Wallis Simpson was born in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania on June 19, 1896. In honor of her father and her mother's older sister, she was named Bessie Wallis Warfield; she later dropped her first name and became Wallis Warfield, because cows were often called Bessie and for Wallis it was embarrassing to be called Bessie. His father was Baltimoreans Teackle Wallis Warfield and his mother was Alice Montague, Wallis was an only child and they were a distinguished American family. Wallis' grandfather ran for mayor of Baltimore in 1875. His father died of tuberculosis shortly after his birth on November 15, 1896, and his mother Alice struggled to support Wallis on her own. Wallis and her widowed mother therefore became dependent on the charity of their wealthier relatives, particularly Wallis' uncle Solomon Davies Warfield, who was her father's brother. Wallis and his widowed mother moved in with his uncle Warfield. He contributed to Wallis' education and cared for her in many ways. He paid for Wallis to attend the Oldfield School, the most expensive girls' school in Maryland, where she gained a reputation. to smoking, sneaking out, and having boyfriends, she demonstrated a strong, outgoing personality that made her magnetic to some of the girls, especially her best friend, Mary Kirk. In 1901, Wallis's aunt, Bessie Merryman, after whom she was named, was widowed and the following year Wallis and her mother moved in with her, they lived here for at least a year until they can finally afford an apartment, then a house, of their own. Wallis had a difficult childhood as she and her mother had always struggled to pay their way, this led to Wallis needing constant financial security throughout her life while Edward lived......in middle of paper...... George VI's strong opinion that the Duchess should not be given a royal title was shared by Queen Mary and George's wife, Queen Elizabeth. At first, the royal family did not accept the duchess or receive her officially, although the former king sometimes met her mother and siblings after his abdication. The Duchess was bitterly unhappy with the denial of the royal title and the refusal of the Duke's relatives to accept her as a member of the family. The Duke and Duchess lived in France in the pre-war years. In 1937, they made a high-profile visit to Germany and met Adolf Hitler. After the visit, Hitler said of Wallis: "she would have made a good queen." The visit tended to corroborate the strong suspicions of many in government and society that the Duchess was in fact a German agent. US FBI files compiled in the 1930s also portray her as a possible Nazi sympathizer...