Anita Lihme

Lihme was born on November 4, 1903, in Chicago to Olga (née Hegeler) Lihme and C. Bai Lihme.[2][3] Among her siblings were brothers Harold Hegeler Lihme and Edward Hegeler Lihme,[3] and sister Olga Lihme, who married Clement A. Griscom, a grandson of Clement Griscom.[4]

Her mother was a founder of the Watch Hill Yacht Club,[2] was the daughter of German-born American zinc manufacturer Edward C. Hegeler.[5] Her father, who was born in Denmark and came to America in 1899, was a chemist, industrialist, and art collector.[6][7]

Lihme was educated at Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut, and attended Vassar College.[8]

She had a successful career as an amateur golfer,[9][10] and before her first marriage, was "woman champion of the Misquamicut Golf Club at Watch Hill." Lihme, who was known professionally as Mrs. Lobkowicz, began working as a real estate broker in 1951 and served as the vice president of Douglas Gibbons-Hollyday & Ives,[6] until her retirement in 1972.[1]

Anita's son on his wedding day in 1960.

On 29 August 1925,[11] Lihme married Prince Edward Joseph de Lobkowicz (1899–1959) in a Catholic ceremony at Watch Hill Union Chapel in Watch Hill, Rhode Island.[12][13][14] A reception was held at her family's summer home, Normal Hall.[15] He was a son of the former Countess Palermy of Bohemia and Prince August de Lobkowicz, Privy Counselor and Lord Chamberlain to the Emperor Franz Josef.[11] After their marriage they lived at 280 Park Avenue, and later, 164 East 72nd Street, in New York City. Before Prince Edward's death in Freiburg, Germany in January 1959, they were the parents of three children, two boys and a girl:[16]

• Prince Edouard de Lobkowicz (1926–2010), who married Princess Marie-Françoise of Bourbon-Parma, the eldest daughter of Prince Xavier of Bourbon-Parma and of his wife, Madeleine de Bourbon-Busset.[17][18] Their son was found dead in Paris in 1984.[19]
• Prince George Christian de Lobkowica (1928–1950),[20] who died unmarried at age twenty-one.[21]
• Princess Anita Olga de Lobkowicz (b. 1937), who married Count Charles-Louis de Cossé-Brissac, a son of the Marquis de Cossé, in the fall of 1958.[22][23]

After the death of her first husband, Anita married Erwin Hoy Watts, at St. Vincent Ferrer's Church in Manhattan in May 1960.[24][25] Watts, a son of Ridley Watts and descendant of Henry Grinnell who had served with the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, won the Croix de Guerre for heroism as a volunteer ambulance driver with the American Field Service in France. After the war he joined the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration that aided displaced persons in Greece.[26] Watts, who had previously been married to Alice Wheelock and Elizabeth S. Peet,[25] died in 1964.[26]

On 15 January 1972, Lihme married a third time to American business executive John Carroll Griswold in an ecumenical ceremony at Brick Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. The ceremony, a joint Catholic and Presbyterian wedding, was performed by Monsignor James G. Wilders of St. Thomas More Catholic Church and the Rev. Dr. Victor L. Baer of Brick Presbyterian.[6] Griswold, a son of Harry Ross Griswold, was the founder and president of Griswold & Co., an insurance brokerage company that was acquired by Marsh & McLennan. At the time of their wedding, he was a senior vice president and director of Eastman Dillon, Union Securities & Co., Inc. investment bankers and brokers.[6] From his first marriage to Marguerite Bessire, he was the father of David Ross Griswold and a daughter who married John Vincent Earl.[6]

She died on May 14, 1976 at her home, 50 East 77th Street in New York City. After a funeral at St. Thomas More's Roman Catholic Church, she was buried in Fairlawn Cemetery in Macon County, Illinois.[1]

• Anita Lihme at Find a Grave