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A Curious Life: The Biography of Princess Peggy Abkhazi (Sono Nis $22.95)
A Curious Life: The Biography of Princess Peggy Abkhazi describes how upheavals during Peggy Abkhazi's early life in Shanghai led her to create an oasis of peace and beauty in the city of Victoria. She was born to English parents in Shanghai in 1902, orphaned soon after her birth, placed with a mean and impoverished foster-mother, and finally adopted by a rich, childless couple. Peggy's early life reads like a collage of many magical stories-The Secret Garden, Harry Potter, Cinderella and Snow White. When her adoptive mother was widowed, the idyll of Peggy's childhood ended, for her mother became so possessive that she cramped her daughter's life. The two traveled the world restlessly, unfortunately choosing to return to Shanghai as the events leading up to Pearl Harbour unfolded. By the end of World War II, Peggy had lost her mother and spent two years in a prison camp. (Her memoir called A Curious Cage: Life in a Japanese Internment Camp 1943-1945 was published in 1981; and was republished in 2002 by Sono Nis Press.) When she was liberated from the camp Peggy was 43, and an independent woman in possession of a fortune.
Uncertain of where to settle, she paid an extended visit to a friend who lived in Victoria. While there, she frequented a vacant lot at 1964 Fairfield Road, pausing on her walks to perch on the rocks and admire the panoramic view. Before long, she had acquired the land, and engaged the Victoria architect John Wade to design a summerhouse for it. He later designed the house on the property. Around the same time, Peggy went to New York to meet an old family friend she had met years earlier in Paris. A fictional counterpart would be a novel by Henry James in which an heiress from the New World marries a titled, but penniless aristocrat from the Old World: Prince Nicholas Abkhazi was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, and like many Russian émigrés made his home in Paris. He too had suffered internment and hardship during the war, and was experiencing a sense of displacement afterwards. The two old friends returned together to Victoria, where they were married in 1946. For the remainder of their lives, they devoted themselves to perfecting the garden, which became their enduring legacy.
In late 1999, when both the Abkhazis had died, neighbours were horrified to learn that a developer planned to bulldoze the garden. However, the Land Conservancy of B.C. came to the rescue and, with volunteers, raised the money to fund the purchase. The work of restoring the garden began in 2000 and will continue for many years. The garden is open on five afternoons a week, March-September. 1-55039-124
--By Joan Givner(2003)
[Spring 2003 BCBW]
Uncertain of where to settle, she paid an extended visit to a friend who lived in Victoria. While there, she frequented a vacant lot at 1964 Fairfield Road, pausing on her walks to perch on the rocks and admire the panoramic view. Before long, she had acquired the land, and engaged the Victoria architect John Wade to design a summerhouse for it. He later designed the house on the property. Around the same time, Peggy went to New York to meet an old family friend she had met years earlier in Paris. A fictional counterpart would be a novel by Henry James in which an heiress from the New World marries a titled, but penniless aristocrat from the Old World: Prince Nicholas Abkhazi was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, and like many Russian émigrés made his home in Paris. He too had suffered internment and hardship during the war, and was experiencing a sense of displacement afterwards. The two old friends returned together to Victoria, where they were married in 1946. For the remainder of their lives, they devoted themselves to perfecting the garden, which became their enduring legacy.
In late 1999, when both the Abkhazis had died, neighbours were horrified to learn that a developer planned to bulldoze the garden. However, the Land Conservancy of B.C. came to the rescue and, with volunteers, raised the money to fund the purchase. The work of restoring the garden began in 2000 and will continue for many years. The garden is open on five afternoons a week, March-September. 1-55039-124
--By Joan Givner(2003)
[Spring 2003 BCBW]
Submitted on June 2, 2003 in By David.
