Be that as it may, from that time on he and Martha became increasingly distant and withdrawn. Martha was largely responsible for this. She was always polite but made it clear she preferred to see us as little as possible. Father acquiesced. Martha was by nature reclusive and, when she was not with Father, spent most of her time in the company of her employees. Given Father’s temperament, which was certainly not gregarious, he found it easy to comply with her desire to avoid other people, even his children. Other than Martha, he saw only a few members of his office staff. I was saddened by Father’s isolation since it meant our children had little opportunity to know their grandfather.
Father’s marriage to Martha made the last years of his life happier, but his withdrawal from the family became progressively greater over time. Because they spent much of the spring and fall in Williamsburg, Virginia, and the winter months in Tucson, Arizona, they were rarely in New York, Maine, or Pocantico, where informal contacts with Father normally would have been easier.
As the decade wore on, Father’s health declined visibly. Part of this was his age (he turned eighty-five in 1959), but he also experienced difficulty breathing—the result of his chronic bronchitis—and developed a prostate condition as well. He had a serious operation in late 1959 but kept the prognosis secret, and after recuperating he went to Tucson for the winter. Since he refused to divulge the nature of his illness, it was difficult for family members to know what actions to take.
The only link we had was Mary Packard, the widow of Arthur Packard, Father’s longtime philanthropic advisor. A trained nurse, Mary had cared for Father after Mother’s death. She continued in that role after Father’s remarriage and also established a close relationship with Martha. Mary was willing to communicate with Peggy and me, and it was through her that we learned in early 1960 that Father had prostate cancer and had been hospitalized in Tucson. However, we were unable to contact either Father or Martha directly to confirm the diagnosis or even express our concern.
Father’s doctor in Tucson refused to give me a satisfactory answer about the severity of his condition, and I became even more concerned. Finally, I sent word to Father through Mary and the doctor that I thought he should have a second opinion on his illness and that I would like to visit him.
A PAINFUL LETTER
A few days later I received the most painful letter of my life. It was signed by Father. The tone was cold, even hostile, and said in part:
I am now physically able to speak frankly with regard to certain actions on the part of some of you boys in recent months, which have amazed and deeply wounded me. . . . Many weeks ago, I realized that the judgment of both my wife and my trusted friend, Mrs. Packard, was being questioned by some of you. I realized that, in opposition to my own decisions and wishes, pressures and interference were being brought to bear upon the doctors, which led me to ask some straight questions. Reluctant though they also were to answer, I insisted on their telling me the full facts and made very clear to them my resentment at the tactics used and their full implications. . . .
The added burden—not to say shock—that this must have been to one who was devoting her utmost of heart and intelligence to my welfare during a difficult period cannot as yet be estimated. Under doctors’ orders, she is at long last having a complete rest, which is felt to be the only means by which she can regain her strength. . . . Acutely conscious as I have been of the burdens she has carried because of my uncertain health in recent years, my heart is even heavier at the thought that my own sons should have added by one iota to these strains.
Father ended the letter by forbidding me or anyone else in the family from intervening any further in the matter.
This was a devastating letter to receive. But as I reread it and discussed it with Peggy, I realized it was totally unlike Father in style and content. Father was always direct and meticulous, but this letter was circuitous and disjointed; even his signature, slightly askew on the page, shaky and barely recognizable, seemed to have been added as an afterthought in order to give it legitimacy. Peggy believed, and I came to agree with her, that Martha had written it and somehow induced Father to sign it. And as we found out later, that was exactly what had happened. Father’s doctor later told me the letter was written in its entirety by Martha, and Father had on four occasions refused to sign it. I felt helpless, but Peggy was convinced we could not let the situation lie.
A FINAL GOOD-BYE
An opportunity for me to do something came a few weeks later. I was scheduled to attend a meeting of the Association of Reserve City Bankers in Phoenix in early April 1960. Since I would be close to Tucson, I called Mary to tell her I was coming to see Father. Mary didn’t try to dissuade me, and I believe she respected my request not to tell Martha of my proposed visit. I drove to Tucson and stopped first at the Arizona Inn where Martha and Mary were living. I did not see Martha but met briefly with Mary, who told me that Martha was bedridden and had not been to see Father for some weeks.
I was shocked by Father’s appearance; he was so feeble, he could hardly raise his head from the pillow. But he recognized me and showed unmistakably that he was touched I had come. I took his hand and told him that I loved him and that all of us in the family were deeply worried about his condition. There was no mention of the letter, but he made a special point of bringing up Martha. “She has been very good to me,” he said. “I hope that when I’m gone you boys will look after her.”
Father died on May 11, 1960. Peggy and I were in Madrid when we heard of his death, and returned home immediately. Nelson and Laurance had flown to Arizona when they learned that Father’s condition had become critical, but did not get there until after his death. They brought his body back to Pocantico, stopping in Little Rock to pick up Win. We followed the Rockefeller tradition of cremation and interred Father’s ashes next to Mother’s in the family cemetery in Tarrytown. Harry Emerson Fosdick, senior minister at Riverside Church, whom Father greatly admired and respected, presided at the graveside ceremony. Forty members of the family were present on a beautiful spring afternoon, the air sweet with the smell of lilacs and the dogwoods in full bloom.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
The formality with which Father approached relationships, even with his sons, created a distance that was bridged only on rare occasions. His death finally allowed me to see how much he had given me and how much I owed to him. His hard work and devotion to duty, his unwillingness to let his basic insecurity prevent him from becoming engaged with the affairs of the world, had set me a powerful example. His great wealth made his philanthropy possible, but money was just a lever. The force that enabled him to succeed was a determination rooted in his strong Christian values: that one should love one’s neighbor as oneself, that it is better to give than to receive.
Starting life with considerable insecurities myself, I am not sure I would have been able to go out and wrestle with the world had I not grown up with Father’s example, had I not learned from my earliest conscious moment that there are things that must be done whether one likes it or not. At times I reacted negatively to Father’s strong sense of duty because he made it seem too dreary and burdensome. But as I have learned, duty is liberating. It forces you to transcend your own limitations and makes you do things that may not come naturally but must be done because they are right.
Perhaps, too, having become a father myself and learned of my own inadequacies in that role, I became more sympathetic to Father’s idiosyncracies and limitations. You do the best you can. Father certainly gave me a lot to be thankful for. My visit enabled me to tell him how much I owed him and how deeply I cared for him. I would never have forgiven myself if I had not done so.
My brothers and I wanted to create a memorial to Father and agreed that a stained-glass window at Union Church—symbolically joining him with Mother—would be most appropriate. Given the death of Matisse, we had some difficulty identifying an artist of comparable stature who could do the window. Luckily, the year following Father’s death, Peggy saw
an exhibition at the Louvre of Marc Chagall’s stained-glass windows, destined for the Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem. She was greatly impressed and thought Chagall might be the artist we were looking for. She convinced me to see the so-called Jerusalem Windows before leaving Paris, and I came away equally enthusiastic.
After discussing the idea with my siblings and the Union Church congregation, we agreed to approach Chagall. I visited him at his home in St. Paul de Vence, and he agreed immediately to accept the commission. He consulted extensively with the family about Father and produced a beautiful window based on the parable of the Good Samaritan, the biblical story that seemed most fitting.*
DIVIDING THE ASSETS
Father’s death removed the man who had established the standards of excellence and provided the moral leadership not only for the family but also for the institutions he and Grandfather had created over the previous half-century. His principal heirs—my brothers and I—had to deal with a number of difficult issues relating to the management of these institutions at the same time that we struggled to find a new balance in our relationships with one another.
A lifetime devoted to philanthropy, the high cost of building and operating Rockefeller Center, and the creation of generous trusts for his wives, children, and grandchildren had substantially diminished Father’s fortune from its billion-dollar value in the mid-1920s. His estate was probated at $157 million. Father’s will divided these assets just about evenly between Martha and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. It may seem surprising that Father left nothing to his children or grandchildren, but in fact he had provided for all of us handsomely through the 1934 and 1952 Trusts and a number of direct gifts. By dividing his estate in the way he did, Father sheltered most of his remaining assets from “death duties” and provided my generation with additional philanthropic resources.
Father had given the matter a great deal of thought before choosing the RBF as the recipient of the charitable portion of his estate. By further endowing the RBF, Father made it one of the ten largest foundations in the country and made us stewards of the philanthropies he had done so much to promote. My brothers and I made up the majority of the board, and we would have the predominant voice in developing the RBF’s philanthropic program.
THE END OF THE EYRIE
The distribution of Father’s real estate and tangible assets, such as works of art and furnishings, proved to be complex. My brothers and I had purchased Father’s Maine properties in the early 1950s through Hills Realty with the understanding that Martha could use the Eyrie for as long as she desired after Father’s death. Martha had little inclination to return to Maine, however, so when she renounced her rights to the Eyrie, Nelson and I bought all the Maine property from Hills and decided to tear down the Eyrie. Its one hundred rooms made it completely impractical for any of us to use, but the Eyrie had many memories that we didn’t want to lose. Even though Martha had spent little time in Maine, she had redecorated the Eyrie extensively. It was understandable that she would not want to live under Mother’s shadow, but Martha’s taste was not Mother’s or mine. The thought occurred to me that before demolishing the house it would be nice to restore the interior to the way it had been when Mother was alive and then photograph it so we could remember it the way it had been.
I accomplished this with the help of a number of people who had worked at the Eyrie during Mother’s time. It was surprising how detailed our combined recollections were. When I couldn’t remember exactly where something belonged, I would close my eyes and imagine my Mother there, surrounded by the paintings and Oriental objects she adored, and their precise arrangement would come back to me. When my memory failed, somehow the others remembered.
We filled the house with flowers and even lit fires in the living room and dining room just as my parents had done on foggy days when we were children. When everything was ready, Ezra Stoller, the great architectural photographer, went to work and photographed the entire interior.
Once Stoller was finished, all my siblings came to Seal Harbor for the distribution of Mother’s belongings, which we accomplished by lottery. Every piece had been appraised and was numbered and catalogued; each of us drew lots to decide the order of choice. Then we picked items in turn until each of us had drawn our proportional monetary share. Several lawyers and secretaries attended the distribution and took meticulous notes on each choice. Peggy and I had done our homework pretty well, and so had Nelson and John, who was already forming a distinguished collection of Asian art. Win probably knew least but showed wonderful taste and made astute selections. It hardly mattered; Mother’s collection was so extensive and of such high quality that no one could fail to get many beautiful pieces.
With that final task completed, Nelson and I, who had inherited all of Father’s Maine property, gave the order to dismantle the building. All that remains of the Eyrie today is the brick and granite terrace along its southern side, from which one can still enjoy its magnificent view of the islandspotted ocean.
PASSING THE BATON
Some time later I studied a photograph taken of the six of us in the Eyrie living room the day the distribution of furnishings took place. We are grouped around Babs on a large sofa, laughing about something one of us had just said. The photographer captured us in midlife, each of us launched on our careers, with our own families and responsibilities, but all of us tied to one another and to a home that had meant much to each one of us when we were growing up.
Babs married her third husband, Jean Mauze, an affable southerner and a senior vice president of the U.S. Trust Company, in 1953. Although Babs was still shy and reserved, she had overcome many of her earlier problems coping with a strict, strong-willed father. She had become more involved in family affairs and joined the board of the RBF in the early 1950s.
Win left New York in 1954 in the midst of a painful and public divorce from Barbara (Bobo) Sears. Arkansas had more favorable divorce laws, but he also discovered that he liked the slower pace and rural rhythms of the state. He decided to make Arkansas his permanent home, bought a large ranch on Petit Jean Mountain north of Little Rock, and soon became involved in local politics and civic affairs. Although he detested the racism of Governor Orval Faubus, Win accepted the chairmanship of the State Industrial Development Commission and worked hard to attract corporations to the state and ease the regulatory burdens on those already there. His success in this post persuaded Win that he might have a future as a politician. He created the framework for a modern Republican Party in Arkansas, building it from the ground up. Meanwhile, Win married the former Jeannette Edris in 1956 and seemed quite happy with his new life.
John emerged from his struggles with Father in the late 1940s and early 1950s determined to make his own way as a philanthropist. He assumed the chairmanship of the Rockefeller Foundation in late 1952 and helped to channel its immense resources toward the support of scientific research and the application of that knowledge to the solution of a broad range of social problems around the world. Most significant, he championed Norman Borlaug’s work in hybrid seed production that would lead to the Green Revolution of the 1960s in Asia and Latin America.
However, it was John’s work in the field of population that was even more influential. When the foundation’s board proved unwilling to challenge the Catholic Church by adopting a comprehensive program of population measures—including support for birth control—John created the Population Council to do that work. By the mid-1950s, John had also emerged as a strong advocate of improved relations with the countries of East Asia and had created a particularly strong personal link with Japan. In New York, John led the effort to create a performing arts center that would become Lincoln Center, one of the world’s great centers of music and dance.
For most of his life Laurance had seemed willing to dwell in Nelson’s shadow, content to act as his surrogate and alter ego. This is actually an unfair characterization because Laurance’s roles as a venture capitalist and conservation
ist were highly innovative and even visionary, and owed nothing to Nelson. When Nelson started his political career and had little time for family affairs, Laurance became the principal executive of the organizations central to our family, running the Family Office and chairing both the RBF and Rockefeller Center. By assuming these heavy responsibilities he allowed the rest of us to pursue our independent careers. Laurance had a quiet strength and a sharp intelligence, but because he was so self-effacing, the importance of what he was doing for the family and for society was easily overlooked.
And finally there was Nelson, governor of New York, a potential president of the United States, and self-acclaimed and broadly accepted leader of our generation. I need to say more about Nelson because my relationship with him underwent a profound transformation beginning at this time.
NELSON AND THE POLITICS OF DIVORCE
A family advisor once said the two most expensive things a Rockefeller can do are run for public office and get divorced. Nelson did both. Even at the time he became governor of New York in 1958, Nelson already had his sights on the presidency. In 1959 he told his brothers he planned a publicity campaign to increase his national visibility. It was not a full-fledged campaign, yet he estimated it would cost a million dollars, and that proved to be just the beginning. Over the next decade each of us responded to his appeal for political contributions, but Laurance was by far the most generous. Brooke Astor, a longtime friend, also gave large sums to his campaigns, sometimes a million dollars at a time. However, it was Martha, whom Nelson assiduously cultivated after Father’s death, who became his most generous supporter, providing the largest share of his support, second only to the funds that Nelson had drawn from his 1934 Trust.
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