Paw Prints Anecdotes

Short, humorous stories about people
in politics, history, and the arts.


Isabella Stewart Gardner
(1840–1924)

Isabella Stewart Gardner Anecdote...

Isabella Stewart of New York never thought much about ancestry until she married into the Gardner family of Boston. In Boston, she endured a good deal of fairly dull conversation on the subject, so, eventually, she had her Stewart descent traced directly back —all the way to King Fergus I of Scotland, a contemporary of Alexander the Great! ... After having the Stewart lineage engrossed and illuminated in colors on a long scroll, Isabella Stewart Gardner was in a position to make one of her famous, much-quoted remarks. She had listened to a monologue by a Boston dowager concerning that lady's American Revolutionary ancestry. "Ah yes," said Isabella. "They were much less careful about immigration in those days, I believe."


Biographical Note...

U.S. social leader and art collector.


More Information...

More InformationLEARN more about Isabella Stewart Gardner.


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