Mona von Bismarck

Mona von Bismarck (née Strader; February 5, 1897 – July 10, 1983), also known as Mona Bismarck, was an American socialite, fashion icon, and philanthropist. Her five husbands included Harrison Williams, among the richest men in America, and Count Albrecht Eduard "Eddie" von Bismarck-Schönhausen, a grandson of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. She was the first American to be named "The Best Dressed Woman in the World" by a panel of top couturiers, including Coco Chanel, and she was also named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame. Early life She was born as Mona Strader in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1897 to Robert Sims Strader and his wife, Bird O'Shockeny. Her parents divorced in 1902, and Mona and her brother were raised in Lexington, Kentucky, by their paternal grandmother. Through their mother, Patricia Strader, Mona was the great-aunt to automobile racers David "Salt" Walther and George "Skipp" Walther III. Marriages In 1917, she married Henry J. Schlesinger, a man 18 years her senior who owned Fairland Farm in Lexington, where her father was a professional trainer, and moved to Milwaukee, where he had an iron and coke business. During the marriage, Mona bore a son, Robert Henry, whom she left in the custody of Schlesinger in exchange for half a million dollars when they divorced in 1920. (Her son would marry Frederica Barker, elder sister of actor Lex Barker.) In 1921, she married banker James Irving Bush, 14 years her senior, said to be the "handsomest man in America". They divorced in Paris in 1925.