Famous Givers and Their GiftsBolton, Sarah Knowles
History
Famous Givers and Their Gifts
Bolton, Sarah Knowles
Philanthropists
Mr. Rockefeller belongs to few social organizations, his church work and
his home-life sufficing. He is a member of the New England Society, the
Union League Club of New York, and of the Empire State Sons of the
Revolution, as his ancestors, both on his father's and mother's side,
were in the Revolutionary War.
His home is a very happy one. Into it have been born five
children,--Bessie, Alice, who died early, Alta, Edith, and John D.
Rockefeller, Jr.
Bessie is married to Charles A. Strong, Associate Professor of
Psychology in Chicago University, a graduate of both the University of
Rochester and Harvard, and has been a student at the Universities of
Berlin and Paris. He is a son of the Rev. Dr. Augustus H. Strong,
President of Rochester Theological Seminary.
Edith is married to Harold F. McCormick of Chicago, a graduate of
Princeton, and son of the late Cyrus H. McCormick, whose invention of
the reaper has been a great blessing to the world. Mr. McCormick gave
generously of his millions after he had acquired wealth.
John D. Rockefeller, Jr., is at Brown University, and will probably be
associated with his father in business, for which he has shown much
aptitude.
The children have all been reared with the good sense and Christian
teaching that are the foundations of the best homes. They have dressed
simply, lived without display, been active in hospital, Sunday-school,
and other good works, and found their pleasures in music, in which all
the family are especially skilled, and in reading. They enjoy out-door
life, skating in winter, and rowing, walking, and riding in the summer;
but there is no lavish use of money for their pleasures.
The daughters know how to sew, and have made many garments for poor
children. They have been taught the useful things of home-life, and
often cook delicacies for the sick. They have found out in their youth
that the highest living is not for self. A recent gift from Miss Alta
Rockefeller is $1,200 annually to sustain an Italian day-nursery in the
eastern part of Cleveland. This summer, 1896, about fifty little people,
two years old and upwards, enjoyed a picnic in the grounds of their
benefactor. Mrs. Rockefeller's mother and sister, Miss Lucy M. Spelman,
a cultivated and philanthropic woman, are the other members of the
Rockefeller family.
Besides Mr. Rockefeller's summer home in Cleveland, he has another with
about one thousand acres of land at Pocantico Hills, near Tarrytown on
the Hudson. The place is picturesque and historic, made doubly
interesting through the legends of Washington Irving. From the summit of
Kaakoote Mountain the views are of rare beauty. Sleepy Hollow and the
grave of Irving are not far distant. The winter home in New York City is
a large brick house, with brown-stone front, near Fifth Avenue,
furnished richly but not showily, containing some choice paintings and a
fine library.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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