Editing Wallis Simpson (section)

==Early life and education==
[[File:Wallis Simpson as a six-month-old child in the arms of her mother, Alice Montague Warfield.jpg|thumb|upright|A six-month-old Wallis with her mother, Alice Warfield]]
An only child, Bessie Wallis (sometimes written "Bessiewallis") Warfield was born on June 19, 1896, in Square Cottage at Monterey Inn, a hotel directly across the road from the [[Monterey Country Club]], in [[Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania]].<ref name="weir">Weir, p. 328</ref> A summer resort close to the Maryland–Pennsylvania border, Blue Ridge Summit was popular with Baltimoreans escaping the season's heat, and Monterey Inn, which had a central building, as well as individual wooden cottages, was the town's largest hotel.<ref>"Baltimore in Her Centennial Year", ''[[Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly]]'', Volume 43 (Frank Leslie Publishing House, 1897), p. 702</ref><ref>Blue Ridge Summit referred to as "a fashionable summer resort&nbsp;... then greatly patronized by Baltimoreans" in Francis F. Bierne (1984), ''The Amiable Baltimoreans'', Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 118</ref>

Wallis's father was Teackle Wallis Warfield (named after [[Severn Teackle Wallis]]),<ref>{{cite web|author=Corner, Thomas Cromwell|url=https://www.mdhistory.org/resources/severn-teackle-wallis/|title=Severn Teackle Wallis – Oil on canvas|work=[[Maryland Center for History and Culture]]|date=1896|access-date=29 June 2024}}</ref> the fifth and youngest son of Henry Mactier Warfield<!--not the adjutant general, who was his son-->, a prominent merchant, described as "one of the best known and personally one of the most popular citizens of Baltimore", who ran for mayor in 1875.<ref>{{citation |first=David H. |last=Carroll |title=Men of Mark in Maryland, Volume 3 |publisher=B. F. Johnson Inc. |year=1911 |page=28 |url=https://archive.org/details/menofmarkinmaryl03stei_0/page/n63/mode/2up}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-baltimore-sun-death-of-henry-m-warfi/47733420/|title=Death of Henry M Warfield |work=[[The Baltimore Sun]]|date=January 19, 1885 |page=1}}</ref> Her mother was Alice Montague, a daughter of stockbroker William Latane Montague. Wallis was named in honor of her father (who was known as Wallis) and her mother's elder sister, Bessie (Mrs. D. Buchanan Merryman), and was called Bessie Wallis until, at some time in her youth, the name Bessie was dropped.<ref>King, p. 13</ref>

According to a wedding announcement published in ''[[The Baltimore Sun]]'' on November 20, 1895, Wallis's parents were married by C. Ernest Smith at Baltimore's Saint Michael and All Angels' Protestant Episcopal Church on November 19, 1895,<ref>{{citation |title=Montague–Warfield |newspaper=The Baltimore Sun |date=November 20, 1895}}</ref> which suggests she was conceived out of wedlock. Wallis said that her parents were married in June 1895.<ref>Duchess of Windsor, p. 17; Sebba, p. 6</ref> Her father died of [[tuberculosis]] on November 15, 1896.<ref>Tombstone in [[Green Mount Cemetery]], Baltimore; King p. 13; Sebba, p. 9</ref> For her first few years, Wallis and her mother were dependent upon the charity of her father's wealthy bachelor brother [[Solomon Davies Warfield]], postmaster of Baltimore and later president of the Continental Trust Company and the [[Seaboard Air Line Railway]]. Initially, they lived with him at the four-story row house, 34 East Preston Street, that he shared with his mother.<ref>Carroll, vol. 3, pp. 24–43; King, pp. 14–15; Duchess of Windsor, p. 20</ref>

[[File:A ten-year-old Wallis Simpson as a schoolgirl with long hair and a hat on.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Wallis as a ten-year-old schoolgirl]]
In 1901, Wallis's aunt Bessie Merryman was widowed, and the following year Alice and Wallis moved into her four-bedroom house on West Chase Street, Baltimore, where they lived for at least a year until they settled in an apartment, and then a house, of their own. In 1908, Wallis's mother married her second husband, John Freeman Rasin, son of prominent Democratic party boss [[Isaac Freeman Rasin]].<ref>King, p. 24; Vickers, p. 252</ref>

On April 17, 1910, Wallis was confirmed at Christ Episcopal Church, Baltimore, and between 1912 and 1914 her uncle paid for her to attend [[Oldfields School]], the most expensive girls' school in Maryland.<ref>Higham, p. 4</ref> There she became a friend of heiress Renée du Pont, a daughter of Senator [[T. Coleman du Pont]] of the [[du Pont family]], and Mary Kirk, whose family founded [[Kirk Silverware]].<ref>King, p. 28</ref> A fellow pupil at one of Wallis's schools recalled, "She was bright, brighter than all of us. She made up her mind to go to the head of the class, and she ''did''."<ref>Higham, p. 7</ref> Wallis was always immaculately dressed and pushed herself hard to do well.<ref>King, pp. 21–22</ref> A later biographer wrote of her, "Though Wallis's jaw was too heavy for her to be counted beautiful, her fine violet-blue eyes and petite figure, quick wits, vitality, and capacity for total concentration on her interlocutor ensured that she had many admirers."<ref name="dnb"/>