Feature Essay: A Flapper on the Riviera

Almost 100 years ago, a South Carolina heiress partied with the Lost Generation

Gertie’s portrait was painted by the society portraitist Sir William Orpen, whose other subjects included Woodrow Wilson and Winston Churchill. Source: GSL Papers, Special Collections, College of Charleston Libraries.

In 1928, a free-spirited South Carolina-born heiress named Gertrude Ellen du Puy Sanford – Gertie for short – and her sister Janie arrive…