Evalyn Walsh McLean wore the Hope Diamond through a son's death, a husband's insanity and the Lindbergh hoax, and her estate sold it

Evalyn Walsh was the daughter of Thomas Walsh, a miner who struck gold. In 1908 she married Ned McLean, heir to the Washington Post and Cincinnati Enquirer fortune. On 28 January 1911 she bought the 45-carat Hope Diamond from Pierre Cartier for $180,000. The McLeans and Cartier disputed the terms and settled the next year. Her eldest son, Vinson, was struck and killed by a car in 1919, aged nine. Ned drank, was linked to the Teapot Dome scandal, was declared legally insane in 1933 and died in a psychiatric hospital in 1941. In 1932 she gave $100,000 to the con man Gaston Means, who said he could recover the kidnapped Lindbergh baby. Means was convicted and imprisoned. She died of pneumonia on 26 April 1947, aged 60. Her will left her estate, including the Hope, in trust for seven grandchildren until the five oldest reached 25, under four trustees, one of them Supreme Court Justice Frank Murphy^†. In 1949 Harry Winston Inc. bought her entire jewellery collection from the estate. It included the Hope, the 94.8-carat Star of the East, the Star of the South, a 9-carat green diamond and the 31-carat McLean diamond. Winston gave the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian in 1958, where it is on display.