She learned German and started working for the YMCA in Cologne. She also worked for the British Army of the Rhine and raised prize cattle. William Frederick Collings died on 20 June 1927, and was succeeded by his widowed daughter. Towards the end of his life, he stopped requesting from the inhabitants the payment of tithes, wheat and "poulage" (a feudal tax of two chickens). Upon her accession, the new dame immediately reasserted her feudal rights, and even noted: "They always give me the skinniest and oldest [chickens]". Some islanders complained about Sark being the last remnant of feudalism in Europe, but the Dame maintained that agriculture had to be encouraged to make the island more self-sufficient. She used the island's unique feudal system to draw tourists, and refused to allow anything to deter them by ruining its peacefulness. She thus banned motor vehicles and holiday camps, but the Chief Pleas refused to pass an ordinance that would forbid selling alcohol to anyone known to get drunk. Like her eldest son Francis, heir apparent to the seigneurship, she was fascinated by film production. While "Appointment with Venus" was being shot on Sark in 1951, the Dame even deigned to allow a car ashore, ostensibly believing that "a Land Rover was some sort of senior Boy Scout". In autumn 1929, the Dame was on her way to a holiday in the United States when she met Robert Hathaway, an American-born former army aviator. On 5 November, following her return from the United States and a twelve-day-long courtship, they married at St Marylebone Parish Church. Robert was not aware that the marriage made him "jure uxoris" seigneur of Sark, his wife's co-ruler, until they set foot on the island. Hathaway's strong personality, however, ensured that she had the final say in the matters of government; while her husband attended government meetings as seigneur, she accompanied him to "give advice". Lecture tours in the United States, aided by her second husband's connections, were part of her efforts to promote tourism and bring more revenue to the island. Hathaway's tenure as seigneur was interrupted by the German occupation of the Channel Islands in the Second World War from 3 July 1940 until 8 May 1945. While some inhabitants of other Channel Islands were evacuated, Hathaway declared that she would not leave her island, and prevailed upon all native-born islanders to remain as well.