Free Republic

Nobility in Our Time By Taki An Austrian nobleman and an American aristocrat died on the same day recently, and I feel this is not the end of a chapter but the end of a book. My father-in-law, his Serene Highness Prince Peter Schoenburg-Hartenstein was 88. He was a naturalized American citizen, having left Austria in 1937, just before the Anschluss. He was born in the Rome embassy of the Austro-Hungarian empire, where his father was ambassador to the Holy See. His mother, Princess Sophia Oettingen-Wallerstein, traced her noble lineage to before Charlemagne, as did the Schoenburgs. In the Congress...

NEW YORK — C.Z. Guest, a gardening columnist and fixture of New York society, died Saturday at her home in Old Westbury, N.Y. She was 83. An enthusiastic horsewoman, Guest began writing about gardening after being hurt in a riding accident in 1976. While recovering, she began giving friends advice about gardening over the phone and started writing columns for the New York Post in 1978. She also wrote several books, including "First Garden" (1987), with an introduction by her friend, author Truman Capote. As a writer, Guest was known for her plainspoken style and wide-ranging gardening expertise; she wrote...