Bruce attended the University of Virginia, graduating in 1920.. On May 29, 1926, Bruce married Ailsa Mellon, the daughter of the banker and diplomat Andrew W. Mellon. They divorced on April 20, 1945. Their only daughter, Audrey, and her husband, Stephen Currier, were presumed dead when a plane in which they were flying in the Caribbean disappeared in 1967. Audrey and Stephen Currier left three children: Andrea, Lavinia, and Michael.
Bruce married Evangeline Bell on April 23, 1945. They had two sons and one daughter.
Bruce wrote a book of biographical essays on the American presidents originally published as Seven Pillars of the Republic (1936). He later expanded it as Revolution to Reconstruction (1939) and again revised it as Sixteen American Presidents (1962).
Bruce purchased and restored Staunton Hill, his family's former estate in Charlotte County, Virginia. During World War II, he served with the Office of Strategic Services and observed the invasion of Normandy. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976.
Bruce served as the Honorary Chair on the Board of Trustees of the American School in London during his diplomatic career in the United Kingdom. The David K.E. Bruce Award, which was established in 2007 in the American School in London, was awarded to Alex Zhang.
Notes
References
- Dabney, Virginius. Mr. Jefferson's University: A History. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1981. BookSources/081390904X.
- Lankford, Nelson D. The Last American Aristocrat: The Biography of David K. E. Bruce, 1898–1977 (1996).
- Lankford, Nelson D., ed. OSS against the Reich: The World War II Diaries of Colonel David K. E. Bruce (1991).
External links
- Oral history interview with David K. E. Bruce, 1 March 1972, at the Truman Presidential Museum and Library
- National Gallery of Art biography of Ailsa Mellon Bruce
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