Isabel Pell

File:Mrs. Isabel Pell, April 10, 1923, Gift of Herbert A. French, 1947, National Photo Company Collection (Library of Congress) Repository.jpg

Pell was born on September 28, 1900, to Samuel Osgood Pell (1875–1913), a New York real estate agent, and Isabel Audrey Townsend (1881–1958), who married October 18, 1899, in Babylon. The marriage was mentioned in the New York Times,{{cite news |title=Marriages|newspaper=New York Times|date=17 October 1899|page=7}} but was short-lived; Isabel Townsend was granted a divorce in early February 1902, aged {{age|1881|03|28|1902|02|03}}. She remarried twice, initially to John Cotton Smith, descendant of politician John Cotton Smith.{{cite web|last1=Pell|first1=Eve|title=La Femme à la Mèche Blonde|url=http://www.msmagazine.com/spring2005/isabelpell.asp|website=Ms. Magazine|access-date=1 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160723122825/http://www.msmagazine.com/spring2005/isabelpell.asp|archive-date=23 July 2016|url-status=dead}}

Pell's father died in an automobile 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 penniless. Pell was cared for by her paternal uncle, Stephen Hyatt Pell (1874–1950) and raised at Fort Ticonderoga, the family mansion on Lake Champlain. The house is on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places and a U.S. National Historic Landmark.{{cite journal|title=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.|journal=The New York Times|date=22 June 1915|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=980CE6D8153BE333A25751C2A9609C946496D6CF&legacy=true|access-date=1 August 2017}} Her other uncle was tennis player Theodore Pell.

Pell attended Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland, and 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.{{cite book|title=Harper's Bazaar, Volume 55|date=1920|publisher=Hearst Corporation|page=64|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TBTE3mFxijgC|access-date=1 August 2017}} She was nicknamed "Pelly" and admired by contemporaries for being outspoken and athletic.

File:November 28, 1944. Joseph W. Welsh reads the proclamation renaming the plaza in Puget-Thénier in honor of Isabel Pell as Miss Pell looks on. (From the collection of Joseph W. Welsh).jpg

In 1921, Pell went to work in a dress shop, a position felt to be below her social standing. In 1922 she quit to become an actress, playing a small part in Fools Errant at the Maxine Elliott Theatre.

In 1930, Pell worked for the real estate firm Pell and MacMillen in New York.{{cite book|last1=Cades|first1=Hazel Rawson|title=Jobs for Girls|date=1930|publisher=Harcourt, Brace|page=[https://archive.org/details/jobsforgirls00cade/page/76 76]|url=https://archive.org/details/jobsforgirls00cade|url-access=registration|access-date=1 August 2017}} She collaborated with the fashion writer Lois Long and the interior decorator Elsie de Wolfe.{{cite journal|title=Ladies' Home Journal, Volume 48|journal=Ladies' Home Journal|date=1931|volume=48|page=186|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0agiAQAAMAAJ|access-date=1 August 2017}}

While in France during World War II, Pell took the name of "Fredericka" and joined the Maquis. She moved inland into the mountains and served for four years, until September 1944, and was known among the resistance as "the girl with the blonde mèche (lock)".{{cite book|title=Town & Country, Volume 97|date=1942|publisher=Hearst Corporation|page=31|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QwhUAAAAYAAJ|access-date=1 August 2017}} Pell was captured by Italian soldiers and interned at Puget-Théniers, but continued to smuggle information to the resistance during 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). A report in the Associated Press recounts how, in 1944, Pell rescued a contingent of American soldiers surrounded by the enemy in Tanaron. Pell was wearing the badge of Free France and came out from her hiding place, leading the men to safety.{{cite book|last1=Kundahl|first1=George G.|title=Riviera at War: World War II on the Côte d'Azur|date=2017|publisher=I.B.Tauris|isbn=9781786722003|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SfsoDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA5-IA397|access-date=1 August 2017}}{{cite book|last1=Rossiter|first1=Margaret L.|title=Women in the resistance|date=1986|publisher=Praeger|page=123|isbn=9780030053382|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5QZ-AAAAIAAJ|access-date=1 August 2017}}

On November 28, 1944, the plaza in Puget-Théniers was renamed in her honor.

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

In February 1924, Pell was briefly engaged to R. Lorenzo Thomson; the marriage was supposed to take place on June 3, 1924, but never happened.{{cite journal|title=Engagements|journal=The Brooklyn Daily Eagle|date=6 February 1924|page=7|url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/57304017/|access-date=1 August 2017}}

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.{{cite magazine|last1=Mitchell|first1=John Ames|title=Life, Volume 95, Part 2|magazine=Life|date=1930|volume=95, Part 2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1zDZAAAAMAAJ|access-date=1 August 2017}} 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".{{cite book|title=The Advocate Num. 762|date=23 June 1998|publisher=Here Publishing|page=79|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h2MEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA79|access-date=1 August 2017}}{{cite book|last1=Moore|first1=Honor|title=The White Blackbird: A Life of the Painter Margarett Sargent by Her Granddaughter|date=2009|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company|page=[https://archive.org/details/whiteblackbirdli00moor_0/page/174 174]|isbn=9780393336115 |url=https://archive.org/details/whiteblackbirdli00moor_0|url-access=registration|access-date=1 August 2017}}

In 1933 Isabel Pell and another woman, the wife of Henry T. Fleitmann, a partner of De Witt, Fleitmann & Company, were rescued after a flight between Copenhagen and Faleknberg crash-landed into the Kattegat. They were rescued by a German freighter and taken to Copenhagen, uninjured.{{cite news |title=The Evening News|date=28 August 1933|page=1|url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/61166842/|access-date=1 August 2017}}

Pell was friends with Eva Le Gallienne (1899–1991); the pair spent time together driving in the country.{{cite book|last1=Sheehy|first1=Helen|title=Eva Le Gallienne: a biography|date=1996|publisher=Knopf|page=[https://archive.org/details/evalegalliennebi00shee/page/95 95]|isbn=9780679411178 |url=https://archive.org/details/evalegalliennebi00shee|url-access=registration|access-date=1 August 2017}}

File:Isabel and her dog Heine.jpg

Pell had an affair with Renee Prahar, an American sculptor and actress with Bohemian ancestry. She was forced to leave New York after an affair with a Metropolitan Opera soprano became public. She moved to Paris, joining many other eccentric heiresses who sought freedom. 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.{{cite book|last1=Cohen|first1=Lisa|title=All We Know: Three Lives|date=2012|publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux|page=[https://archive.org/details/allweknowthreeli00cohe/page/75 75]|isbn=9780374176495 |url=https://archive.org/details/allweknowthreeli00cohe|url-access=registration|access-date=1 August 2017}}

In France, Pell started a relationship with Claire Charles-Roux, Marquise De Forbin. The Marquise was born in Avignon but raised in Morocco. The couple moved 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".{{cite book|last1=Adleman|first1=Robert H.|last2=Walton|first2=George H.|title=The champagne campaign|date=1969|publisher=Little, Brown|page=[https://archive.org/details/champagnecampaig00adle/page/199 199]|url=https://archive.org/details/champagnecampaig00adle|url-access=registration|access-date=1 August 2017}} Pell became an attaché of the Civil Affair Task Force of the US Army and liaised between the French and the Americans.{{cite book|last1=Nelson|first1=Michael|title=Americans and the Making of the Riviera|date=2008|publisher=McFarland & Company|page=155|isbn=9780786431601|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3ZAiAQAAIAAJ|access-date=1 August 2017}}

Pell was close friends with Mercedes de Acosta.{{cite book|last1=de Acosta|first1=Mercedes|title=Here lies the heart|date=1975|publisher=Arno Press|isbn=9780405073601 |url=https://archive.org/details/hereliesheart0000acos|url-access=registration|access-date=1 August 2017}} After the war De Acosta visited Pell in France and began a relationship with Pell's companion, Claire de Forbin.{{cite book|last1=Schanke|first1=Robert A|title=That Furious Lesbian: The Story of Mercedes de Acosta|date=2004|publisher=SIU Press|page=151|isbn=9780809325795|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-eUZDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA151|access-date=1 August 2017}}

After the war, Pell moved back to New York City at 30 East End Avenue. She died at the age of 51, collapsing while dining with her friend Anne Andrews at La Reine Restaurant, 139 East 52nd Street.

We Used to Own the Bronx: Memoirs of a Former Debutante is a memoir written by Eve Pell, a reporter in San Francisco.{{cite book|last1=Pell|first1=Eve|title=We Used to Own the Bronx: Memoirs of a Former Debutante|date=2009|publisher=SUNY Press|isbn=9781438425146|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZFmdQQ6B1ZsC|access-date=1 August 2017}}

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Category:1900 births

Category:1951 deaths

Category:American socialites

Category:People from the Upper East Side

Category:French Resistance members

Category:American recipients of the Legion of Honour

Category:Spence School alumni

Category:LGBTQ people from New York (state)

Category:Pell family

Category:American expatriates in France