Linda Lee Thomas

Background

Linda Lee Thomas was born on November 17, 1883. She was born Linda Belle Lee into the illustrious Virginian Lee family. William Paca Lee, a banker in Louisville, was her father, and Lily Lee (née Hill), was her mother.

Edward Russell Thomas, the proprietor of the “New York Morning Telegraph” and the son of Union Army officer Samuel Thomas, was introduced to her by friends. On June 29, 1901, they tied the knot in Newport, Rhode Island when she was 17. They had a luxurious lifestyle, owning homes in Manhattan, Palm Beach, and Newport. On October 26, 1912, they got a divorce, allegedly as a result of his maltreatment. Thomas and Cole Porter, who became her second husband first came into contact at the marriage of Henry Potter Russell to heiress Ethel Borden Harriman, the daughter of railroad and investment banking billionaire J. Borden Harriman and his wife, Florence “Daisy” Hurst, on January 30, 1918, at the Hôtel Ritz Paris. On December 18, 1919, Lee Thomas and Porter were wed in the 8ème arrondissement of Paris’ city hall. The Porters lived at 13 rue Monsieur, a home next door to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin with a garden next to Nancy Mitford’s future home, from 1930 to 1939. Despite not having any children of their own during their 34 years of marriage, Linda became pregnant and miscarried.

In the couple’s apartment in the Waldorf Towers, Thomas passed away from emphysema at the age of 70 in 1954. Cole Porter received a lifetime interest in her approximately $1.5 million inheritance, worth over $15.1 million now which she left behind. She was laid to rest in the Porter family plot in Peru, Indiana’s Mount Hope Cemetery.