Embers of Childhood Audiobook By Flora Miller Biddle cover art

Embers of Childhood

Growing Up a Whitney

Preview
Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Embers of Childhood

By: Flora Miller Biddle
Narrated by: Rosemary Benson
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $21.49

Buy for $21.49

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

A look into the privileged world of the American aristocracy of the early 20th century.

Flora Miller Biddle was born a blue-blood. The granddaughter of the Whitney museum founder, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, her childhood played out in a sort of Wharton landscape as she was shielded from the woes of the world.

But money itself is not the source of happiness. Glimpses into the elegance of a Vanderbilt ball thrown by her great-grandparents and the yearly production of traveling from her childhood home on Long Island to their summer home in Aiken, South Carolina, are measured against memoires of strict governesses with stricter rules in a childhood separate from her parents, despite being in the same house, and the ever-present pressure to measure up in her studies and lessons. As Flora steps back in time to trace the origins of her family's fortune and where it stands today, she takes a discerning look at how wealth and excess shaped her life, for better and for worse.

In this wonderfully evocative memoir, Flora Miller Biddle examines, critiques, and pays homage to the people and places of her childhood that shaped her life.

©2011 Flora Miller Biddle (P)2021 Tantor
Entertainment & Celebrities Women
adbl_web_global_use_to_activate_T1_webcro805_stickypopup
All stars
Most relevant  
This book was an interesting and well written account of the author's growing up years. Flora (whose grandmother was a Vanderbilt) grew up in the 1930's and 1940's and writes candidly of the loneliness experienced by a child raised largely by staff and of the high expectations that were put upon children in America's upper class.

A Glimpse into a Privileged Upbringing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I love the Gilded Age years because it defines how New York City came to be. This story provided an area of history that lies in the shadow of its margins, yet is a significant part of its very roots.

Very interesting historical content

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.