Nora (McMullen) Mellon (1878-1973)

She was the youngest of nine children and her parents' only daughter. In 1898, her father took the family on a world tour across the Mediterranean and to India, China and Japan. On an ocean liner travelling back to Europe from the States they met Andrew Mellon who was visiting Europe with a friend to look at art galleries and museums. Her father invited Mellon to their home, Hertford Castle (see images), and Nora eventually accepted Mellon's fifth proposal (she was half his age). They were married in 1899 and had two children but otherwise the marriage was a disaster and they divorced in 1912. In 1923, on hearing the news that Nora was to marry Harvey Arthur Lee, a New York art dealer forty years Mellon's junior, he begged her to take him back but she refused. However, her marriage to Lee was no more successful and after divorcing him just five years later - with a pay-off of $25,000 - she resumed use of the name "Mellon".