Betsey Whitney
| Betsey Cushing Roosevelt Whitney | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Betsey Maria Cushing May 18, 1909 Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. |
| Died |
March 25, 1998 (aged 88) Manhasset, New York, U.S. |
| Spouse(s) |
James Roosevelt II
(m. 1930; div. 1940)
John Hay Whitney
(m. 1942; d. 1982) |
| Children |
Sara Delano Roosevelt Kate Roosevelt |
| Parent(s) |
Harvey Williams Cushing Katharine Stone Crowell |
| Relatives |
Mary Benedict Cushing (sister) Barbara Cushing (sister) |
Betsey Maria Cushing Whitney (May 18, 1909 – March 25, 1998) was an American philanthropist, a former daughter-in-law of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and later wife of U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, John Hay Whitney.
She was the middle daughter of prominent neurosurgeon Dr. Harvey Williams Cushing and Katharine Stone Crowell, who hailed from a socially prominent Cleveland family. Dr. Cushing, who was descended from Matthew Cushing, an early settler of Hingham, Massachusetts, served as professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins, Harvard and Yale Universities, and established the family in Boston.
Though Betsey had two brothers, she and her two sisters became known in the social world as the "Cushing Sisters", heralded for their charm and beauty. All three sisters were schooled by their social-climbing mother to pursue husbands of wealth and prominence, and coached to become socially acceptable to important men. As a result of their mother's coaching to marry well, all three Cushing sisters married into wealth and prominence: Betsey's older sister, Mary "Minnie", married Vincent Astor, the heir of a $200 million fortune, in 1940, and her younger sister Barbara "Babe" was married to Standard Oil heir Stanley Mortimer, Jr., and later to CBS founder William S. Paley. Both of Betsey's sisters died of cancer within months of each other in 1978.
Betsey established the Greentree Foundation in 1983 to assist local community groups. She was a benefactor of North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, built in the early 1950s on 15 acres (61,000 m2) donated by Whitney. Betsey was also involved with the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), Yale University and New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. Among her many public activities over the years were memberships on the boards of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the John Hay Whitney Foundation and the Association for Homemakers Service.
...
Wikipedia