Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Ruth Ellen DU PONT
Four stories illuminate the drive, passions and down-to-earth qualities of Ruth du Pont Lord, who died Monday at the age of 92, the last of the Henry F. du Pont family that once called Winterthur home.
>> While neither her mother, Ruth, nor sister, Pauline, attended college, Ruth told her father, who had graduated from Harvard University himself, that she wanted to go. "What?" he demanded. "How old will you be when you get out?" "22, Pa," she said in a quavering voice. "Oh," he said, "I guess that would be all right."
>> She would go on to be valedictorian of the 1943 class at Vassar College, fueled partly by the embarrassment she felt when her father, mother and chauffeur helped her move in. She heard someone in the hall say, "Did you see that du Pont girl moving in with all her servants?" Although they meant her parents, she was so horrified she set about working to not have a reputation as the girl they expected her to be. She would go on to work at Yale and co-author a textbook about foster children and a book about her father and Winterthur.
>> Her first marriage ended in divorce, and her second husband died, but then she and childhood friend Harry G. "Hal" Haskell Jr., former mayor of Wilmington, ran into each other at a party in Boca Grande, Florida, about seven years ago, shortly before his wife Mimi died from cancer. After Mrs. Haskell's death, Lord invited Haskell to New York and they instantly became an item. Early on, as he was trying to impress her, he told her he had given away — and named — an astronomical amount. "Oh," she said. "I've given away"... and named an amount three times what he said. Virtually all of it was anonymously.
>> Because both had established families and considerable estates, they decided not to marry and complicate financial matters. Haskell, though, insisted on a commitment ceremony and he worked with the Rev. Ruth Lawson Kirk and the Rev. Cal Wick of Christ Church to write one that he thought Lord, who Haskell said considered herself an agnostic, would like. "Who should we invite?" he asked. "Nobody," she said. "Let's just go to the chapel and do it." So the four of them did, with Haskell slipping a ring on her finger.
Lord was hospitalized in New Haven, Connecticut, for a leg infection and was getting better Sunday when she developed a bleed in her brain and died, Haskell said. Haskell said while he was visiting the night before she died, when she was expected to come home the next day, he told her he was ready to meet his maker. "I'm ready to go, too," she told him. "I just hope it'll be fast. Why don't we jump off a cliff together." No, he said. "It's too messy a way to go, and I haven't got the nerve." They laughed. The next morning, she was gone.
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Lord is survived by three children — Pauline, Henry and George, known as Woody, and four grandchildren, Haskell said. One daughter, Edith, died as an infant. A memorial service will be held in New Haven on Aug. 17, and a public funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Sept. 6 at Christ Church. She will be buried at the family plot where her mother, father and sister are buried, he said.
"We are so sad and shocked," said Winterthur estate historian Maggie Lidz, who often worked with Lord. "It's the end of an era for the estate and the institution. She was the last direct family member with involvement here at Winterthur."
Many people may remember Lord from a long-playing video that greeted guests taking a tour of the mansion. The estate, which became a public museum in 1951, is known worldwide not only because H.F. was the first big name to collect American antiques and was an exquisite decorator, but also because of its conservation program, which has graduates in virtually every large museum across the country.
Lord's willingness to talk about family life allows Winterthur to be specific about the house, such as who lived there and how they lived, Lidz said. When Lord was a child, the family spent springs, falls and holidays at Winterthur, where they also came for celebrations such as weddings. Lord was in the process of writing a book about her mother, Lidz said.
Haskell, whose family was close friends and business associates of the du Ponts, remembers playing with Ruth in the construction of one of H.F.'s house expansions when they were about 6. "Why do you need such a big house?" he asked her. "I don't know," she said.
Lord, who was born in New York on Jan. 14, 1922, considered herself a lifelong New Yorker, although she also had homes in Connecticut and Florida. She was one of three people who helped found Long Wharf Theater in New Haven.
"She never felt like this was her home," Lidz said. "She always knew her father was turning it into a museum and she knew she would never inherit it."
Lord wasn't shy like her father, Haskell says. She was athletic and involved.
"Ruth was the most generous person, with every thought, not just money but her love and her time," Haskell says.
Lidz said, "She was funny and she was smart and she was tactful. I think everybody who knew her felt lucky to have known her."
In Lord's book, "H.F. du Pont and Winterthur," Lord describes struggling to write a note to her father asking him to leave her the Golf Cottage on the estate, a simple small home that overlooks the golf course. The family never discussed money or wealth, and she was worried about offending him. When she didn't hear back from him, she asked her mother if he'd gotten the letter. Yes, her mother told her, and it was a lovely letter. When she finally asked him, he told her he was too old to change his will. But he did, and whenever she's been in Delaware, she has stayed there. The cottage will now become a part of the estate, Haskell said.
Ruth Ellen duPont Lord of New Haven and East Lyme, CT, died Monday, Aug. 4 2014 in New Haven. Born in 1922 to Henry Francis and Ruth Wales duPont, Ruth grew up in New York City as well as Winterthur Delaware and Boca Grande Florida. She attended Foxcroft School, Vassar College and received a Masters degree in Education from Yale. She and her first husband, George de Forest Lord, lived a Yale-centered life in New Haven and raised three children, Pauline, George and Henry. Their baby daughter, Edith, died in 1954. In 1964, Ruth and three friends founded the Long Wharf Theatre, to which she remained passionately committed. She and George Lord divorced in 1977. In 1970, she took a job at Yale New Haven Hospital, co-leading support groups for parents of severely ill children and writing research papers on disparate topics, including a teenage girl's right to refuse kidney dialysis and the impact on the patient of the death of the psychoanalyst. She later became Research Associate at Yale's Child Study Center, working on custody issues. In 1994, she collaborated with Albert J. Solnit and Barbara Nordhaus in publishing, "When Home is No Haven." Ruth spent 16 joyful years with her second husband, John Grier Holmes, a theatre man and one-time head of the Yale Whiffenpoofs. At his urging, she wrote "Henry Francis duPont and Winterthur - A Daughter's Portrait," now in its 4th printing. John Holmes died in 1997. In her mid-80's, Ruth by chance re-met her childhood friend and neighbor, Harold G Haskell, of Chadds Ford, and a marvelous romance blossomed. They were "Partners for Life" until her death. Ruth wrung the most out of life, with an upbeat spirit, hilarious, irreverent sense of humor, deep friendships, and generosity to causes that included social welfare, education, the theatre, and the environment.
Her death creates a terrible void for family, colleagues and friends including Hal Haskell, Pauline Lord & David Harlow of East Lyme, George de F. and Gail Lord of Athens GA, Henry Lord of New Haven, 5 grandchildren, and 3 great-grandchildren.
A funeral service will be held Saturday, Aug. 16 at 3 p.m. at St. Ann's Episcopal Church in Old Lyme CT. A second service will occur September 6 at 11 a.m. at Christ Church Christiana Hundred in Greenville, DE. Burial will be in the duPont Cemetery
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