Danville, Virginia |
Nancy Witcher Langhorne - Lady Astor |
(right) The Langhorne House at 117 birthplace of Nancy & Irene Langhorne. When they lived in this house, it was situated on the corner of Main and Broad Streets, but it was later moved a short distance down Broad Street. After the Langhorne family moved to Richmond in 1885, the house was still at the corner of Main and Broad Streets, and it was used as a private school. The picture below shows the 1903 class on the porch. The one-room school was in the right front room of the four-room house. |
in the world and being the first woman in England’s parliament. And she accomplished this a year before American women had the right to vote. The future Lady Astor, Nancy Witcher Langhorne, was born in Danville, Virginia. Her father, Chriswell Dabney Langhorne, had lost almost everything during the Civil War. He married Nancy Witcher Keen in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, on December 20, 1864, while the war raged. Then in 1873, the year that their daughter Nancy was born, he brought his family from Lynchburg to Danville. “Chillie,” as he was known is credited with creating the auctioneer’s Gregorian chant and the “Danville System” of selling tobacco on the warehouse floor. The family lived in a house built in 1873 at the corner of Main and Broad Streets. In all there were eleven children born, “all unwanted,” as Lady Astor liked to say. Nancy like shocking statements and this was likely not her real belief. Concerning her years from 1919-1945 in the British House of Commons, she is said to have had a “cheerful lack or respect for any and all. She once remarked to Sir Winston Churchill: "If I were married to you, I'd put poison in your coffee." Churchill replied: “If I were married to you, I'd drink it." |
Nancy Witcher Langhorne, later known as "Lady Astor" was born in Danville, Virginia |
After her divorce Nancy was faced with choosing a new husband. “I must do better than Irene,” she is reported in an old newspaper to have said. “I must have money, and lots of it. Money is power. I want to do like Alva Belmont, and make myself felt. And I must have money to do it. And I shall never marry a man unless he has barrels of it.” Robert Gould Shaw had $10 million - Nancy married and divorced him. Then Robert Walton Goelet had his $50 million. Or she could become Lady Revelstoke with multi-millions plus a title. Then there was William Waldorf Astor’s son, Waldorf, who was worth $200 million. So, Nancy picked the richest man in the world for her new husband and became Lady Astor. Her sister, Phyllis, picked for her next husband Bob Brand, an Oxford scholar who was said to be (maybe) the wisest man in the empire. Nancy came back to Danville in 1922 and 1945. was given her in Danville on her first return trip, draped her casket. (Much of this story is compiled from an old newspaper article from the early 1900s.) |
Waldorf & Nancy Astor |
Bottom row: Wayles R. Harrison, Harry Thomas, Pearl Fitzgerald, George Wilson, Mamie Watson, Ethel Rowe, Frank Browder, Robert Harper, John Eanes. Top Row: A. Berkeley Carrington Jr., Virginia Griggs, Ellie Fitzgerald, Miss Sara Harrison (Teacher), Mary Haynes, Billy Meade, Pinckney Harrison, Lawson Hodges. |
Pictures at right: Ellie and Pearl Fitzgerald were sisters and they are also in the school group picture above. Their father James Henry Fitzgerald. |