- Marjorie Merriweather Post
-
Marjorie Merriweather Post Born March 15, 1887
Springfield, IllinoisDied September 12, 1973 (aged 86) Occupation Philanthropist, socialite, Postum Cereal Company owner, General Foods founder Net worth USD $5 billion (2008 dollars) Marjorie Merriweather Post (March 15, 1887 – September 12, 1973, Springfield, Illinois) was a leading American socialite and the founder of General Foods, Inc.
She was the daughter of C. W. Post and Ella Letitia Merriweather. At age 27, when her father died, she became the owner of the rapidly growing Postum Cereal Company, founded in 1895. She was subsequently the wealthiest woman in America, when her fortune reached approximately USD $250 million.
Contents
Marriages
Post married four times. In 1905, she married investment banker Edward Bennett Close of Greenwich, Connecticut, and divorced in 1919. Their eldest daughter, Adelaide, married Thomas Durrant, Merrall MacNeille, and banker Augustus Riggs. Their second daughter, Eleanor Post Close, later known in the media as Eleanor Post Hutton, married film director Preston Sturges, Etienne Marie Robert Gautier, George Curtis Rand, Hans Habe, Owen D. Johnson, and orchestral conductor Leon Barzin. (Through his second marriage, Edward Close would become the paternal grandfather of actress Glenn Close.)
She married for a second time, in 1920, financier Edward Francis Hutton. In 1923, he became the chairman of the board of the Postum Cereal Company, and they developed a larger variety of food products, including Birdseye Frozen Foods. The company became the General Foods Corporation in 1929. Post and Hutton divorced in 1935. Their only child, Nedenia Marjorie, became an actress under the name Dina Merrill, who married Stanley M. Rumbough, Jr., actor Cliff Robertson, and Ted Hartley.
In 1935, Post married her third husband, Joseph E. Davies, a Washington lawyer. Before the couple divorced in 1955, they lived in the Soviet Union from 1937 to 1938, while he served as the second American ambassador to the Soviet Union, under Joseph Stalin. During this time, Davies and Post acquired many valuable Russian works of art from Soviet authorities.
In 1951, the house in which they resided in Brookville, New York, was sold to Long Island University for USD $200,000. It became C.W. Post College in 1954, now known as the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University. Ms. Post served as the honorary house mother of the college's first local fraternity, Sigma Beta Epsilon, which became in 1969 the New York Beta chapter of the nation's largest national fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Since Post had borne only girls, she referred to the fraternity of sons-in-law as her "boys" while they called her "Mother Marjorie." Post was honored by Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity as a "Golden Daughter of Minerva."
Her final marriage occurred in 1958 to Herbert A. May, a wealthy Pittsburgh businessman and the former Master of Fox Hounds of The Rolling Rock Hunt Club in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. She divorced May in 1964 and subsequently reclaimed her full maiden name of Marjorie Merriweather Post.
Russian Art Collection
During the 1930s, the Soviet government under Joseph Stalin began selling art treasures and other valuables seized from the Romanov family and other Russian citizens after the Russian revolution in order to earn hard currency for its industrialization and military armament programs. Critics have claimed that these items were expropriated; however, Post and Davies's transactions were from the recognized governmental authority. Neither she herself (nor Davies for that matter) were involved with the original seizing of the items.
Later allegations that many works of art from the Tretyakov Gallery and other collections were either donated or offered at nominal prices to Post and Davies, who were both art collectors. Davies is also alleged to have purchased art expropriated from Soviet citizens well after the Russian Revolution, including victims of Stalin's Terror at discount prices from Soviet authorities.[1]
Many of the items, which remain under the control of the Post estate or the agents, can be viewed at Hillwood, the former Washington, D.C., estate of Post. It has operated as a private museum since Ms. Post's death and displays her French and Russian art collection, featuring the work of Fabergé, Sèvres porcelain, French furniture, tapestries, and paintings.
Lifestyle
Mar-A-Lago, Marjorie Merriweather Post's estate on Palm Beach Island. Library of Congress photograph, HABS.
Entrance to Mar-A-Lago owner's suite, April 1967.In addition to Hillwood and other estates, Marjorie Merriweather Post's other lavish home was Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. Designed by Joseph Urban, Mar-A-Lago was purchased from the Post Family Trust by Donald Trump. He in turn had the 110,000 sq. ft. (10,000 m²) house completely restored to its original state. Mar-A-Lago originally had 115 rooms and a 9-hole golf course. It sits on a strip of land between the Atlantic Ocean and Lake Worth and has been nicknamed "the jewel of Palm Beach."
She and second husband, E. F. Hutton, owned Sea Cloud (Hussar V), the largest privately owned sea-going yacht in the world at the time. Post also owned Camp Topridge on Upper St. Regis Lake in the Adirondacks, which she considered a "rustic retreat." It included a fully staffed main lodge and private guest cabins, each staffed with its own butler. The expansive Great Camp, built in 1923 by Ben Muncil, eventually contained nearly 70 buildings as well as a Russian dacha, on 300 acres. It was one of only two Adirondack camps to be featured in LIFE magazine. Another home, which she shared with Joseph Davies in Washington, D.C., was called Tregaron.
Some of Ms. Post's jewelery bequeathed to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., is displayed in the Harry Winston exhibit. Pieces in the collection include the Napoleon Necklace and the Marie Louise Diadem (a 275 ct. [55g] diamond-and-turquoise necklace and tiara set that Napoleon I gave to his second wife, Empress Marie Louise); a pair of diamond earrings set with pear shapes, weighing 14 ct.(2.8g) and 20 ct. (4g), once belonging to Marie Antoinette; the Blue Heart Diamond, a 30.82 ct. (6.164g) blue-heart diamond ring; and an emerald-and-diamond necklace and ring, once belonging to Mexican emperor Maximilian.
She funded a U.S. Army hospital in France during World War I, and, decades later, the French government awarded her the Legion of Honor. In 1971, she was among the first three recipients of the Silver Fawn Award, presented by the Boy Scouts of America.
The Merriweather Post Pavilion, an outdoor concert venue in Columbia, Maryland, is named for her.
The Marjorie R. Post Park in Massapequa Park, New York, on Long Island has been incorrectly linked with the cereal heiress, but that park was in fact named for Marjorie R. Post (now Marjorie Toombs of Vermont), who was the first woman elected to the board of the Town of Oyster Bay. It is unknown at this time if there is any connection between the Long Island branch of Marjorie Merriweather Post's family and that of Marjorie R. Post for whom the park in Massapequa is named.
Popular Culture
In the movie Mission to Moscow that is based on Davies's ambassadorship. Mrs. Davies (née Ms. Post) is played by Ann Harding.
A film based on The New York Times feature "Mystery on Fifth Avenue," which describes an riddle-laden architectural renovation by Eric Clough and architectural firm 212box of a Fifth Ave. 1920s triplex built for Merriweather Post[2], is in development by J.J. Abrams[3] and expected out in 2013.[4]
Notes
References
- Rubin Stuart, Nancy (1995). American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post. New York: Villard.
External links
Categories:- 1887 births
- 1973 deaths
- People from Springfield, Illinois
- American philanthropists
- American socialites
- Légion d'honneur recipients
- People from Palm Beach, Florida
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
