Her paternal great-grandfather was a wine exporter from Bordeaux who settled in Australia in 1848 after marrying a mulatto woman from New Orleans.
After the German invasion, the family made their way along with other refugees to Saint-Jean-de-Luz where they were evacuated by HMS Ettrick and brought to England.
In 1945 she was posted at the British Embassy in Vienna, where she was under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Beauclerk, the future 13th Duke of St Albans, whom she married, becoming his second wife, on 19 March 1947.
[2] She married Charles Beauclerk on 19 March 1947 after he obtained a divorce from his first wife, Nathalie Chatham Walker.
She served as Vice President of the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association and was a fundraiser for the Red Cross.