ONCE ACTIVE IN SOCIETY
KNOWN IN EARLY YEARS FOR HER PHILANTHROPIES
WHOLE FAMILY DIED BEFORE HER
Mrs. Constance Schack Gracie, widow of Colonel Archibald Gracie, a Titanic disaster survivor, died here today at Fairmont Rest, a sanitarium, where she had been a patient since August. Death was due to injuries received in a fall seven months ago.
Mrs. Gracie, who was said to have been about 85 years old, was born in New York. She had lived in Washington since the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt. Her husband was a nephew of King Gracie, who was a brother-in-law of President Roosevelt.
They had four children, all of whom died many years ago, and there are no immediate relatives surviving.
Mrs. Gracie was an accomplished linguist and pianist. She was known for her philanthropies. At one time she was active in society.
Mrs. Gracie was the daughter of Otto Schack, a former Minister from Denmark to the United States.
Mrs. Gracie, whose husband, Colonel Gracie, died of exposure after having been rescued from the Titanic in 1912, came into the news frequently because of her troubles.
The colonel was carried into the water as the ship went down, and on coming to the surface was picked up by one of the lifeboats containing other passengers. He gave long and detailed accounts of the tragedy on reaching New York.
Just before Colonel Gracie died, a few months after the disaster, Mrs. Gracie saw one of her daughters, Constance, crushed to death in an elevator accident in Paris. The couple's other daughter, Edith Temple Gracie, died in December, 1918, of influenza during the epidemic. Her husband, the late Dunbar B. Adams, was serving in the American army in France at the time.
Colonel Gracie had left his estate to be divided between his widow and Mrs. Adams. When Mrs. Gracie's share was lost in the failure of a brokerage house, she was left without funds. Later, after a court fight over the fortune of the daughter, she received a regular weekly remittance.
Mrs. Gracie married Humberto Aguirre de Urbina, in 1924. They eventually separated, the marriage was annulled and Mrs. de Urbina resumed the name of Gracie.
[Note: The story goes that Senor de Urbina was much younger than Constance Gracie and married her while under the impression that she was a wealthy heiress. Mrs. Gracie, destitute at the time, married Senor de Urbina thinking that he was a wealthy man. When both became aware of their miscalculations, they quickly divorced.]
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