Groom fulfills bride’s dream to wear family heirloom

From the time Tiffany Bates George was a little girl, her grandfather, Irwin Fazende, told her about a solid-gold hair comb that according to family legend had been given as a wedding gift to an ancestor by the king of Spain more than 200 years ago.

The comb, which family members call a tiara, was a cherished heirloom worn by generations of family brides for their weddings.

“My grandfather called me his little princess,” Tiffany George said. “He told me about the tiara when I was a little girl. He told me I could wear it when I got married.”

Tiffany George’s fiancé, David George, was determined to make his bride’s lifelong wish come true. He understood that the comb was at the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans. So he contacted Wayne Phillips, curator of costumes and textiles at the museum.

Phillips told David George that the comb had been on loan to the museum since the 1950s but had been borrowed in 1999 by an heir of the family member who had put the comb on loan. The heir had left the state without returning the comb to the museum.

David George called the museum almost daily, but he could not get the museum to tell him who actually had the comb. “It took about three and a half months total to get it tracked down and to get people to lean my way,” he said.

At the same time, David George began a study of his bride’s family’s genealogy in hopes that he would learn more about the comb.

For more than two centuries, members of the family have passed down a story of the comb. It begins with Jeanne Henriette Fazende, who is said to have received it as a gift from the Spanish king, Carlos III, in 1784 when she married Jacques Philippe Villere, who became Louisiana’s second governor after statehood.

“Jeanne Henriette’s grandfather, Cyril Fazende, came over with Iberville and helped found Louisiana,” Tiffany George said. “They were not from Spain, but Cyril was such an integral part in helping form Spanish alliances in Louisiana. That’s why the king gave the tiara to Cyril’s granddaughter when she married.”

The family member who placed the tiara at the museum said that “anyone who was a descendant could wear it on her wedding day,” said David George, who understood that the family member had died in the 1950s.

However, the museum was able to contact the present owner of the comb. “She was designated in the donor’s will as the owner of the hair comb,” Phillips said. “She was happy for Tiffany to wear it and agreed to donate it to the museum permanently after their wedding.”

The Georges kept the comb “hidden under lock and key” until they could return it the museum. “We met Wayne Phillips at the Presbytére in New Orleans and handed the box to him,” David George said. The comb has always been kept in its original box made to fit it perfectly.

The comb itself is yellow gold in a neoclassical design that was popular in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Phillips said. It is trimmed with tiny seed pearls set in a palmetto motif. The comb is held in the hair by long tines that are graduated in length from 1 to 3 inches. “Even the prongs are solid gold,” Tiffany George said.