The Fearless American Heiress Who Resisted the Nazis
The fascinating story of Muriel ‘Mary’ Gardiner.
Illinois. Massachusetts. Oxford. Rome. Berlin. Vienna. She had travelled miles, but this was where her journey began, where the fearless American heiress would make her mark in the world.
There was a chill in the Vienna weather reminiscent of the fall in Wellesley that she had gotten used to before her days at Oxford. She had travelled far from where her journey begun, yet the eagerness evident in her demeanour betrayed no sign of tiredness, and she was ready, albeit unknowingly, to write the story that will be uncovered years later.
Her Life Before Stepping on the Cobbled Streets of Vienna
The youngest of four siblings, Helen Muriel Morris was born in 1901 to a wealthy household in Chicago and spent her early years in great comfort. Despite this, Gardiner was not fond of the sheer opulence around her, feeling restricted in the world she was supposed to call her home.
Even at school, she was entranced by people who spent their years traveling the world and acquiring knowledge-Helen Boyce, the history teacher at her all-girls school, for instance.
