Biography

Estelle Romaine Manville was the daughter of American industrialist Hiram Edward Manville, Chairman of the Board of the Johns-Manville Corp, and Henrietta Estelle Romaine. Upon her marriage in 1928 to nobleman Folke Bernadotte of Sweden, she became Estelle Bernadotte, Countess of Wisborg.

At the beginning of short documentary film Vittnesbördet (1945), she appears with her husband Count Folke Bernadotte, a diplomat noted for his negotiation of the release of about 31,000 prisoners from German concentration camps during World War. He headed the Red Cross rescue mission depicted that saved tens of thousands of Nazi concentration camp inmates by transporting the survivors from Germany via Denmark to Sweden. Three years later, Count Bernadotte became the first U.N. Mediator to Palestine and was murdered by Zionist extremists in Jersusalem, Israel. As his widow she continued the philanthropic endeavors with the organizations he had supported, including the International Red Cross, and would later serve as the first leader of the Folke Bernadotte Foundation, a charity that supports children with cerebral palsy.