Carmen Vial Dows (néeCarmen Vial Freire, formerly Carmen Vial Browne and Carmen Vial de Señoret) (March 28, 1904 – January 1978) was a Chilean diplomat who served as the Ambassador to the Netherlands.
Early life
Carmen Viale Freire was born in Santiago, Chile on March 28, 1904, into an aristocratic family and was educated by English and French governesses. She was one of eight children born to Donna Carolina Freire Valdés and Don Pedro Daniel del Carmen Vial Carvallo. Her father was a founder of the La Granja, its first mayor, and deputy for San Fernando from 1906 to 1909.[2]
Upon the death of her second husband in 1941, Carmen joined the Chilean Diplomatic Corps and she began serving as Cultural attaché in the Embassy of Chile, Washington, D.C.[4][5] before becoming consul in Boston a year and a half later.[6] While in Boston, she studied Economics and International Trade at Harvard University.[7]
Carmen was married three times. Her first marriage was to Chilean architect Luis Browne Fernández (1898–1944), best known for designing the Presidential Palace of Cerro Castillo. Before their divorce, they were the parents of:[3]
Luis Fernando Vial Browne (1930–2022), he married Edith Gammack of New York, daughter of Thomas Hubbard Gammack and Mrs. William Douglas Burden, in 1957.[11][12] They divorced in 1971 and he married Nathalie Kuhn in 1974.[4]
Her second marriage was to Octavio de Señoret, who was a governor and parliamentarian. He was the son of Manuel Señoret Astaburuaga and María Mercedes Silva. In 1939, he was appointed Chilean Ambassador to the United Kingdom and they moved to London where they lived through World War II and she joined the Red Cross. They remained married until his death in 1941 in Lisbon, Portugal.[3]