Forever Young: The Incredible True Story of the Self-made Millionaire Woman

In a time when most women stayed home to rear their children and manage their homes, Louise Powis-Young’s (b. 1897) life took her on a different and perhaps unexpected path. Her husband’s job with the YMCA brought the whole family from their home in Salt Lake City to the Philippines. She was around 21 years old at the time of the trans-Pacific move. It was there that the tragic and untimely death of her husband forced Louise to find something to do to support herself and her two young children in this foreign country far from family and friends. Walking around Manila one day, she observed the native women selling their embroidery door to door. She immediately recognized the unmatched skill of the handmade garments, but the designs often left much to be desired. For example, tablecloths were made with images of American flags placed upon beds of roses. She knew this sort of design had little appeal for the American market at the time, and that’s when she discovered an opportunity.

Inspired by French lingerie designs, Louise went out and bought nainsook, a fine cotton fabric famous in the region. She then cut out a nightgown, proceeded to draw a freehand design on the garment and gave it to a native Filipino woman to embroider the design. Once it was completed, she knew she had something special. She was so pleased with the final product, she created seven of these garments and sent them to her mother in Wayne, Illinois. Her mother then took the samples to a Chicago department store, which prompted the store manager to order 500 garments immediately.

Louise was beyond excited that her pieces were received so well, but now she faced a few new challenges, not the least was how she was going to gather the capital and workforce needed to create 500 pieces of lingerie. She delved into her savings, and with only $500 to use, she quickly sought out the finest embroiderers in the surrounding small villages. From what started with just a few helpers working out of her home, within 7 years her employment grew to 8,000 Filipinos, producing 1,000 to 1,500 garments a day, with offices in New York, Paris and of course the Philippines. The venture brought a much-needed breath of fresh air for the once dying ancient craft of embroidery in the region. Young women were now excited to learn the trade because of the secure and constant income that was being made by the embroiderers. No longer did these women have to go door to door for their sales.

The secret to Louis Powis-Young’s success is attributed to two things according to an article written about her in the 1922 edition of The Delineator: love of beauty and sympathy with the people who worked for her. Her distinct eye for fashionable design led her to create patterns that improved upon the already exquisite embroidery that was being created by the Filipino women. Thus, creating something marketable that women from all over the world wanted to wear. More than the product itself was the way she treated her employees, many of whom saw her as a friend. Louise would invest a lot of time in her employees, improving their working conditions, giving them fair wages, and leading them with patience and kindness. By the time she was in her mid-twenties, Louise was head of the 5th largest industry of exports from the islands and had become a self-made millionaire.

Louise’s connection to Old Florida was found to be much in the same vein of Thomas Edison, or the DuPont Family, who desired to create a winter retreat in the Sunshine State. This led her and her new husband, Owen Young (married at Trinity Parish Episcopal in Old St Augustine Square), to purchase a piece of tranquil land on Old A1A in Palm Coast. This, of course, is known today as the Washington Oaks State Park. The house in which they lived while there was designed by Louise and now acts as the visitor center. The gardens are breathtakingly beautiful, and the centerpiece is a 300-year-old live oak. After the death of her husband in 1962, she donated the property to the State of Florida in 1964, under the pretense that the “gardens be maintained in their present form.” She died a year later.

Louise’s legacy is an important part of Old Florida history, one that has been tactically preserved for generations. If you decide to visit, be sure to take a walk on the beach, where giant coquina rocks dot the shoreline, making this one of the most unique beaches in the world. To learn more about the Young’s, you can visit the visitor center. Here you can read facts about their fascinating lives. However, there is one anecdote that I discovered on my trip that seemed to contradict my research. The visitor center states that Louise was a millionaire by age 19 from her lingerie business. This would seem to be a misprint, as she married her first husband at 19, and left for the Philippines three years later.