A Grand Love Affair

King Edward Vlll , was next in line for the throne of England. He was the 20 year old grandson of Queen Victoria when the war began and he immediately signed up. The government tried to keep him from the front lines, but Edward did his best to get as near to the lines as he could. He was posted with the 1st Battalion of the Grenadier Guards. He became very popular with the British people, because he wanted to be like every other boy. In 1936 his father King George V died and Edward sat on the throne for England and Ireland for less than one year. We have to go back in time  to 1930, when the scandal began. Wallis Simpson was an American socialite married to a British businessman, when she and Edward met. Wallis had already been divorced once. The two became an item, which led to Mrs. Simpson's second divorce. By the time Edward was on the throne, he had already decided to marry the woman he had fallen madly in love with. Rumors started that she was a German spy, with no proof, and the result was, Edward chose Wallis over the throne. On December 11, 1936, King Edward abdicated the throne, for the woman he loved. On June of 1937 he married Wallis at a ceremony in France and assumed the title of The Duke of Windsor. The family was forbade to attend. The newlyweds spent the rest of their lives in exile, mostly in France, but some in America. Edward, afterward known as the Duke of Windsor died May 28, 1972 at age 77, and Wallis died on April 24,1986 at the age of 89. They were buried beside each other in the royal burial grounds of Windsor Castle. Twenty four years after Wallis' death, the exquisite 20 piece jewelry collection that Edward gave her, were auctioned off by Sotheby's. The collection has an estimated value of $4.5 million. The end of a wonderful love affair.

Henry B. Plant Museum

Railroad giant Henry Bradley Plant (10/27/1819 to 6/23/1899) was born in in Branford, Conn. His grandmother, offered him an education at Yale College, hoping he would become a clergyman. Henry had different ideas, he got a job as captain's boy and deck hand on a steamboat. He then became involved in railroads and because of his wife's health, they traveled south. After the Civil War, southern railroads were in ruins. Plant, convinced of the south's economic revival, bought Atlantic and Gulf Railroad. He restored lines to help orange growers to get their crops north faster. Tampa became his home port for a new line of steamships to Havanna, and spent $2,500,000 on a Moorish palace named the Tampa Bay Hotel, for Plant's winter guests, which is now the University of Tampa and houses the Henry Plant Museum on six acres. He also developed 150 acres in a pleasure park, with golf course, stables, racetrack and hunting grounds. Most of that is taken up by the school today, except 4.5 acres that is still parkland. It is on the banks of the Hillsborough River and some estimate it would cost $40 million in today's money. Morton Freeman Plant, his son gave many gifts to hospitals. His former 1905 mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York City is now the home of Cartier.