The Wayfaring Socialite: Lady Sarah Spencer-Churchill

Lady Sarah Consuelo Spencer Churchill was born on December 17, 1921, in Portland Square, London, the first child of the Marquess of Blandford and Mary Cadogan, one of four daughters of Viscount Chelsea who were dubbed "the Cadogan Square" at the time. Her maternal grandmother, the former Consuelo Vanderbilt, was famous for having been forced by her mother Alva Vanderbilt to marry Sarah's grandfather, the Duke of Marlborough at the end of the 19th century. Ironically, many years later, as a young woman, visiting Cliveden, Sarah was told by Nancy Astor, in what were clearly meant to be unflattering terms, that she was "just like Grannie Smith." Grannie Smith being Astor's reference to Sarah's great-grandmother, Alva (whose maiden name was Smith).

Her grandfather died when she was thirteen, her father became the Duke, and the family relocated to Blenheim. Sarah was a most odd individual, socially secluded except for the company of her siblings — two younger sisters and a brother, and poorly educated as upper-class British girls were at the time. She enjoyed reading (which later on became a habit), and her favorite hours were spent in the servant's dining hall, where she could appear to be reading while listening to the staff gossip.

Lady Spencer Churchill at the family home, photographed in 1937

Grannie (Consuelo), who married a Frenchman called Jacques Balsan after divorcing the duke in 1920, was the most significant person in her life. Sarah and her siblings were taken to Long Island and Palm Beach to see "Grannie" from an early age. 

She made her début at Blenheim in 1939, in what has been dubbed "the final great party" in England before the war. Her mother loudly disapproved of her "dancing with that black man," who happened to be the Maharajah of Jaipur, something that Sarah remembered with astonishment and delight years later.

She married an American, Edwin Russell, at the start of World War II, and their first daughter, Serena (they had four), was born the following year. Mother and daughter arrived in America shortly after to stay with Grannie. That was the start of Sarah's life in the United States.

The Russells settled in Philadelphia on the Mainline after the war. Their lives were centered on Philadelphia and Grannie's world of Manhattan, Long Island's North Shore, Southampton, and Palm Beach. Sarah's friendship with her grandmother was strengthened by their proximity. Sarah became Grannie's go-to family member as she grew older, a role that suited Sarah's maternal personality perfectly.

Lady Sarah Churchill, about a year before her death

Sarah's life changed radically in the early 1960s, when she was in her forties. Her grandmother died, leaving her a tiny inheritance as well as a large sum of money in furniture, paintings, porcelains, and jewelry. Sarah divorced her husband and began seeing Guy Burgos, an extremely attractive young Chilean man roughly twenty years her junior. Her grandmother, who had long suggested the divorce from Russell, probably would have approved of Sarah's romantic adventure with Burgos. Her family, however, did not. Sarah, however, didn't care and never would care what anyone thought about it. The marriage lasted less than a year, but the couple remained very close friends for the rest of her life.

Sarah met another exceptionally gorgeous man, a Greek called Theo Roubanis, approximately twenty years her junior, while on a sailing voyage in the Mediterranean off Greece as a guest of Henry McIlhenny, a Philadelphia socialite and art collector. Gloria Etting, a Philadelphia acquaintance who was on the McIlhenny yacht at the time, remembered how the two became involved almost immediately.

Sarah and Roubanis married not long after that. Lady Sarah had attracted a lot of attention as a "madcap heiress" in the American and British newspapers by this time, which she enjoyed. She, on the other hand, never took the attention seriously. Sarah was a woman who went with her gut instincts.

The marriage of the Roubanis lasted thirteen years. Sarah built a big property on the Peloponnese while also maintaining residences in Manhattan, Montego Bay, and Beverly Hills. She was never affluent, despite her inheritance (the majority of Grannie's income went to the Blenheim trusts). Despite this, she lived comfortably (someone once remarked she could "stretch a buck around a New York City block"), raised and educated her four kids, and supported husbands, staff, and other acquaintances at various periods.

She never got tired of traveling and did it on a regular basis. She never stayed in one place for more than three weeks if she didn't have a reason (and a plane ticket) to leave. Her constant peripatetic attention was required by houses, friendships, family, and basic curiosity.

Sarah passed away on October 13, 2000 surrounded by her life-long friends, her 4 daughters, Consuelo Sarah Russell, Serena Mary Churchill Russell, Jacqueline Russell, and Alexandra Brenda Russell, as well as other family members.

Lady Sarah in her home in Montego Bay, Jamaica, New Year's 1980