A Curious Life: The Biography of Princess Peggy Abkhazi

Pauline Carey is an actor, playwright, and fiction writer. She is the
author of Magic and What’s in a Name?

The woman who became Princess Peggy Abkhazi was born poor in China,
orphaned early, adopted by the wealthy Pemberton family, educated in
England, traveled the world, and eventually became a princess who,
together with her husband, built a famous garden in Victoria, British
Columbia.

After her birth in 1902 and her English schooling, Peggy Pemberton
traveled with her widowed adoptive mother, Florence, to such cities as
Shanghai, Paris, Vienna, and Cairo. The potted histories of these places
feel like padding, and the bossy and quarrelsome Florence is a stronger
presence than Peggy, who seems to do little but practise the piano and
dream of being a concert pianist. The many black-and-white photographs
tell the story: the sombre young woman becomes, after Florence’s
death, an independent and wealthy woman in Shanghai (the snaps depict
Peggy with a smile). Then came the war during which she spent two years
in a Japanese internment camp, working at a job for the first time in
her life.

In 1945, Peggy arrived in Victoria and bought some land on Fairfield
Road. She married a friend she had known since the 1920s, Prince Nicolas
Abkhazi of Georgia, whose education perfectly fitted him to work with
her on her other great love—the landscaping on her property that would
grow into the acclaimed Abkhazi Garden. The story picks up energy as we
see the headstrong Peggy pursue her dream in mid-century Victoria.

The princess attracted admirers and detractors, and this is what makes
her interesting as a character; she insisted on her royal prerogatives
yet was generous to the people who supported her. In the end, we are
left with a feeling of admiration for the women who fulfilled a dream
and bequeathed a treasure to her adoptive city.