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:
“No doubt they rose up early to observe
The rite of May.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Life isn’t meant to be easy. It’s hard to take being on the top—or on the bottom. I guess I’m something of a fatalist. You have to have a sense of history, I think, to survive some of these things.... Life is one crisis after another.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)
“The agent’s steep and steady stare
Corroded to a grin.
Why, you black old, tough old hell of a man,
Move your family in!”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)