Gorges, Marjorie Howard (1894–1948)

1894–1948

Parents: Capt. Edward Howard Gorges (1868– ) and Margaret Malone (1862– ), both of Ireland.
Married: (1) James Lawrence Breese II (1884–1959); (2) John Duncan Pearmain (1896–1971) in 1942.
Children: With James Lawrence Breeze: Frances Potter Breese (1916–1997), Mary N. C. Breese (1919–1999), Anne Breese (1922–2019), and James Lawrence Breese (1927–2009).
Kinship: Wife of the sixth cousin three times removed of the post–World War II Smith generation.

Early Life Marjorie Howard Gorges was born in Montreal, Quebec, in 1894, the daughter of Captain Edward Howard Gorges, a British Army officer of Irish descent, and Margaret Malone of County Cork. The Gorges family had long-standing Anglo-Irish and military connections; several members had served in the British armed forces in both Ireland and Canada. Marjorie’s early years were spent in Montreal, where her family belonged to the English-speaking professional and military class that maintained close cultural ties with both London and Dublin.

Marriage to James Lawrence Breese In 1915 she married James Lawrence Breese (1887–1958), an engineer, inventor, and photographer, and a member of the socially prominent Breese family of New York. After their marriage, the couple moved from the East Coast to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where they became part of the city’s small but influential community of artists, architects, and intellectuals.

Marjorie and James had four children—Frances, Mary, Anne, and James Jr.—and their home became a gathering place for the region’s emerging cultural scene during the interwar years. Their marriage, however, was troubled, and they eventually divorced.

Later Life and Second Marriage In 1942 Marjorie married John Duncan Pearmain in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Pearmain, a British-born mechanical engineer and industrial designer, had settled in the American Southwest after working in Los Angeles and New York. During the 1940s, Marjorie was active in civic and pacifist organizations, notably the Women’s Committee for a Lasting Peace, which advocated international cooperation and reconstruction in the aftermath of World War II.

Illness and Death In the years following the war, Marjorie suffered from declining health, including what was described at the time as “nervous exhaustion.” On January 24, 1948, she was found dead by her twenty-one-year-old son, James Jr., hanging in a closet of her Albuquerque home. The District Attorney made a preliminary determination of suicide, but an official inquest was held due to questions surrounding the circumstances. Contemporary newspaper reports confirmed the verdict as death by self-inflicted hanging.

Legacy Marjorie’s life reflected the displacement and cultural crossing of her generation—an Irish-born Canadian woman who married into New York society and helped foster the early artistic milieu of Santa Fe before succumbing to personal tragedy. Her children continued the family’s cultural legacy: Frances became involved in the arts, Mary and Anne were associated with educational and civic work in New Mexico, and James Jr. pursued a career in engineering.

Marjorie Gorges Breese Pearmain remains a poignant figure in the Breese family’s southwestern chapter—her cosmopolitan background and tragic end emblematic of both the promise and the fragility of her era.