THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO SAY IT : LADY IDINA SACKVILLE'S LAST YEARS WERE TRAGIC

She had been Mrs. Euan Wallace... and Mrs. Josslyn Hay (He'd since become the 22nd Earl of Erroll) ... She had married and married and married.

Idina Sackville had given birth to three children, two sons, and a daughter. True, people of her class were used to sending their children away to boarding school and having relationships with the children then was dependent on letter writing, if that. Idina had been kept from being involved in the raising of her sons though. She'd made an effort to get to know them as they neared adulthood that went not so well. World events affected her personal life as it did so many others.

World War I had affected her life when her first husband Euan Wallace, had joined up and came back uninterested in her or their marriage. He and his next wife, Barbie, had raised those sons as well as three sons of their own.  

Now World War II would further destroy lives.

In a series of tragic events, Euan Wallace and Barbie's three sons would also not live long enough to produce offspring.  

Lady Idna Sackville's daughter by Josslyn Hay would live to adulthood, did marry, have children, and continued on her matriarchal line.  When she married, the Queen and the Princesses Elizabeth (the future Queen Elizabeth II) and her sister attended the wedding. And so, despite all of Idina's scandal, her daughter did not suffer for her mother's reputation. Perhaps that is because relatives had raised the girl.

Idina's sons were killed during service in World War II. As had been the case in World War I, young men of the peerage did not normally avoid military service for their country. This left Euan, who had been so possessive of them without any male heirs.

Then her first two husbands, the fathers of her children died. Josslyn Hay was murdered and her once best friend, Alice De Janze was a suspect.

These deaths put Idina Sackville into a notable depression in which she did not eat or sleep properly and also developed a nerve disease called neuritis, which was said to be made worse because she lived at her house, Clouds, at high altitudes up the mountain. These high altitudes were also said to enhance the effects of alcohol. Idina Sackville was forced to go down the mountain to live in lesser circumstances.

Of great hope to Idina was that her daughter would come to visit her in Africa.  It was not to be. She died before that could happen!

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Excerpts are from The Bolter, a book by Frances Osborne, the main reference for this month's po

My readers, we are not yet done with the Happy Valley Set. Next month we will turn our attention to another book and another woman of that set and learn again how Idina Sackville's life and hers entwined.