Nevada Stoody Hayes
| Nevada Stoody Hayes | |
|---|---|
Nevada in 1920
|
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| Born |
21 October 1885 Sandyville, Ohio |
| Died | 11 January 1941 (aged 55) Tampa, Florida |
| Occupation | Socialite |
| Spouse(s) |
Lee Agnew, Sr (m. 1906; div. 1906) William Henry Chapman (m. 1906; d. 1907) Philip Van Valkenburgh (m. 1909; div. 1914) Afonso, Duke of Porto and Prince Royal of Portugal (m. 1917; d. 1920) |
| Children | David Agnew |
| Parents |
|
Nevada Stoody Hayes (21 October 1885 at Sandyville, Ohio, – 11 January 1941 at Tampa, Florida), sometimes called Nevada de Bragança, was an American socialite who became the wife of Infante Afonso, Duke of Porto, whose nephew, Manuel II, was the last king of Portugal. She was never accepted as a member of the exiled Portuguese royal family, yet by Portuguese law her marriage to Afonso was legal.
Her first husband was the noted inventor, Lee Agnew, whom she divorced in 1906. After being divorced from Ms. Hayes for one year, Agnew became a multi-millionaire. His fortune derived from the assignment of patents and royalties related to his automated newspaper-folding machine, a device used in conjunction with the large presses used to print newspapers. Despite the divorce, Mr. Agnew maintained his warm feelings toward his former wife, and, after he died, on 31 January 1924, his will left her the residual income from his estate, the income not earmarked for the support of their son, Lee "David" Agnew, Jr. It amounted to a substantial annuity for Ms. Hayes.
During the year just prior to his invention's taking flight, she had been busy. In fact, the day after her divorce from Lee Agnew, Sr., in 1906, she married William Henry Chapman, who was then in his early seventies. When he left her more than $8 million at his death, merely one year later, the newspapers dubbed her "the $10 million widow": Nevada Stoody Hayes, from her wealth amassing comes the Edwardian gossips' pithy-maxim, "marry well at the altar, but become truly rich at the grave, like Nevada."
As can be expected for a very attractive not too old widow (she claimed a birth-date of born 21 October 1885; however, several sources say as early as 1870 which seems more likely considering her parents' ages, and those of her siblings: she was known to take exceeding private and stringent health and beauty protocols, with visits to Europe's best natural water spas) of substantial means, Nevada, herself, became too an obsessive marriage target for many a "penniless and ambitious", which, of course, included an array of less wealthy men, of all social rank worldwide, such was her fame.
She bore one child, a son, David Agnew, sired by her first husband, the inventor.
Excerpted from Mrs. Astor’s 400:
“… She immediately went to Europe where it was reported that those vying for her hand included Lord Falconer (later the 10th Earl of Kintore who married American heiress Helen Zimmerman, formerly Duchess of Manchester), Count A. F. Chereff-Spiritovitch (a younger officer in the army of the Tsar), Prince Mohammed Ali Hassan of Egypt, and Count Aubert de Sonies who came from Paris to New York on the same ship with the widow. While the Count was in the lobby of the St. Regis Hotel waiting to present flowers and a proposal of marriage, she departed by a rear exit with Philip Van Valkenburgh, a prominent member of an old New York family (but, obviously in need of some of her money, she would soon come to find out). They were married in Connecticut on 23 November 1909 and were divorced after a short-time amid protracted legal battles; she finally settled $200,000 upon him in 1910 …”
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