Nobleman, Diplomat, born László Jenő Mária Henrik Simon Széchenyi, he was an Austro Hungarian military officer, Imperial Chamberlain, diplomat and venture capitalist. His great-uncle was István Széchenyi. He was a son of Count Imre Széchenyi de Sárvár-felsővidék, who was one time Austrian Minister at the Court of Berlin, and countess Alexandra Sztaray-Szirmay et Nagy-Mihály. His father owned thousands of acres divided into scores of farms and forest preserves on which the Széchenyis grew wheat, Turkish pepper, tobacco, hemp, and grapes. He was the youngest of four brothers. Count László Széchenyi was the inventor of the submarine wireless telegraphy, for sending and receiving sound-wave vibrations underwater, and started the Submarine Wireless Company to produce it. Count László Széchenyi presented his credentials as Hungary’s first Minister to the United States on January 11, 1922. He served until March 31, 1933. He was transferred to the same post at the Court of Saint James in England in 1933. Count László was twenty-eight years old, when he met Gladys Vanderbilt, the seventh and youngest child of Alice Claypoole Gwynne and Cornelius Vanderbilt II, the president and chairman of the New York Central Railroad. Gladys grew up in the family home on Fifth Avenue in New York City, and their summer "cottage," The Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island. They married on January 27, 1908, at her family home in New York City, after their meeting in Berlin near her twenty-first birthday in 1907. Their early married life was spent in Hungary raising their five children.
Nobleman, Diplomat, born László Jenő Mária Henrik Simon Széchenyi, he was an Austro Hungarian military officer, Imperial Chamberlain, diplomat and venture capitalist. His great-uncle was István Széchenyi. He was a son of Count Imre Széchenyi de Sárvár-felsővidék, who was one time Austrian Minister at the Court of Berlin, and countess Alexandra Sztaray-Szirmay et Nagy-Mihály. His father owned thousands of acres divided into scores of farms and forest preserves on which the Széchenyis grew wheat, Turkish pepper, tobacco, hemp, and grapes. He was the youngest of four brothers. Count László Széchenyi was the inventor of the submarine wireless telegraphy, for sending and receiving sound-wave vibrations underwater, and started the Submarine Wireless Company to produce it. Count László Széchenyi presented his credentials as Hungary’s first Minister to the United States on January 11, 1922. He served until March 31, 1933. He was transferred to the same post at the Court of Saint James in England in 1933. Count László was twenty-eight years old, when he met Gladys Vanderbilt, the seventh and youngest child of Alice Claypoole Gwynne and Cornelius Vanderbilt II, the president and chairman of the New York Central Railroad. Gladys grew up in the family home on Fifth Avenue in New York City, and their summer "cottage," The Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island. They married on January 27, 1908, at her family home in New York City, after their meeting in Berlin near her twenty-first birthday in 1907. Their early married life was spent in Hungary raising their five children.
Gravesite Details
a red marble tomb decorated with a wrought-iron fence guards the ashes of Count László Széchényi (1879-1938)
