Rash's Surname Index
Notes for John Rozet III DREXEL
New York Times, The (NY) - April 23, 2007
Deceased Name: John R. Drexel III, 87, Scion of Banking Family
John R. Drexel III, scion of a powerful Philadelphia banking family and a prominent socialite in an era when the charity galas and debutante balls of the affluent dominated society-page headlines, died April 13 at his estate in Newport, R.I. He was 87.
The cause was heart failure, his daughter Noreen Drexel O'Farrell said.
Mr. Drexel was a great-great-great-grandson of Francis Martin Drexel who, in 1837, founded the banking house of Drexel & Company. His great-great grandfather Anthony J. Drexel was a partner of the financier J. P. Morgan and founded Drexel University in Philadelphia in 1891.
Through most of his life, John Rozet Drexel III managed the family's finances and directed its philanthropic activities, taking particular interest in local hospitals and an animal shelter.
Born on Oct. 6, 1919, Mr. Drexel was a son of Elizabeth Thompson and John R. Drexel Jr. He graduated from Harvard in 1942.
Mr. Drexel's wife of 66 years, the former Noreen Stonor, is a daughter of Lord and Lady Camoys of Stonor Park, Henley-on-Thames, England. The Camoys are one of England's oldest Roman Catholic families.
"They were born to enormous privilege and they had a good time," Ms. O'Farrell said of her parents' prominence in the social scene of the 1940s, '50s and '60s in Newport, Manhattan, and Palm Beach and Hobe Sound, Fla. "This was in the days when you got into the newspaper for being at a party. At the time, it was a perfectly acceptable career pattern."
The Duke and Duchess of Windsor were frequent guests at the Drexels' homes. In 1965, the guest list for their 25th wedding anniversary included notable names like Aldrich, Astor, Auchincloss and Rockefeller.
Besides his daughter Noreen O'Farrell and his wife, Mr. Drexel is survived by another daughter, Pamela Drexel; a son, John Drexel IV; a sister, Jane Porteous; a brother, David; seven grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
Ms. O'Farrell said her father, who was fluent in French and could manage in several other languages, should have been a diplomat, "but he never seemed bored just socializing."
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