1946: A True Story of Wealth, Extraordinary Success and Great Tragedy

By Diana Gillmor

Only a few anecdotes about the author's grandparents remained after their deaths more than half a century ago. Research of nearly a decade led her to some startling information and the amazing story of the couple's lives. The author also discovered her grandfather's remarkable place in history and that neither Reg or Edwina were ordinary people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: PageTurner, Press and Media
• Release date: May 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781649081834

Diana Gillmor

Miss Gillmor graduated with honors from Parson School of Design after skipping a year and has been an interior designer in New York City and Maryland for decades. She presently lives on the Eastern Shore of Maryland where she also paints still-lifes and does childrens portraits. In the past, she also enjoyed training and showing dressage horses and fencing. While learning to fly small planes, she also owned and operated a flying school. She was born in New York City and spent her early years living in Red Spring Colony, Glen Cove, New York. At that time, her father was a navy pilot and her mother a model. The family, along with her younger brother, aunt, uncle, and their three children, lived in her grandfathers house, Penterra. Her grandmother also lived there, but she died before Miss Gillmor was nine months old. Family life on the estate included a cook, two maids, a gardener, a chauffeur, a butler, a laundress, and a nannyexactly as her father and his brothers had been raised. Adult social life in the house included tennis matches on the clay tennis court, swimming and sunbathing on the private beach, cruises on the family yacht, chauffeured trips to the city and elegant parties. The house was ruled by English customs with dinner at eight in the dining room, served on fine china with monogrammed linens, crystal, silver, and fresh flowers. It was always preceded by cocktails, with all the women in attendance appearing in long evening attire. These dining rituals did not apply to the children, however. They ate in the kitchen and were hurried off to bed, after a good night kiss, by the nanny at six oclock. Eventually, her familys Gatsby days were transformed into a normal middle-class life when they moved to a small house in nearby Cold Spring Harbor. The author never thought her early years were any different from the other children she encountered in her new neighborhood or during her years of education at public schools.