Indore was a quiet little city in the Raj days. But on March 28, 1939, its young king gave it a surprise. His highness, the Maharajadhiraj Raj Rajeshwar Sawai Shree Yeshwant Rao Holkar Bahadur, told an assembly of his nobles, officials and subjects that he had remarried.
Yeshwant’s wife Sanyogita had fallen ill in Honolulu and died in Switzerland two years earlier, leaving behind their only child, princess Usha. So, Yeshwant’s marriage should have been joyful news, but there was more than one hitch in it.
For one, he had married an American woman. An ordinary American woman who had been his nurse at a Los Angeles hospital a year earlier.
Now, Yeshwant wasn’t the first Indore royal to marry a foreigner. Ten years earlier his father Tukoji had done the same. But Tukoji had already given up the crown to Yeshwant before tying the knot with his American bride, Nancy Ann Miller. And Nancy had at least made a show of converting to Hinduism. Her marriage to Tukoji had been solemnised the Hindu way in the presence of his subjects.
But Yeshwant had married away from home. He said he had married in Europe, but the truth was his marriage to Marguerite Lawler Branyen had taken place at Taxco city in Mexico six months earlier – in September 1938.
Why wasn’t he being truthful? What did he have to hide?
The truth was that Marguerite had been married before. Her double surname was a giveaway, but the Indore state’s publicity office insisted Branyen was her maiden name. She had been Ms Branyen before her marriage to Yeshwant, it said. And that was a lie. Her name was Marguerite Lawler. She had been a stewardess on the Union Pacific Railroad before she did a nursing course and married John Paul Branyen, a jeweller.
Marguerite was working at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles when Yeshwant suffered a severe attack of asthma and was admitted there in 1938. Marguerite nursed him to health and won his heart in the bargain. It was enough for him to describe her as “the lady I love from the heart”.
When he announced his marriage in March 1939 Yeshwant said he had married Marguerite for mental peace. In his own words: “Without mental peace I cannot properly discharge my duties as ruler.”
So Yeshwant left the hospital with love in his heart, and Marguerite on his arm. He hired her to be princess Usha’s nurse and they travelled together to Europe and India. Reports said she used to call him ‘Junior’, and the Oxford-educated maharaja of Indore was cool with that.
But the British government was not cool about Marguerite’s status. They weren’t sure whether she was legally divorced, and to avoid a scandal they refused to address her as Her Highness. At first, they even opposed her presence at official functions.
But Yeshwant and Marguerite got along well enough. Unlike Maharaja Jagatjit Singh of Kapurthala and Nina Grosup, whose wide age gap led to tragedy, Yeshwant and Marguerite were the same age. She arrived in Indore and forgot her American working class life for a while.
There was not a quiet moment in their life. There were daily parties, and they seldom went to bed before 2am. The day started at noon with breakfast at 2pm, followed by more parties and games. Yeshwant, who was known as ‘Indore Sport’, was an avid hunter and bridge player. He once boasted about shooting 154 tigers. Marguerite also notched up 30 tigers, 8 panthers and 1 bear in the three years she spent in India
But eventually, this aimless life got on her nerves. By some accounts the strain in their married life arose from her inability to produce an heir. Whatever the cause, Marguerite flew back to the US in 1942, never to return.
In California, she lived in a mansion that Yeshwant had built at Laguna Beach just before the second World War started. It was more fortress than home, and it was said he had built it as a shelter against the war for his family. The house had thick walls, windows barred with iron grilles, double doors and burglar alarms. It’s a heritage property now.
Yeshwant stayed on in India for about a year, during which he managed to lose his heart to another American married woman named Euphemia Watts Crane, also known as Fay Stevenson. Her husband Frank Arthur Crane worked as an American aviation employee in India. But Yeshwant was smitten and decided to marry Euphemia. However, he could not do that without divorcing Marguerite, so he flew to Nevada in May 1943.
Why Nevada? To obtain the infamous Reno divorce, of course. In Reno, Nevada, getting a divorce was as easy as ordering fries. All you needed was proof of residence in the state, and that was easy too. A six weeks’ stay in Nevada made you a bona fide resident for the purpose of divorce. Special resorts called dude ranches provided accommodation for this purpose, and Yeshwant stayed at the Palomino Ranch.
He checked in on May 23 and had to kill time till July 4 when his six weeks got over. The Detroit Evening Times of July 11, 1943 said Yeshwant rode around on a horse wearing Levis jeans and a chef’s cap but no shirt. He carried a fishing rod with him all the time and often fished catfish in the ranch’s private lake.
The 4th of July was a Sunday in 1943 so the Monday after was a national holiday. Poor Yeshwant had to wait two extra days to file his divorce suit. He alleged extreme cruelty by Marguerite and became a free man in the morning of July 6.
But he wasn’t the only one seeking a divorce that morning. Euphemia also ended her marriage with Frank Arthur Crane in the same court, and 10 hours later they were married and off on their honeymoon in Yeshwant’s car. They had planned to drive from Reno to South California but the car broke down one hour later in Carson City, forcing the newlywed royal couple to spend the night in the honeymoon cottage of a motel. Not quite a drive into the sunset.
It’s funny they had started on a long drive in the middle of petrol rationing due to the world war. Yeshwant had a gas quota for driving in Los Angeles city only. So, two weeks later when he made another trip from Hollywood to Las Vegas, the office of price administration suspended his gas ration for 6 months.
What became of Marguerite after the divorce? Although Yeshwant had accused her of cruelty, he left princess Usha in her care, along with the fortress mansion. Usha and Marguerite had become very fond of each other and Marguerite, although childless, was a good mother.
Marguerite lived in the mansion for some time but felt lonely. She said she wanted to become a part of America again. It wasn’t long before she met Charles Masters, six years younger than her, and a member of the US coast guard. Marguerite fell in love with him and decided to do her bit for her country. She volunteered for the navy’s emergency services training at Hunter College in New York, where she had to be up by 5.45am every day, have breakfast by 6.15, wash her own clothes and live with 10 others in a barracks
She had found the simple life she missed and was enjoying it. But Usha had to be sent back to Indore. Marguerite had brought a picture of Usha with her to Hunter College, and she told the press: “I was lonely, so I knew Usha would be too. But I am going to bring her back after the war.”
That didn’t happen but she married Masters to start the plain ordinary family she had always wanted. “I have never been so happy before,” Marguerite told reporters in 1945, adding: “We just want the same right to privacy and the same right to happiness that is the privilege of every other American couple.”
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