose Chamberlaine, a single cousin of Allen Loney, had installed her mother's will as godmother and custodian of Virginia. Mary took up Virginia's upbringing and went to court to sue for the costs she believed Virginia owed. In October 1915, before the United States Supreme Court , presided over by Judge Pendleton, she applied for an annual sum of US $ 25,000 to Virginia "to guarantee the lifestyle to which she was used as a member of a higher social class from birth." The sum corresponded to a third of her parents' annual income and included, among other things, expenses for education, equipment, household, summer vacation and travel as well as costs for a maid and three employees and a vehicle including a chauffeur.

Virginia from then on lived with Mary and her widowed sister Rebecca Chamberlaine Fabens in an apartment at 850 Park Avenue in New York. A few years later, she received $ 26,700 from the German American Mixed Claims Commission for the loss of her parents . This body, chaired by Judge Edwin B. Parker, dealt with claims for damages from survivors of the Lusitania disaster. George Brown was awarded $ 15,450 for the loss of his only sister, and Mary Chamberlaine was awarded $ 1,235.

First marriage and divorce scandal

In December 1917, 18-year-old Virginia was announced to be ten-year-old Robert Howard Gamble, a Yale graduate, stockbroker, and sports aviator from Jacksonville , Florida . He was a member of the Naval Aviation Corps in Jacksonville and served in the United States Navy Reserve . The wedding took place on April 27, 1918 in New York. The couple then settled in the small town of Chevy Chase, Washington, DC and had two children: Robert Howard Gamble, Jr. and Catharine Bruce Gamble.

The marriage failed; Virginia filed in April 1923 in Paris , the divorce one. In court she accused him of "indifference" towards her and gave this as a reason for divorce. Virginia and the children returned to the United States aboard the Aquitania . In September 1923, Robert followed them to Huntington and took his children with him to Jacksonville without Virginia being aware of them. Virginia reported them kidnapped. Robert Gamble refused to hand the children over to his ex-wife and announced that he would fight for custody of his children in Florida. In November of that year, she sued him in the Supreme Court for $ 232,000 in damages, and also called for judicial custody in the Commercial Frauds Court, presided over by George W. Simpson, on charges of theft and fraud against her ex-husband. They accused him after the divorce shares and securities worth $ 50,000 stolen to have. The scandal made headlines in the United States in 1923. A custody agreement was finally reached and in November 1924 Virginia got her children back.

Second marriage and later life

On January 29, 1926, Virginia married Paul Abbott, who like her were divorced. Paul was a graduate of the French Military School, Fontainebleau and the son of prominent attorney Henry H. Abbott, vice president of the Maidstone Club in East Hampton , New York. They lived together at 1115 Fifth Avenue . Paul had been married to Elise Everett from 1920 to 1926. With him, Virginia had a son, Paul Abbott, Jr.

Of their children, Catherine Gamble married William Ray Kitchel in 1940. The marriage ended in divorce; Catherine married Lieutenant Commander John R. Chapin, Jr. in 1947, while William married Countess de Ganay in Connecticut in 1948. Robert Gamble, Jr. married in New Mexico in 1942 . Paul Abbott, Jr. married Lucretia L. Bogert in 1954.

In 1956 Virginia Loney was among the 30 or so Lusitania survivors who were interviewed about their experiences by the American couple Adolph A. Hoehling and Mary Duprey Hoehling for their non-fiction book The Last Voyage of the Lusitania , one of the most fundamental works on the subject.

Virginia's husband Paul died in April 1971. She herself died four years later at the age of 75 in Southampton, New York.

Web links

• Loney family story
• Report in the New York Times, June 16, 1915
• Report in the New York Times, October 4, 1915
• Report in the New York Times, December 27, 1917