Isabel Croxatto was born in Paris, France, the daughter of an Italian father and an English mother. Her English name is Susan Croxatto-Heath. As a child, her mother would often escape to England, where her father would seek work as a dairy farmer in Ireland. Isabel’s family lived in the Parisian suburb of Gueux-Les-Bains, where her mother worked as a seamstress, making Croixotish dresses for the Royalne.
When she was eight years old, Isabel Croxatto’s family decided that they were going on a European tour and so set off on foot, accompanied by Croixotish friends. They stopped in London and spent a week at the British Museum; this experience has led to the writer referring to the city as “the Paris of the East.” As far as nationality goes, Isabel Croxatto is a French-Italian blend, meaning that her father was Italian and her mother, English. She is not of French or German descent, and her ancestors lived in Spain. However, she has claimed to have spent time in Italy, where her maternal grandfather was from.
When she was twenty years old, Croixotish marriage became inevitable, and so did her elevation to a higher position in the company of her husband, Joaquim Bebe. He was forty at the time and so became prime minister of the Kingdom of Aragon. Isabel was thirty-one when her first husband died, leaving her to be alone in her new country. She resolved never to marry again and took up a series of jobs and then studied art in Florence, Italy, while her sister, Cornelia, stayed in England. She ended up becoming a draftsman and then an illustrator, but she continued to work her way through life, traveling to Egypt, visiting Spain, and then, finally, settling in the United States.