Célestine Eustis was born in Paris, the daughter of George and Clarisse Allain Eustis of New Orleans. Her father, nephew of Massachusetts governor William Eustis, was a prominent Louisiana attorney who became chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court, and was a founder of the Pontchartrain Railroad Company and Tulane University. Her mother was from a prominent French-speaking Creole family. Though little is recorded concerning Celestine Eustis, she was an influential member of a prominent family. Her brother George Eustis Jr. (1828 – 1872) was a U.S. Congressman, Confederate diplomat to Paris, and expatriate who lived in France after the Civil War with his wife, Louise Morris Corcoran (her father founded the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C.), and their children. Celestine Eustis spent much of her time in France with her brother’s family, living in elegance. One account states, “The hotel of Mr. Eustis at Paris, like his villa [‘Villa Louisiana’] at Cannes, was the chosen rendezvous of the best French and foreign society.” Louise Corcoran Eustis died of tuberculosis in Cannes in 1867, the same year her youngest daughter Louise was born. Five years later, when Eustis’ brother George died in Cannes, Eustis was appointed guardian of her niece and two nephews. She was especially close to young Louise, who (later) married New York financier Thomas Hitchcock. Celestine Eustis and the Hitchcocks spent much of their time in Aiken, South Carolina. Considered the founders of the winter colony there, they helped make the town a fashionable place – it became known in the late nineteenth century as a health resort, winter retreat, and polo center for wealthy, prominent families. Eustis helped plan city parks featuring plants and trees from diverse climates, and Eustis Park was named in her honor. A member of St. Mary’s Church in Aiken, in 1878 she was instrumental in replacing the church, demolished in a hurricane, with a new, sturdier building, and commissioned French stained glass paintings to adorn the windows. Her other brother, James Biddle Eustis (1834 – 1899), an attorney, leading post-Civil War Louisiana Democrat, and ambassador to Paris under Grover Cleveland (1893) also wintered in Aiken.

• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1613422618
• 136 pages/ black and white
• paperback 
• 6X9 in 
• Year released: 2015
• Publisher: Cornerstone Book Publishers