My mother Liz Moynihan passed away at her home in New York City, aged 94, on 7 November 2023, which, fittingly, was election day, for Liz was campaign manager for her husband Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s four New York senate campaigns, winning landslide victories on minimal budgets.
When Senator Moynihan retired in 2000, he described Liz’s talents thus: “Every 6 years Liz would drop whatever she was doing, get through this little business, quite well, and then she would get back to India.”
And after Liz’s passing, so many condolences poured forth from India, Liz’s second home for 50 years. When the Moynihan family arrived in New Delhi in 1973, we were greeted by Kitty Galbraith, our beloved Cambridge neighbour and wife of US envoy John Kenneth Galbraith.
And like Kitty, and Steph Bowles, wife of US envoy Chester Bowles, Liz dispatched her official duties with style whilst venturing beyond the diplomatic enclave, taking my brother and myself all across India, often on third class trains. Liz hosted memorable parties, art exhibitions, colloquiums, although she agreed with Steph Bowles, who refused to live in Roosevelt House, that it was a dreary downgrade from the original ambassador’s residence, a glorious Luytens bungalow near Lodi Gardens.
Liz did add some improvements, including the circular rail around the decorative pool at the entrance “because people keep falling into it.” One of the first of the many lifelong friendships Liz forged in India was with Ruth and Cyrus Jhabvala, and it was Ruth’s husband Jhab who ignited Liz’s passion for Mughal Gardens, on walks through Old Delhi and Humayun’s Tomb.
In 1978, Liz returned to India with a copy of the Babur Nama, headed to the village of Jhor in Rajasthan, where she stayed at the Dak Bungalow. Guided by passages from Babur’s text, Liz strode to a stone terrace, pushed aside a tangle of vines and brush, and discovered the Mughal Emperor’s Lotus Garden.
“I was jumping up and down,” Liz recalled, “It was terrific.” This discovery was hailed in the Indian press, and Liz began a partnership with the Archeological Survey of India that continued for many years.
Liz was commissioned to design a Mughal Garden at the Jai Mahal Palace Hotel in Jaipur and authored two books: “Paradise as a Garden” and “The Moonlit Garden.” In 1983, Liz hosted Babur’s 500th birthday party at a Mughal pavilion in Agra.
Guests flew in from around the globe, Ismail Merchant brought a dance troupe from Mumbai, Senator Moynihan raised a glass to Babur and said, “I’d like to make a toast to the other man in my wife’s life.” In 1974, Ambassador Moynihan executed the famous “Rupee Deal” which the Times of India said “made headlines for writing what was then the biggest check in human history to Indira Gandhi”—which waived the debt on US loans made to India in the 1960s, helped repair diplomatic ties after Henry Kissinger’s “Tilt to Pakistan” and created the Indo-US Sub Commission on Art & Culture, a hugely successful exchange program.
Liz was on the board for many years and was furious with President Clinton and his Amb Frank Wisner for shutting it down in 1996. Liz worked with the Indian and US officials to try to revive the program, to no avail. As both the senator and ambassador’s wife, Liz was known for avoiding the society party circuit.
In a 1985 interview, Liz assessed elements of the diplomatic corps as “incestuous”, noting “they entertain each other, for the most part what they really cared about was their retirement home, had they bought all the things for it, and had they shipped them yet.”
Liz then described a 1974 garden party hosted by PM Indira Gandhi, for ambassador’s wives and children, noting “Mrs Gandhi said something very odd to me, she said ‘You’re doing the right thing not going to those parties— don’t you worry about their complaints.’ Well, that was the first I’d heard of their complaints. She knew all the gossip.”
One of Liz’s most enduring friendships was with design genius Rajeev Sethi, Liz championed Rajeev’s brilliant collaborations with the Smithsonian and his work with the Asian Heritage Foundation.
In 2014, Liz partnered with HH Maharaja Gaj Singh’s Mehrangarh Museum Trust, to give conservation training courses, and made annual visits to the program sites in Jodhpur and Nagur. She was a keen advocate of Ela Bhatt’s SEWA Foundation. Renana Jhabvala wrote after Liz’s passing; “She was a great supporter of SEWA and visited us several times, going to the villages with great interest even when she had so much trouble with her knees. Liz used her vast network and circle of friends to benefit the women at SEWA in many different ways.”
In an interview with a Washington reporter Liz said: “When I go to villages in India, I really don’t feel culturally different from the people I meet. They offer you tea, they have elegant manners, they want to carry your bag for you, they want to make your more comfortable. They love their children. It’s not all that different. We all want the same thing.” I will never forget the sheer delight of travelling in India with my mother Liz, her enduring love for its people and culture, and her wish for India and America to forever be united.
Maura Moynihan is a New York based journalist and author. Her website is: mauramoynihan.net.