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Lillian Nordica: Farmington Diva

Norton Family Reunion, Farmington

Norton Family Reunion, Farmington

Item 17285 info
Nordica Memorial Association

No less exciting than her operatic career is the story of Nordica's private life.

In 1883, she married her cousin, Frederick A. Gower, an ambitious entrepreneur who made a fortune in telephone companies in Europe. Lillian had sued him for support at the time of his mysterious disappearance in a hot air balloon accident in 1885.

Her second husband was Hungarian baritone Zoltan Dome, whom she married in 1896 and divorced in 1903 because of his infidelity.

In 1908, Nordica married wealthy businessman George Washington Young, who had wooed her with an emerald necklace. They were still married at the time of her death, but the marriage was not a happy one and she was rarely at home with him.

Nordica's tragic and untimely death on the eve of World War I came as the result of a shipwreck in the South Seas.