Nancy Leishman


Nancy Louise Leishman was an American heiress who married into the European aristocracy.

Early life

Nancy Louise Leishman was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on October 2, 1894. She was the youngest of three children born to John George Alexander Leishman by Julia Leishman. Her father, the son of Scots-Irish immigrants who eventually became the president of Carnegie Steel, served as the U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland, Turkey, Italy, and Germany during the administrations of U.S. Presidents William McKinley, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson. Her sister, Marthe Leishman, a favorite of King George V and a close friend of Cole Porter and Francis Poulenc, married twice, first to Count Louis de Gontaut-Biron and, after his death, to American heir James Hazen Hyde. Her brother, John Leishman Jr., married, and divorced, New York socialite Elizabeth Helene Demarest.
Her paternal grandparents were John Leishman and Amelia Leishman and her maternal grandparents were Edward Crawford and Nancy Harriet Crawford.

Personal life

While her father was serving as the American Ambassador to Germany, Nancy met and fell in love with Karl, 13th Prince von Croÿ. As Nancy was a commoner and Karl a prince who ranked among the highest nobility of titled Europeans, the opposition to their marriage was enormous. Karl's aunt, Princess Isabella of Croÿ, was chief among the European nobility who vehemently protested the match, which led to Kaiser Wilhelm II to refuse to give his official permission for their marriage. In July 1912, Prince Karl's sister, Princess Isabella Antonie of Croÿ had married Prince Franz of Bavaria. Nevertheless, Nancy and Karl married on 27 October 1913 at Versoix, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. As a result of the impasse between the Kaiser and her father over her marriage to Croÿ, Leishman left his post in Berlin in 1913 and retired to private life. Before their divorce in 1922, they were the parents of:
She married, secondly, Markus Andreas d'Oldenberg, the Danish Ambassador to France and son of Valdemar von Oldenburg. Regardless of the opposition to the marriage, her son Carl was eventually deemed eligible to inherit the properties of the family upon Karl's death in 1974 when he became the 14th Prince von Croÿ.
She died on 22 February 1983 at age 88 at Copenhagen, Denmark.

Descendants

Through her eldest son, Carl, 14th Prince von Croÿ, she was a grandmother of Rudolf, 15th Prince von Croÿ, who married Alexandra, a member of Miloradović noble family.