Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans
| Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Mary Duke Biddle February 21, 1920 New York City |
| Died | January 25, 2012 (aged 91) Duke University Hospital, Durham, North Carolina, U.S, |
| Alma mater | Duke University (A.B. 1939) |
| Known for | Philanthropy |
| Spouse(s) |
Josiah Charles Trent (1938–48) James Semans (1953–2005) |
| Children | Mary Trent Jones Sarah Trent Harris Rebecca Trent Kirkland Barbara Trent Kimbrell Jenny Semans Koortbojian James Duke Biddle Trent Semans Beth Semans Hubbard |
| Parent(s) |
Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, Jr. Mary Duke Biddle |
| Relatives |
Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle, Sr. Benjamin Newton Duke Washington Duke |
Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans (February 21, 1920 – January 25, 2012) was an American heiress, activist, politician, and philanthropist. She was the granddaughter of Benjamin N. Duke and the great-granddaughter of Washington Duke, both tobacco and energy tycoons who helped start Duke University. Semans is remembered for her support and work towards promoting the arts and humanities through various philanthropic entities.
Mary Duke Biddle was born in 1920 in New York City to Mary Lillian Duke Biddle and Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, Jr., and she lived a comfortable early life as the daughter of wealthy and prominent parents. Her mother was an aspiring opera singer and her father a retired World War I captain and a US ambassador. As a girl she learned to play the piano and attended the Hewitt School in New York. At the age of fourteen, her parents divorced and she moved to Durham, North Carolina to live with her grandmother.
In 1935 she enrolled at Duke's Women’s College where she met Josiah Charles Trent, a then medical student who eventually became the chief of Duke Hospital’s Division of Thoracic Surgery. Semans and Trent married in 1938 and together they had four daughters. The next year, Semans graduated from Duke, receiving a degree in Art History. However, just nine years later in 1948, Trent died of lymphoma, leaving Mary a widow with four girls.
Pushed by her mother and with the support of her childhood governess, Semans went back to Duke University as a student for three more semesters. While back at Duke, she met James Hustead Semans, a urologic surgeon visiting from Atlanta. Five years later Mary remarried to James, who that year joined Duke’s medical faculty. Together they had three children.
Later in life Semans would be known for her support of the arts, a love for which she claimed to have had her entire life.
Growing up in New York City, Semans listened daily to her mother’s opera singing and took private piano and dance lessons of her own. This exposure to music, along with frequent trips with her governess to opera houses, theatres, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art gave Semans an appreciation for art at an early age. While at one point she considered becoming a professional pianist, Semans stopped playing in college, a decision she said she later regretted. In an interview with North Carolina public television, Semans said that her love of the arts in combination with the Carolina area’s lack of support for them inspired much of her philanthropic work.
...
Wikipedia