Virginia Graham Fair

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Giovanni Boldini : Virginia Fair Vanderbilt, around 1910

Virginia Graham Fair , better known as Virginia Fair Vanderbilt (born January 2, 1875 in San Francisco , California , † July 15, 1935 in Manhattan , New York City ) was an American silver mine heiress and belonged to the wealthy Vanderbilt family by marriage on.

Life

Virginia Graham Fair (Birdie) was the daughter of the silver mine owner and politician James Graham Fair (1831-1894) and his first wife Theresa Rooney (1838-?). Her father, an Irish immigrant, made his fortune in the Comstock Lode silver mines and the Big Bonanza mine in Virginia City and Carson City ; and between 1881 and 1887 he was a United States Senator for the state of Nevada . Together with her older sister Therese Tessie Alice (1862–1926), later Mrs. Hermann Oelrichs , she received extensive training and was taught exclusively at home by governesses and tutors with the help of her father's library . Virginia was considered extremely intelligent and graduated from the exclusive girls' college Brearley School in classical literature and philosophy . After her father committed adultery with Phoebe Couzins , it sparked a social scandal. The parents' marriage ended in divorce in 1883 for common adultery . The custody of the three younger children remained with their mother and they later lived in San Francisco. The older brother, James Jr. - who stayed with the father - took his own life a little later.

Giovanni Boldini: William Kissam Vanderbilt II, oil on canvas, around 1910

On March 26, 1899, she married in San Francisco the racing driver and President of the New York Central Railroad William Kissam Vanderbilt II (1878-1944), eldest son of the railroad tycoon William Kissam Vanderbilt (1849-1920) and his first wife Alva Erskine Smith (1853-1933). The newspapers covered every detail, including the wedding favors - including a gold toilet seat. The young couple spent their honeymoon in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and then in Newport , Rhode Island , after a fire destroyed the 100-room Idlehour mansion down to the walls. The marriage, which all reports said was initially happy, had three children:

  • Muriel (1902-1982)
⚭ 1925-1929 Frederic Church Cameron Jr .
⚭ 1931–1936 Henry Delafield Phelps
⚭ 1936 JP Adams
  • Consuelo (1903-1994) ⚭ Earl ET Smith
  • William Kissam Vanderbilt III (1907–1933, fatal car accident)
Giovanni Boldini: Consuelo and Muriel Vanderbilt, around 1910

In early 1909, Virginia Fair Vanderbilt left her husband after bitter quarrels because she no longer wanted to tolerate his relationship with his lover Rosamund Lancaster Warburton (1897–1947). The divorce took place in Paris in 1927 because her husband wanted to remarry. The divorce proceedings were settled by their lawyers in New York City , while William Kissam II and his future wife waited discreetly in the Paris suburb of Passy - far from the mass media . She received no livelihood as she was amply secured by her father's inheritance (about $ 200 million). On the day of the divorce, she sold the Fifth Avenue townhouse in New York to her friend, John D. Rockefeller II (1874–1960), for $ 1.5 million.

During the First World War , Birdie was an active supporter of war victims - civil and military - and joined the American Committee for a Destroyed France , which cared for wounded soldiers and took care of the restoration of devastated towns in the front line. She also campaigned for human rights and founded a fund to build hospitals, churches and schools. Virginia Fair Vanderbilt achieved further popularity through her horse racing stable Fair Stable , in which she kept and bred the most valuable animals ( English thoroughbred ) of this sport. Her horse Saracen , which she acquired for $ 35,000, was named Horse of the Year in 1924 and 1925, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the National Museum of Racing in Saratoga Springs .

Due to the early death of her son, Virginia Fair Vanderbilt suffered from depression and died two years later in Manhattan of complications from pneumonia . Her remains were interred in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx .

literature

  • Arthur T. Vanderbilt II: Fortune's Children. The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt , William Morrow, New York (1989) ISBN 0-688-07279-8
  • Stuart Preston and Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan: The Glitter and the Gold , George Mann Books (1953; 1973) ISBN 0-7041-0002-9
  • Dixon Wecter: The Saga of American Society: A Record of Social Aspiration, 1607-1937 , C. Scribner's Sons (Ed.), University of Michigan (1937)

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Saracens | National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. Accessed January 1, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Fair, Virginia Graham
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fair Vanderbilt, Virginia; Fair, Virginia; Rooney Fair, Virginia; Vanderbilt, Virginia
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American silver mining heiress and was married to the wealthy Vanderbilt family
DATE OF BIRTH January 2, 1875
PLACE OF BIRTH San Francisco , California
DATE OF DEATH July 15, 1935
Place of death Manhattan , New York