Gounod, Martha Madame

Madame Bertha Gounod was a European dress designer whose career spanned the heights of prewar high society and the hardships of displacement and poverty. Born on a farm in Béla, Hungary, the tenth of fifteen children, she rose to prominence before World War I as a celebrated dressmaker in Monte Carlo and St. Moritz, creating gowns for European royalty and wealthy Americans, including figures such as Mrs. Woodrow Wilson. The war cost her her money and possessions, and in later life she emigrated to the United States, supporting herself through sewing commissions. By the late 1930s, elderly and chronically ill, she was living in Englewood, New Jersey, where declining health prevented her from holding steady work, including a WPA sewing job. Once famed for elegance and luxury, she spent her final years sick, impoverished, and largely forgotten, eventually being taken to Englewood Hospital after neighbors discovered her living alone and in distress.

Citation:
Partly written by OpenAI. (2026, January, 13). ChatGPT (GPT-5.2.) [Large Language Model] https://chat.openai.com/chat.

Associated Press reporter

Press of Atlantic City

September 28, 1937

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