Elizabeth Wharton Drexel facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Elizabeth, Baroness Decies
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Portrait of Drexel by Giovanni Boldini, 1905
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| Born |
Elizabeth Wharton "Bessie" Drexel
April 22, 1868 |
| Died | June 13, 1944 (aged 76) |
| Burial place | Dahlgren Chapel, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. |
| Spouse(s) |
John Vinton Dahlgren
(m. 1889; Henry Symes Lehr
(m. 1901; The 5th Baron Decies
(m. 1936; |
| Children | Joseph Drexel Dahlgren John Vinton Dahlgren II |
| Parent(s) | Joseph William Drexel Lucy Wharton |
Elizabeth de la Poer Beresford, Baroness Decies (April 22, 1868 – June 13, 1944), was an American author and Manhattan socialite.
Birth
She was born on April 22, 1868, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Lucy Wharton (1841–1912) and Joseph William Drexel. Joseph was the son of Francis Martin Drexel, the immigrant ancestor of the Drexel banking family in the United States.
Career
Elizabeth was an author, who published two books, "King Lehr" and the Gilded Age (1935) and Turn of the World (1937). Her first novel, published after the death of her second husband, tells the story of her unhappy marriage to Lehr, which was referred to as a "tragic farce" of a 28-year marriage. It was described as follows in Time magazine,
A bitter, disillusioned book, 'King Lehr' is memorable for the lurid light it throws on U. S. Society of the Gilded Age, may confidently be opened as one of the most startling and scandalously intimate records of life among the wealthy yet written by one of them.
Her second book, and first as Lady Decies, Turn of the World, was also a semi-autobiographical history of American high society during the Gay Nineties up through the First World War. Upon the book's publication, The Pittsburgh Press wrote,
The magnificent spectacle that went on behind the scenes in pre-war days of society's Gilded Age at Saratoga, Newport, New York and Paris is detailed by an insider, Elizabeth, Lady Decies, who was Miss Elizabeth Wharton Drexel interesting, amusing and sometimes revolting, as with evident nostalgia she tells of extravagant parties and fortunes spent for clothes and jewels.
Personal life
First marriage
On June 29, 1889, Elizabeth married John Vinton Dahlgren (1869–1899), a graduate from Georgetown University and the son of Admiral John Adolph Dahlgren (1809–1870) at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. Together, they had two sons:
- Joseph Drexel Dahlgren (1890-1891), who died as an infant
- John Vinton Dahlgren Jr. (1892–1964), who married Helen Broderick in 1946, was a graduate of Harvard and Georgetown.
During this marriage, she made generous donations to Roman Catholic charities and to Georgetown University, including funds for the construction of Dahlgren Chapel, named for her first son. The latter asked for her portrait, which was painted in 1899 by the Swiss-born American artist Adolfo Müller-Ury (1862–1947). Dahlgren died August 11, 1899, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he had gone in hopes of recovering from an illness .
Second marriage
In June 1901, Elizabeth married Henry Symes Lehr (1869–1929), aka Harry Lehr. The marriage was never consummated. On her wedding night, she was informed by her husband that he loathed her and could not stand the thought of touching her ever, although he wanted her to understand she was to be cordial to him in public and he might in turn occasionally call her "darling". He had, he admitted, married her for her money because poverty terrified him.
In 1915, the Lehrs were in Paris, and Elizabeth worked for the Red Cross. They remained in Paris after World War I, where they bought in 1923 the Hôtel de Cavoye at 52, rue des Saints-Pères in the 7th arrondissement. Harry Lehr died on January 3, 1929, of a brain malady in Baltimore.
Third marriage
On May 25, 1936, she married The Rt Hon. The 5th Baron Decies (1866–1944), a widower and Anglo-Irish peer who had previously been married to Helen Vivien Gould (1893–1931). Upon this marriage, she became The Rt Hon. Elizabeth, Baroness Decies.
Lord Decies filed suit for divorce in 1942, which Lady Decies contested.
Lord Decies died on 31 January 1944 at his Ascot home. Lady Decies died at the Hotel Shelton in London on 13 June 1944. She was buried in the crypt below Dahlgren Chapel at Georgetown University, which she and her first husband had built as a memorial to their son, Joseph Drexel Dahlgren, who died in infancy.
Published works
