Cynthia Roche

Cynthia Burke Roche (10 April 1884 – 18 December 1966) was an American socialite and an art collector from Newport, Rhode Island.

Cynthia Roche
Roche at the International Flower Show in New York, 1918
Born(1884-04-10)10 April 1884
London, England[1]
Died18 December 1966(1966-12-18) (aged 82)
Newport, Rhode Island, US
OccupationArt collector
Political partyRepublican
Spouse(s)
​
​
(m. 1906; died 1921)​

Guy Fairfax Cary
​
(m. after 1922)​
ChildrenEileen Burden
Guy Fairfax Cary Jr.
Cynthia Cary Van Pelt Russell
Parent(s)James Roche, 3rd Baron Fermoy
Frances Ellen Work

Life and work

She was born on 10 April 1884 in London to James Roche, 3rd Baron Fermoy (1852–1920), an Irish peer who was a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons, and Frances Ellen Work (1857–1947), an American heiress and socialite. Her brothers were Maurice Roche, 4th Baron Fermoy (1885–1955), the maternal grandfather of Diana, Princess of Wales, and the Hon. Francis Burke Roche (1885–1958).

In 1904, Good Housekeeping magazine described her as among the members of New York's Four Hundred (see The Four Hundred (1892)) who were daring and skilful automobilists.[2] Roche was also recognised as a skilled tennis player and horserider.[3]

In 1908, Roche became a naturalised United States citizen.[4]

Personal life

On 11 June 1906, Roche married Arthur Scott Burden. Burden was the grandson of industrialist Henry Burden and President of the family business Burden Iron Works, but his career was significantly impaired after two horse falls, the second of which seriously aggravated the injuries incurred from the first.[5] As a result of these injuries, Burden was placed under constant care from late 1913, and James A. Burden Jr., Arthur Burden's brother, filed a petition in Cynthia Roche's absence, (as both she and her daughter were in London at the time), requesting that Arthur Burden be declared incompetent.[3] Burden died from pneumonia in June 1921.[5] The couple had a daughter:

  • Eileen Burden (1910–1970),[5][6] who married investment banker Walter Maynard (d. 1971) and had three children.[7][8] They later divorced and in 1963,[9] she married Thomas Robins (1897-1977).[10] Robins was the son of Thomas Robins (1868–1957), inventor of the conveyor belt.[11]

In 1922, after her first husband's death, Roche married Guy Fairfax Cary Sr. (1879–1950) and they honeymooned at the fishing lodge of Robert Walton Goelet.[12] Cary, a lawyer who was a partner with Shearman & Sterling, was the son of Clarence Cary (1845–1911) and Elisabeth Miller Potter (1856–1945).[13] His father and aunt, Constance Cary (1843–1920), were the children of Archibald Cary and Monimia Fairfax.[14][15] Together, they had two children:

  • Guy Fairfax Cary Jr. (1923–2004), who died unmarried.[7]
  • Cynthia Cary (1924–2019), who married Charles Bingham Penrose Van Pelt (1922–2003) and had three children.[7] She later married Edwin F. Russell (1914–2001), who had four children.[16]

Cynthia died at her home in Newport, aged 82, on 18 December 1966.[17][18] She left an estate valued at $300,000. Her home and the residue of her estate were received by her son, Guy Fairfax Cary Jr.[19]

Descendants

Through her eldest daughter, she was the grandmother of Sheila Maynard, a clinical social worker who worked in Islamabad,[20] married Nicholas Platt,[8] a career diplomat who served as US ambassador to Pakistan, Zambia and the Philippines,[21] and had 3 sons: Adam Platt, a New York magazine restaurant critic, Oliver Platt (b. 1960), the actor, and Nicholas Platt Jr. Also through her eldest daughter, she was the grandmother to Walter Maynard Jr., an investment advisor with Morgan Stanley who married Pamela S. Silver in 1954 and has issue,[22] and John Maynard.[23]

Legacy

In 1981, the Redwood Library received her collected art as the Cynthia Cary Collection. It was donated by her son, Guy Fairfax Cary Jr. The art collection was amassed over decades by her. The collection was previously exhibited at Rhode Island School of Design and Christie's in Manhattan.[24]

References
  1. England & Wales Birth Index, St George in the East, 1c, 421
  2. "Cynthia Roche". Good Housekeeping. 38. 1904. p. 343.
  3. "Asks Burden Committee; Brother in Application Calls Relative Incompetent". The New York Times. 3 May 1921. p. 2. Retrieved 12 September 2009.
  4. "Mrs. Burden now a Citizen. The Former Cynthia Roche Takes Out Her Naturalization Papers". The New York Times. 19 July 1908. Retrieved 12 September 2009.
  5. "A Victim of Pneumonia, He Passes Away in Hospital After a Brief Illness. He was 42 Years Old. Twice Injured by Falls From His Horse. Husband of Cynthia Roche" (PDF). The New York Times. 16 June 1921. Retrieved 28 August 2009. Arthur Scott Burden, brother of James A. Burden, President of the Burden Iron Works of Troy and husband of the former Cynthia Roche, died yesterday of pneumonia at a branch of the New York Hospital in White Plains. ...
  6. "Mrs. Burden To Wed Guy F. Cary Today. Widow of Arthur Scott Burden Will Marry New York Lawyer at Newport. Bride Is the Only Daughter of Mrs. Burke-Roche and a Sister of Baron Fermoy". The New York Times. 24 July 1922. Retrieved 28 August 2009. The social colony here received a big surprise today when it became known that Mrs. Arthur Scott Burden of 147 East Sixty-first Street, New York, and Guy Fairfax Cary of 54 Park Avenue, New York, are to be married at one o'clock tomorrow afternoon at Elm Court, the Summer home of Mrs. Burden's mother on Bellevue Avenue.
  7. "Paid Notice: Deaths — CARY, GUY FAIRFAX". The New York Times. 19 November 2004.
  8. Times, Special To The New York (29 November 1971). "Walter Maynard Is Dead at 65; Leader in Securities Industry". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
  9. "Cynthia Roche". Princeton Alumni Weekly. Princeton University. 24 May 1963. p. 19.
  10. "Thomas Robins Jr., Company Chairman. Headed Hewitt-Robins, Producers of Synthetic Rubber". The New York Times. 29 May 1977. Retrieved 14 April 2016.
  11. "Thomas Robins, Inventor, 89, Dies. Developer of Heavy-Duty Conveyor Belt Had Headed Hewitt-Robins Company". The New York Times. 5 November 1957. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
  12. "Mrs. Burden To Wed Guy F. Cary Today. Widow of Arthur Scott Burden Will Marry New York Lawyer at Newport. Bride Is the Only Daughter of Mrs. Burke-Roche and a Sister of Baron Fermoy". The New York Times. 24 July 1922. Retrieved 28 August 2009. The social colony here received a big surprise today when it became known that Mrs. Arthur Scott Burden of 147 East Sixty-first Street, New York, and Guy Fairfax Cary of 54 Park Avenue, New York, are to be married at one o'clock tomorrow afternoon at Elm Court, the Summer home of Mrs. Burden's mother on Bellevue Avenue.
  13. "Mrs. Burden Weds Guy Fairfax Cary. Seventy Relatives and Friends at Widow's Marriage to New York Lawyer at Roche Home. Amid 11,000 Columbia Roses. Bridal Pair Leave by Motor for R. W. Goelet's Fishing Lodge in Canada to Spend Honeymoon". The New York Times. 25 July 1922. Retrieved 28 August 2009. In the presence of about seventy relatives and close friends in the reception room of Elm Court, the Summer home of Mrs. Burke Roche, on Bellevue Avenue, Mrs. Cynthia Roche Burden, Mrs. Roche's ...
  14. Archibald Cary was the son of Wilson Jefferson Cary and Virginia Randolph. Monimia Fairfax was the daughter of Thomas Fairfax, 9th Lord Fairfax of Cameron
  15. Pecquet du Bellet, Louise; Edward Jaquelin; Martha Cary Jaquelin (1907). Some Prominent Virginia Families, Vol. 2. Bell. p. 81.
  16. Meier, Barry (25 December 2001). "Edwin F. Russell, 87, Newspaper Publisher". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
  17. "MRS. GUY CARY, DIES; NEWPORT FIGURE, 82". The New York Times. 19 December 1966. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
  18. "Deaths | CARY -- Cynthia Burke Roche". The New York Times. 20 December 1966. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
  19. "Mrs. Cary Left $700,000". The New York Times. 31 December 1966. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
  20. "Weddings; Camilla Campbell, Oliver Platt". The New York Times. 13 September 1992. Retrieved 10 March 2008.
  21. Kipen, David (3 April 1995). "Oliver Platt: from second banana to pick of the bunch". L.A. Life. Los Angeles Daily News. p. L1.
  22. "Audrey Maynard Becomes the Bride of Kaighn Smith Jr". The New York Times. 19 September 1982.
  23. Times, Special to The New York (8 August 1954). "PAMELA S. SILVER BECOMES ENGAGED Former Wellesley Student to Be Bride of Lieut, Walter Maynard Jr. of Marines". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
  24. "Cynthia Cary Collection". Redwood Library & Athenæum. Archived from the original on 27 August 2009. Retrieved 12 September 2009. In 1981, the Redwood Library received the Cynthia Cary Collection from Guy Fairfax Cary Jr., in memory of his mother. Collected over decades by Mr. and Mrs. Guy Fairfax Cary Sr., devoted benefactors of Redwood who were passionately interested in 18th century English decorative arts, the Cary Collection contains nearly 200 English and related continental pattern books of furniture, decoration, and ornament from the late 15th century to the mid-19th century.
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