Jessica Mitford
|
The Honourable Jessica Mitford |
|
|---|---|
| Born |
Jessica Lucy Freeman-Mitford 11 September 1917 Gloucestershire, England |
| Died | 22 July 1996 (aged 78) Oakland, California, U.S. |
| Nationality | British |
| Citizenship | British American (naturalised) |
| Occupation | Investigative journalist |
| Known for | Mitford sister, Communist, Hons and Rebels, The American Way of Death |
| Spouse(s) |
Esmond Romilly (m. 1937; went MIA 1941) Robert Treuhaft (m. 1943; her death 1996) |
| Parent(s) |
David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale Sydney Bowles |
| Relatives |
Nancy Mitford (sister) Pamela Mitford (sister) Diana Mitford (sister) Unity Mitford (sister) Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (sister) Thomas Mitford (brother) |
Jessica Lucy 'Decca' Freeman-Mitford (11 September 1917 – 22 July 1996) was an English author, journalist, civil rights activist and political campaigner, and was one of the Mitford sisters.
Born at Asthall Manor, Mitford, the sixth of seven children, was the daughter of David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, and his wife Sydney (daughter of politician and publisher Thomas Bowles), and grew up in a series of her father's country houses. She had little formal education, but nevertheless was widely read. Though her sisters Unity and Diana were well-known British supporters of Hitler and her father was described as being "one of nature's fascists", Jessica (always known as Decca) renounced her privileged background at an early age and became an adherent of communism. She was known as the "red sheep" of the family.
At the age of 19, Mitford met her second cousin, Esmond Romilly, who was recuperating from dysentery caught during a stint with the International Brigades defending Madrid during the Spanish Civil War. Romilly was a nephew (by marriage) of Winston Churchill. The cousins immediately fell in love and decided to elope to Spain, where Romilly picked up work as a reporter for the News Chronicle. After some legal difficulties caused by their relatives' opposition, they married. They moved to London and lived in the East End, then mostly a poor industrial area. Mitford gave birth at home to a daughter, Julia Decca Romilly, on 20 December 1937. The baby died in a measles epidemic the following May. Jessica Mitford rarely spoke of Julia in later life and she is not referred to by name in Mitford's 1960 autobiography, Hons and Rebels.
...
Wikipedia