Mary Soames died yesterday with her family by her side
Posted on 06/01/2014 3:24:33 PM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
A truly remarkable woman: SIR Winston Churchill's last surviving child, Lady Soames, has died.
Mary Soames, who was 91, died peacefully at home yesterday evening surrounded by her family, after a short illness.
She was the youngest of the five children of the wartime prime minister and his wife Clementine.
One of her sons, Nicholas Soames, who is also Tory MP for Mid Sussex, said: "She was a truly remarkable and extraordinary woman, who led a very distinguished life."
Her death has been described as having "extraordinary timing", as Britain prepares to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the Normandy landings on Friday.
Mary Churchill accompanied her father as aide-de-camp on several of his overseas journeys, including his post-VE trip to Potsdam, where he met with US president Harry S Truman and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
She worked for the Red Cross and the Women's Voluntary Service from 1939 to 1941, and joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service which she served in London, Belgium and Germany in mixed anti-aircraft batteries, rising to the rank of Junior Commander - the equivalent to captain.
She married the Conservative politician Christopher Soames, who became Baron Soames, in 1947 and they had five children - Nicholas, Emma, Jeremy, Charlotte and Rupert.
Lady Soames served many public organisations, including the International Churchill Society, Church Army, Churchill Houses, the Royal National Theatre and the National Benevolent Fund for the Aged.
She was made a dame commander of the Order of the British Empire for her public service, particularly in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, and was appointed a lady companion of the Order of the Garter in 2005.
(Excerpt) Read more at express.co.uk ...
Mary Soames died yesterday with her family by her side
A hell of a pedigree and, from the article, a hell of a legacy.
RIP and say hi to Dad for all of us who are free.
I can only imagine the stories,, of bourbon and drunken bulldogs, cigar smoke wafting in the air,, of holidays in a bunker..
RIP Mary
It is said that the parrot had quite the vocabulary.
He may have died, but half the babies born in the world look just like him at some stage in their infancy.
I really need to go back to England and EUrope, so much history to soak in,,and ya get bonus points back if your hooked up credit card wise. :-)
I can only imagine growing up with bombers over head, BuzzBombs and V2s..
Somehow , humanity of a sort survived.
Rest in Peace, Mary Soames. Your father, Sir Winston Churchill, was and is always to be a Man Walking in Greatness. May it always be even if History is rewritten.
70th anniversary of Normandy is coming up. The British and Americans will commemorate in France. There were supposed to be some WW2 American veterans flying over there at the expense of the French Government, but the organization either changed it’s mind, or did not fully authorize the travel offer in the first place. Pity.
Churchill. The only non socialist WW2 Ally leader.
There was a story going around a few years ago that the parrot was still alive
They do live to be around 75 years old. Churchill died in 1965, so it is possible.
My Father was at Potsdam and took this photo. I did not know that Churchill brought his baby daughter with him.
I saw her on documentary on Manor house on PBS
Talk about her relations with her American side
The bird still alive he still throwing f-bombs he pick up with his famous master
Baby? She was in her 20s.
Few people know that Churchill was a native-born, though not necessarily natural born, American citizen till he turned 21. At that point he had to choose which citizenship he would go with, and he of course chose British.
Had he been born in USA instead of UK, he would have been in exactly the same citizenship situation as our present Leader.
I was the youngest of 5 and everyone always called me. “the baby”. When I was young it used to irritate me.
I’ve read a lot about Churchill lately.
Unfortunately since the Brits were so desperately dependent on US aid, he was in a position of relative weakness and had to cede to Roosevelt on a lot of our policy toward Stalin.
Roosevelt and “Uncle Joe” Stalin were always able to collude against Churchill. Two commies v. one libertarian.
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