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Medora de Vallombrosa, Marquise de Morès (born Medora von Hoffmann, August 21, 1856 – 1921) was the daughter of wealthy New York banker Louis von Hoffmann and his wife, Athenais Grymes, whose family had been prominent in Louisiana. Medora was the wife of Antoine Amédée-Marie-Vincent Amot Manca de Vallombrosa, the Marquis de Morès. They had three children, a daughter Athenais, born in 1883, a son Louis, born in 1885; and a son Paul, born in France in 1890.
The town of Medora, North Dakota, founded in 1883, was named by the Marquis in her honor. The Marquis's meat packing plant failed and the town fell into a decline after the family left. However, the story of the Marquis de Mores and Medora are now featured in The Medora Musical held every summer in Medora, a major tourist town in the North Dakota Badlands. The 26-room clapboard-sided ranch house the Marquis built for his heiress wife, known as the "Chateau de Mores", has been restored, and tours of it are given.
The Marquise de Morès lived in both Paris and Cannes, France after the assassination of the Marquis de Morès in 1896. During World War I, she turned her home into a hospital for wounded soldiers. She died in 1921 of a leg injury she received while working as a nurse. The wound never fully healed.Others say she died of an infectious disease she acquired while touring India with her husband.This gave her bouts of illness throughout her life which eventually resulted in her death.
