[1] She was the daughter of an Austrian colonel and cavalry commandant, W. von Heyszenau, and traced her lineage on her mother's side back to a 12th-century minnesanger, Hoffman van der Aue.
[5] After her marriage to Neville Edward Oswald Story, son of Admiral William Story, in 1930[6][7][8]—likely a marriage of convenience to make emigrating to Britain easier[9] — she returned to Redfern Gallery as a director in 1936, and then took over the Stafford Gallery in St. James's, which she transformed into the British Art Centre, a non-profit dedicated to purchasing contemporary art for museums.
[12] Story spent some summers in the late 1940s and the 1950s in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where she organized some local shows, including one of Grandma Moses, and was close friends with Erica Anderson, director of the Albert Schweitzer Friendship House.
[1] She began serving as consultant to the University of California, Santa Barbara art galleries in 1963 and donated more than 50 prints from the 16th through 18th centuries to their study collection.
[24] Story and Mallory were active hostesses in Santa Barbara society, with events earning multiple mentions in the Los Angeles Times.
[29] The couple were known collectively as "Mala" to their friends, a circle that included novelist Iris Murdoch and actress Judith Anderson.