History Bytes: Madeline Ives Goddard

August 27, 2018

Madeline Ives Goddard, the Marquise d’Andigné was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1874 to Robert Hale Ives Goddard and Rebecca Brunette Groesbeck Goddard. The family rented various Newport summer cottages, including Pendleton, Chastellux, and Cliff Cottages, however Madeline spent much of her adult life in France. She became the Marquise when she married Rene d’Andigné in 1906. Madeline was a trained nurse, and when World War I broke out she volunteered in a front line hospital. She was later asked to help establish and become the president of Le Bien-Etre du Blesse in France, two years before the United States would officially enter the war. The organization provided hospitals in French war zones with special food to help aid the recovery of the severely injured, often delivering the supplies themselves through their Women’s Motor Unit. Not only did the organization raise the money to acquire food supplies, they also established aid stations and kitchens in French military hospitals where they prepared the food themselves. On the American home-front several prominent women worked for the Le Bien-Etre American Central Committee, helping to raise much needed funds, including Mrs. Ives Goddard of Providence, Mrs. Hamilton Fish Webster of Newport, and Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt of New York and Newport. After the war the Marquise was officially honored by the French government with awarding her a Legion D’Honneur for her military service. She passed away in 1931 in the Providence home of her brother, Robert Hale Ives Goddard.

Image: Le maréchal Franchet d’Esperey décore la marquise d’Andigné [Marshal Franchet d’Esperey decorates the marquise d’Andigné], by Agence Rol., 1921. Image from Bibliothèque nationale de France.