Mary Victoria Leiter Curzon, Vicereine of India
Born in Chicago, Illinois, on May 27, 1870, Mary Leiter was the daughter of Levi Z. Leiter, merchant and early partner of Marshall Field. From 1881 she grew up in Washington, D.C., where her family entertained many distinguished native and foreign personages.
In 1895, after a two-year engagement, she married George Nathaniel Curzon, member of the British Parliament, diplomat, and Asian expert. In 1898, when her husband was appointed viceroy of India and created Baron Curzon of Kedleston, Mary Curzon became Baroness Curzon and vicereine of India, which was then and for long afterward the highest political rank attained by an American woman. She proved fully equal to the elegant pomp and pageantry that Curzon relished, and she was furthermore his most steadfast supporter, especially as his early successes in the post gave way to frustration and failure.
Her ceremonial responsibilities, together with the climate and other difficulties, bore heavily on her health, however. Trips to England did not restore her, and by the time they returned to England after Curzon’s resignation in August 1905 she was failing. She died in London on July 18, 1906.
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COMMENTS / 5 COMMENTS
Plunge added these pithy words on 07 May 05 at 6:52 pmSo, your dedication to Queen and Country took precedence over marital duty with your beloved ultimately sacrificing her life in support of her husband.
Way to go Curzon. Hang your head in shame.
Curzon added these pithy words on 07 May 05 at 6:55 pmYou blame a man for his wife’s death? That’s pretty harsh. Anyway, I remarried: the romance novelist Elinor Gyln!
Plunge added these pithy words on 07 May 05 at 8:34 pmEven better, your wife, sacrificing herself for you, dies in agony and you jaunt off and marry some kinky romance writing floosy.
I think I’ll go and place a rose on Mary’s grave. Poor woman.
mark safranski added these pithy words on 07 May 05 at 8:43 pmI’m not exactly sure why, in the pre-antibiotic age, that Mary Curzon was more likely to die in a tropical or subtropical climate than Nathaniel Curzon. In colonial America, female settlers tended to outlive male settlers in the malarial Chesapeake, a third of whom died off within 7 years of arrival. A woman might easily outlive two or three husbands.
Seems to me it was simply the roll of the dice.
lirelou added these pithy words on 10 May 05 at 2:28 amYes, foxy. But nothing to stir up wild fantasies like the Maharani Jendeen of Lahore, winsome little lass that she was. I always fantasized about dancing with her under the moonlight, trying to snatch the diamond from her taut, sexy navel with my own. Of course, those two bloody American military advisors that she employed always insisted that those stories were outright lies.
