Isabel Pell

Isabel Pell
Pell in 1930 photographed by Arnold Genthe
Born Isabel Townsend Pell
September 28, 1900
Died June 5, 1951(1951-06-05) (aged 50)
New York City
Occupation Socialite
Known for Serving with the French Resistance
Partner(s) Claire Charles-Roux, Marquise De Forbin

Isabel Townsend Pell (September 28, 1900 – June 5, 1951) was an American socialite who fought with the French Resistance during World War II and for this reason was decorated with the Legion of Honour.[1]

Early life and family

Isabel Pell's mother, April 10, 1923, Gift of Herbert A. French, 1947, National Photo Company Collection (Library of Congress) Repository

Pell was born on September 28, 1900, to S. Osgood Pell, a New York real estate man, and Isabel Audrey Townsend, who married in 1899. The marriage was important enough to be noted by the New York Times,[2] but it did not last; at only 19 years old, Isabel Townsend filed for a divorce and moved out with her infant daughter; she remarried twice, the second time to John Cotton Smith, descendant of politician John Cotton Smith.[1][3]

S. Osgood Pell died in a car accident on the night of August 3, 1913, when a train from the Long Island Railroad crashed into his car at a crossing. Isabel Townsend sued for $250,000, but both she and her daughter were left without money. Pell was cared for by her paternal uncle, Stephen Hyatt Pell (1874–1950); she was raised at Fort Ticonderoga, the family mansion on Lake Champlain, which is now on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places and a U.S. National Historic Landmark.[4][3] Her other uncle was Theodore Pell, tennis player.[5]

Pell attended Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland, and then the Spence School in New York City. She made her debut in 1920, at the Piping Rock Club, and was known as a skilled horsewoman in Long Island, New York, and Virginia.[6] She was nicknamed "Pelly" and admired by contemporaries for being outspoken and athletic.[1][3]

Career

November 28, 1944. Joseph W. Welsh reads the proclamation renaming the plaza in Puget-Théniers in honor of Isabel Pell as Pell looks on

In 1921 Pell went to work in a dress shop, a position felt at the time to be below her social standing. In 1922 she left the job at the dress shop and tried a career as actress, playing a small part in Fools Errant at the Maxine Elliott Theatre.[1][3]

In 1930 Pell worked for the real estate firm of Pell and MacMillen, New York.[7] She collaborated with Lois Long, fashion writer, and Elsie de Wolfe, interior decorator.[8]

While in France during World War II, Pell took the name of "Fredericka" and joined the Maquis. She moved inland in the mountain and served for four years, until September 1944, and was known among the resistance as "the girl with the blonde mèche (lock)".[9] Pell was captured by Italian soldiers and interned at Puget-Théniers; nevertheless she continued to smuggle information to the resistance while she was allowed to take her daily walks at the camp. When she was released, she disguised herself as a peasant and went to a mountain forest with her lover, the Marquise Claire Charles-Roux De Forbin (1908–1992). An Associate Press recounts how, in 1944, Pell rescued a contingent of American soldiers surrounded by enemies in Tanaron, a small French town. Pell, wearing the badge of Free France, came out from her hiding place and led the men to safety.[3][1][10][11]

At the end of the war, November 28, 1944, the plaza in Puget-Théniers was renamed in her honor.

Personal life

Eleanora Sears (right) attending a tennis tournament with her date, Isabel Pell, in the 1920s

In February 1924 Pell was briefly engaged to R. Lorenzo Thomson; the marriage, supposed to take place on June 3, 1924, never happened.[5]

Her society photos show Pell practicing sports, or together with other heiresses, like Margarett Sargent (1892–1978) and Eleonora Sears (1881–1968), both rumored to be her lovers.[12] Sargent said that Isabell was "handsome, wonderfully handsome". Pell used to visit Sargent at her Prides Crossing, Beverly, Massachusetts mansion, and was well known by both Sargent's husband, Quincy Adams Shaw McKean (1891–1971), and children, who called Pell "cousin Pell".[3][13][14]

In 1933 Isabel Pell and another woman, the wife of Henry T. Fleitmann, a partner of De Witt, Fleitmann & Company, were rescued after a crash at sea on the Kattegat while on a flight between Copenhagen and Falkenberg. They were rescued by a German freighter and taken to Copenhagen, uninjured.[15]

Isabel Pell was friends with Eva Le Gallienne (1899–1991), they used to spend time together driving in the country.[16]

Isabel and her dog Heine, in France

Pell had an affair with Renee Prahar, an American sculptor and actress with Bohemian ancestry. Pell was forced to leave New York after her affair with a Metropolitan Opera soprano became public. Pell moved to Paris, joining many other eccentric heiresses who sought the freedom from their gilded cage.[3] In a story recounted by Esther Murphy Strachey, younger sister of Gerald Murphy, Pell, with Natalie Clifford Barney, infiltrated a 13th-century Italian convent to meet with Alice Robinson.[17]

In France, Pell started a relationship with Claire Charles-Roux, Marquise De Forbin. The Marquise was born in Avignon but raised in Morocco. Pell and the Marquise moved together to Auribeau-sur-Siagne. When France was occupied in 1940, both Pell and De Forbin joined the French Resistance and then the 1st Airborne Task Force (Allied) led by Major General Robert T. Frederick, who said "I think she came up there because she wanted a uniform. Well, we told her we didn't have any women's uniforms".[3][18] Pell became an attaché of the Civil Affair Task Force of the US Army and liaised between the French and the Americans.[19]

Pell was close friends with Mercedes de Acosta.[3][20] After the war De Acosta visited Pell in France and began a relationship with Pell's companion, Claire de Forbin.[21]

Back in New York City, after the war, Pell lived at 30 East End Avenue. Pell died at the age of 51, collapsing while dining with her friend Anne Andrews at La Reine Restaurant, 139 East 52nd Street.[3][1]

Legacy

We Used to Own the Bronx: Memoirs of a Former Debutante is a memoir written by Eve Pell, a reporter in San Francisco.[3][22]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Isabel Pell Dies: Served in Maquis" (PDF). The New York Times. 6 June 1952. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  2. ↑ "Marriages". New York Times: 7. 17 October 1899.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Pell, Eve. "La Femme à la Mèche Blonde". Ms. Magazine. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  4. ↑ "FOUR WATCHED PELL SPEEDING TO DEATH; Witnesses Describe How They Foresaw Auto Would Be Hit at Crossing. ASSERT TRAIN WAS LIGHTED Some Say They Heard Whistle Blown, but Others Are Not Sure – Trial Nearing End". The New York Times. 22 June 1915. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  5. 1 2 "Engagements". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle: 7. 6 February 1924. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  6. ↑ Harper's Bazaar, Volume 55. Hearst Corporation. 1920. p. 64. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  7. ↑ Cades, Hazel Rawson (1930). Jobs for Girls. Harcourt, Brace. p. 76. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  8. ↑ "Ladies' Home Journal, Volume 48". Ladies' Home Journal. 48: 186. 1931. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  9. ↑ Town & Country, Volume 97. Hearst Corporation. 1942. p. 31. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  10. ↑ Kundahl, George G. (2017). Riviera at War: World War II on the Côte d'Azur. I.B.Tauris. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  11. ↑ Rossiter, Margaret L. (1986). Women in the resistance. Praeger. p. 123. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  12. ↑ Mitchell, John Ames (1930). "Life, Volume 95, Part 2". Life. 95, Part 2. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  13. ↑ The Advocate Num. 762. Here Publishing. 23 June 1998. p. 79. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  14. ↑ Moore, Honor (2009). The White Blackbird: A Life of the Painter Margarett Sargent by Her Granddaughter. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 174. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  15. ↑ "The Evening News". 28 August 1933: 1. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  16. ↑ Sheehy, Helen (1996). Eva Le Gallienne: a biography. Knopf. p. 95. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  17. ↑ Cohen, Lisa (2012). All We Know: Three Lives. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 75. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  18. ↑ Adleman, Robert H.; Walton, George H. (1969). The champagne campaign. Little, Brown. p. 199. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  19. ↑ Nelson, Michael (2008). Americans and the Making of the Riviera. McFarland & Company. p. 155. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  20. ↑ de Acosta, Mercedes (1975). Here lies the heart. Arno Press. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  21. ↑ Schanke, Robert A (2004). That Furious Lesbian: The Story of Mercedes de Acosta. SIU Press. p. 151. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  22. ↑ Pell, Eve (2009). We Used to Own the Bronx: Memoirs of a Former Debutante. SUNY Press. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
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