Never Live Alone

Why would a woman with three mansions spend 20 years in a hospital room?

No one knows for certain.

Her lawyer said only that it was her choice.

Meryl Gordon, an author who studied her life, offered one answer.

In her mansions, Huguette would have been alone.

In the hospital, someone was always there. Nurses. Doctors. Someone to sit beside her.

"Huguette chose human contact over materialism."
— Meryl Gordon, author

Her goddaughter, Wanda Styka, remembered a warning Huguette once gave her.

Never live alone.

She owned a Monet. She had once owned a Renoir and a Stradivarius. She had hundreds of dolls.

But none of them could keep her company.