The Life of the American Heiress and
The Earl
by Kimberly Keagan, October 10, 2023
                                                               The Countess of Ancaster
On Christmas Eve in 1910, five years after Eloise Breese of New York and Gilbert Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby (Lord Willoughby de Eresby) married, the Earl of Ancaster passed away. As the oldest son of the late earl, Gilbert became the 2nd Earl of Ancaster. And a charming American woman became a Countess.

Lord Ancaster succeeded to three magnificent country seats: Grimsthorpe Castle, in Lincolnshire, Normanton Park near Stamford, and Drummond Castle, in Perthshire, Scotland.

Grimsthorpe Castle
Normanton Park
Drummond Castle
Eloise and Gilbert were the parents of two sons and two daughters. Their eldest son married Nancy Astor, daughter of Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor in 1936.

Besides the title of Earl of Ancaster and Baron Willoughby de Eresby (created in 1313), Gilbert also held the title Baron Aveland (created in 1856) He served as a Conservative member of Parliament from 1894 to 1910 and parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Agriculte from 1921 to 1923. In World War I he commanded the Lincolnshire Yeomanry. He passed away on September 19, 1951 at the age of 84.

Eloise died two years later. Announcing her death, a Reuters article had the following interesting, and somewhat humorous, account of the Countess's life:
The American-born Countess of Ancaster, who once defended the whiteness of her family's ghost against a psychical society's contentions that ghosts are liverish brown, died Saturday at suburban Richmond, it was announced today.

In 1928 the American Society for Psychical Reserach announced: "Ghosts nowadays are not white, but a reddish brown—rather like liver."

The countess replied that the spirit of a 14th Century nun who haunted the picture gallery of the family's Grimsthorpe Castle certainly was white—as white as snow.

The Countess of Ancaster was the former Eloise Breese, daughter of William L. Breese of New York. She went to England when her mother, who was born Marie Parsons in Columbus, O., married Henry B. Higgins of London's Covent Garden Opera after the death of Mr. Breese.

At one time, the Countess of Ancaster was reputed to be one of the best-dressed women in British society, as well as being a noted shot and an expert salmon angler.
Sources: https://www.podles.org/dialogue/eloise-breese-countess-of-ancaster-4082.htm; Newspapers.com.