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Name |
Martha Vera Wilhelmine Hossenfeldt |
Gender |
Female |
Person ID |
I82144 |
My Genealogy |
Last Modified |
7 Nov 2017 |
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Notes |
- In 1955, the Laucks sold Spring Mountain Ranch to German actress Vera Krupp, the only owner other than the Wilsons who made the ranch the main residence. Vera, born Martha Vera Wilhelmine Hossenfeldt in Meine, Germany, became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1947. She married German industrialist Alfried Krupp, her fourth husband, in 1952. Though Mr. Krupp was not allowed to come to the United States due to his conviction for war crimes in World War II, his wife came back to the States. They divorced in 1957. At the Ranch, now renamed Spring Mt. Ranch, Vera hoped to raise a strain of white-faced Herefords and Brahma cows more suited to the harsh desert environment. An interesting event occurred on April 10, 1959. While Vera and a ranch employee were having dinner, three men forced their way into the main house, stole the 33.6 carat blue-white diamond "Krupp" diamond right off her finger. It was recovered six weeks later in New Jersey. Mrs. Krupp lived at the ranch until 1964, when she moved to Bel Air, California due to poor health. During her ownership, she modified the interior of the main house and added a swimming pool and a bedroom with a secret passage. She also added a new guest house where Willard George had his small residence. This is now used as the main Park Ranger Station. She went on to build various sheds, barns and a kennel for her Great Danes. In 1967, she sold Spring Mt. Ranch to Howard Hughes for a reputed $625,000.
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