[3][4] Creel was born on February 7, 1910, in New York City, to Robert Alexander Gardiner (1863-1919) and Nora Loftus, a native of County Kilkenny in Ireland.
[5] In 1921, her mother went to court to challenge the terms of the trust, claiming she was not able to maintain her children with the funds the managers released.
[5] They reported her mother confronted the minister who performed the marriage, and she was so upset she had to be calmed by the Chief of Police.
Alexandra and Robert became the beneficiaries of the trust upon their aunt's death in January 1953.
Alexandra's death left a long-running dispute between her brother and her daughter Alexandra Creel Goelet over the future of the island, which the Gardiner family first acquired in a manorial grant from the King of England in 1639.