Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Cordelia Drexel BIDDLE
Philadelphia Daily News (PA) - November 27, 1984
Deceased Name: SHE GAVE IT HER ALL PHILANTHROPIST CORDELIA BIDDLE ROBERTSON DIES AT 86
Cordelia Biddle Robertson, Philadelphia-born philanthropist and author who hob-nobbed with ambassadors and European royalty, died Sunday in her home on Park Avenue, New York City. She was 86.
Mrs. Robertson, who grew up in the Biddle family's former townhouse at 2104 Walnut St., was active in social circles as well as charities benefiting artists and disadvantaged youth.
Her book, "My Philadelphia Father," about her flamboyant father, Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, was made into a hit Broadway play in 1958 entitled "The Happiest Millionaire," starring Walter Pidgeon.
A later movie of the same name starred Fred MacMurray as the individualistic Biddle, who liked to pal around with boxers, kept pet alligators in the house and made his family members, including Cordelia, box in a ring he set up in their home.
Born in Philadelphia in 1898, Mrs. Robertson came to New York after marrying Angier B. Duke, an American Tobacco Co. executive, at the age of 17. The wedding made social headlines in 1915. They had two children and then were divorced.
A son from that marriage, Angier Biddle Duke, of Manhattan, was chief of protocol under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson and served as an ambassador to El Salvador, Spain, Denmark and Morocco.
Mrs. Robertson's older brother, Anthony J. Drexel Biddle Jr., was an ambassador to Norway and Poland.
Following her divorce from Duke, she married architect Thomas Markoe Robertson, who died in 1962.
During her marriage to Robertson, she became active in the Musicians Emergency Fund and wrote her book, donating all proceeds to Boys Harbor, an inner-city youth center.
She was a board member for 35 years of Boys Harbor, which was founded in 1937 by her youngest son, Anthony Drexel Duke, of Glen Head, N.Y.
In an interview with a New York newspaper when Mrs. Robertson was in her 60s, the interviewer wrote, "The aura of youth clinging to this illusion. It is no product that can be bought in a beauty shop or designer's salon. Hers is a youth that laughs at the insolent years . . .
"I'm never bored," she told the interviewer. She kept busy with her many social and philanthropic activities.
Her friends in high society included the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. She was listed in the Social Register.
Although she designed her own clothes, Mrs. Robertson was proud of the fact that she could not cook. After all, where she grew up there were always cooks to prepare the food and a domestic staff to serve it.
In addition to her two sons, Mrs. Robertson is survived by 15 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.
Services were to be conducted tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. by the Rev. Paul Moore, Episcopal bishop of New York, at St. Bartholomew's Church. Burial was to follow at Southampton Cemetery.
Copyright (c) 1984 Philadelphia Daily News
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