Duchess of Windsor at 80

Press, 18 June 1976, Page 5

Duchess of Windsor at 80

Bv ALTNE MOSBY, of U.P.I through N.Z.P.A. PARIS The Duchess of Windsoi turns 80 tomorrow, ailing and usually confined to bee these days. The American - borr Duchess, for whom King Edward VIII gave up the British throne, is still weak from two months of treatment beginning in late November foi perforated ulcers, members of her household said. The former Wallis Warfield. of Baltimore, remains most of the time in her luxurious bedroom overlooking the wooded estate where she and the self-demoted Duke lived until his death on Mav 28. 1972. Occasionally on sunnv days she ventures into the garden, on the arm of a servant because she is too weak to walk alone household sources said. Birthday gifts from friends — perfume, pictures, “gay little things” to bring her cheer — have been arriving at the . 25-room mansion at

I. the edge of the Boulogne Woods in Paris. She has opened other let,r ters and presents for other g anniversaries because June is 3 a month of memories for the King 39 years ago. June 5, his funeral at Windsor , Castle. June 23, his birthday. J The Duchess cannot read " for very long so her sec- ' retaries each day read the '' mail to her • s Now and then into the bedroom waddle survivors of the ...crowd of pug dogs photosi graphed with the Windsors !_ during their 36 years of marg riage: two veterans. Black e Diamond and Gin-seng, and e two young additions, Chou y and Pom-pom. “Her health is stable,” said s one member of the household i, staff (reportedly numbering > 17). “She is eating very well, k She loves caramel pudding. 1. She has to get back her s strength. She never comy plains.” r: One friend who saw her in g the hospital during her re-! it turn two-week visit early this!

year said her memory wandered then and she talked at times as if the Duke were still alive. The Duchess has kept the heavily - guarded mansion exactly as it was during her life with him. Still gracing the hall ceiling is the silken banner that hung above his pew in St George’s Chapel at Windsor iCastle. Still on the hall table is his red dispatch box goldstamped “The King” and opened by a golden key. The mugs made for his coronation and the heavy silver boxes given to him when he toured the world as Prince of Wales still rest in display cases. She has kept his suite of rooms exactly as he left them before his death of cancer at 77. His shirts are still stacked in the bedroom drawers. Dozens of suits hang in the closets. His toilet articles are laid out in the bathroom. On his desk lie his pipe cleaners and pens. Family photographs I —including 23 of the Duchess — stand on his bookcase and

the mantel over his fireplace. The Duchess was always interested in flowers, fashions and social life, and she still leafs through the fashion magazines. Occasionally one of the Paris couturiers who have created her wardrobe sends a note. These days she wears dressing gowns.

She has not gone out on her usual round of parties since before her stomach illness. She receives virtually no guests now, only an occasional close friend. A hairdresser comes weekly to fix her dark hair in its familiar off-the-face upswept style.

The widow of Windsor has no family to comfort her during these ailing days. She had no children in three marriages. Her relatives are gone. Even the house is not her own, but on loan from the French Government. OLD SONGS She likes to listen to records of songs from the days when she was the centre of the most celebrated love story of the twentieth century: American (theatrical tunes by Cole Por- ! ter or Rodgers and Hammerstein, Austrian folk songs from her days in Vienna, “anything gay and cheerful,” household members said. The Royal Family has received the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson only once, at the time of the Duke’s funeral, when she stayed briefly at Buckingham Palace.

They consented in 1970 that the Duchess could join them at Windsor in death.