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Transatlantic Mary Jayne Gold Father Egbert Habberton Gold

Mary Jayne Gold father Egbert Habberton Gold was the founder of Vapor Car Heating Company in Chicago. Gold served as the President of the company until 1928.

Netflix latest limited series Transatlantic sheds light on the lesser-known lives of World War II heroes like Mary J Gold and Varian Fry.

The series features the real lives stories of the war heroes as they go on a mission to rescue refugees from Nazi-occupied France and transfer them to safe havens. 

Co-created by Daniel Hendler and Anna Winger, the Netflix series is based on the 2019 book The Flight Portfolio written by Julie Orringer. The show premiered on Netflix on April 7, 2023.

Transatlantic Netflix cast includes Gillian Jacobs as Mary Jayne Gold, Cory Michael Smith as Varian Fry and Lucas Englander as Albert Hirschman in the lead roles.

Here, we take a look at the real-life Mary and how she helped rescue over 2000 refugees during the Second World War. The Family Nation has also covered the 10 Best Netflix Documentaries on Holocaust.

Egbert H Gold Was A Businessman And Inventor

Mary Jayne Gold father Egbert Habberton Gold invented a vapor heating system for heating railroad cars. Gold brought a revolution in the railroad industry.

Egbert was born on January 31, 1868, in Cornwall, Litchfield County, Connecticut. He studied at the Stevens Institute of Technology and graduated in 1889. 

Gold initially founded the Gold Car Heating & Lighting Company, which turned out to be a revolution in the heating industry. Similarly, he also established the Chicago Car Heating Company in 1906 and served as its President until 1917. 

The company eventually merged with the Standard Heat & Ventilation Company to form the Vapor Car Heating Company. He served as the company President until his death.

In 1913, Gold constructed the Marigold Lodge in Holland, Michigan. The Gold family held the estate until the death of Egbert’s wife in 1969. 

Mary Jayne later donated the property to Hope College. The college held it for nine years before selling the estate to Herman Miller Inc in 1978.

Egbert was married to Margaret Jayne Dickey Gold. The couple had three children: Samuel [b. 1905], Mary Jayne [b. 1909], and Egbert Habberton Gold Jr [1914].

The American entrepreneur passed away at the age of 60 in Holland, Michigan according to his Find A Grave Memorial. He battled an unknown illness for nearly four months before passing away at his Michigan summer home.

Mary Dated A French Soldier Named Raymond

Mary Jayne Gold was in a relationship with Raymond Couraud. Raymond is famously known as a French soldier turned gangster.

Gold first met Raymond when he was working as a smuggler in Marseilles. Mary Jane Gold husband is nonexistent because she never got married to anyone.

When Mary and Raymond first crossed paths, the latter was a Foreign Legion deserter. The couple’s relationship was never exclusive as they were more focused on rescuing the refugees instead of living a married life with a partner and family.

Mary, who had joined forces with Miriam Davenport and Varian Fry, took the help of Raymond’s military connections to transport refugees from France to North America, South America, and/or North Africa. 

Together, they successfully rescued over 2,000 people of artistic backgrounds. Some notable figures they rescued include artist Marc Chagall, author Hannah Arendt, Nobel Prize winner Otto Meyerhof, and sculptor Jacques Lipchitz.

According to the official website of the Varian Fry Organization, Raymond was dubbed the “Killer” for allegedly murdering the English language. 

Mary And Varian Met Each Other In Marseille

Mary Jayne Gold Varian Fry alliance was key in the successful rescue of over 2,000 French refugees. Varian was an American journalist from New York City.

After visiting Berlin in 1935, Fry witnessed the inhumane treatment of Jews by the Nazis. Following his return to the US, he started writing about the truth of the SS party. 

Fry became one of the first members of the Emergency Rescue Committee (ERC) in June 1940. In August 1940, he returned to Marseille. 

There, he met with Mary Jayne and Miriam Davenport, who eventually became members of ERC. The three played significant roles in saving thousands of anti-Nazi writers, musicians, and artists.

Mary returned to the US in 1941, whereas Fry was also forced to exit France in the same year by the Vichy government the US State Department. He died at the age of 59 on September 13, 1967.

Mary Jayne Gold Story

Mary Jayne Gold real life story has been presented in the Netflix series Transatlantic. The American heiress helped to rescue prisoners of Nazi Germany in 1941.

Mary was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1909. The second child of Egbert and Margaret, she grew up with two brothers named Egbert Jr and Samuel.

According to Meandering Michigan History, Gold initially attended Masters School located in Dobbs Ferry, New York, and later went to a finishing school in Italy. 

In the 1930s, Mary settled in Paris, France, leading a luxurious life from the fortune she inherited from her father. When the German army invaded Paris in 1940, she moved to Marseille. 

There, she joined forces with fellow Americans like Fry and Miriam Davenport. She helped cover the cost of moving the thousands of refugees from France to different South and North American nations. 

After the end of World War II, Mary regularly lived in New York and Var, France. She eventually wrote a memoir titled Crossroads Marseilles 1940 in 1980. 

Gold was a courageous woman much ahead of her time. She passed away after battling pancreatic cancer at the age of 88 on October 5, 1997.

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