Peter Arrell Browne Widener II

Peter Arrell Browne Widener II (1895 – 1948) was a wealthy American racehorse owner and breeder who inherited the fortune of his father Joseph E. Widener, a founding benefactor of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and the second son of the extremely wealthy transportation and real estate magnate Peter A. B. Widener (1834–1915) and Hannah Josephine Dunton (1836 – 1896). His father was also a major figure in Thoroughbred horse racing, the President of Belmont Park from 1925 to 1939 and builder of Miami, Florida's Hialeah Park racetrack.

Early life

Peter A.B. Widener II was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, the oldest child and only son of Joseph Early Widener (1871–1943) and Ella Pancoast. He grew up in Palm Beach, spending winters at Il Palmetto, the Treanor & Fatio-designed South End landmark built for their parents and on the Widener family's Lynnewood Hall estate in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. Designed by Horace Trumbauer and Jacques Greber, the 110-room Georgian-style mansion, along with its extensive and important art collection, was built by his grandfather Peter A.B. Widener.

After graduating from private school in Massachusetts in 1915, P.A.B. II then went to Harvard for a year. While at Newport in July 1916 he made the papers for rescuing a daughter of prominent locals who had gone under in rough surf at Baileys Beach and held her in the water for 10 minutes until lifeguards arrived. In 1917 he went to Washington, D.C. with his father Joseph E. Widener who persuaded the Surgeon General to admit him to the Army as a Private despite having flat feet and a suspect heart condition, caused by a childhood bout of pneumonia. PAB II then served in World War I with the U.S. Expeditionary Forces in France with a medical unit, tending to the wounded and also serving as an interpreter because of his fluency in French. He rose through the ranks to Sergeant and then returned to Elkins Park as 1st Lieutenant in March 1919.^[1][2]

P.A.B. II spent the next few years on the Widener estate at Lynnewood Hall and began to breed champion German Shepherd dogs. He purchased one dog in Germany for $8,000 and in 1920 built extensive kennels on the grounds of Lynnewood Hall. Old newspaper clippings contain photographs of the youthful looking, well dressed P.A.B. II with his dogs. Throughout the 1920s and into the 1930s his Shepherds won titles, sometimes several years in a row, at various dog shows all over the East Coast, including the Westminster Kennel Club show in New York. He later branched out to include other breeds including Dachshunds.^[3][4]

Thoroughbred horse racing

Peter A.B. Widener II used his great wealth to continue his family's interest in Thoroughbred horse racing on a large scale. Not only did he become an owner of a large stable of racehorses in both the United States and in France, Widener took over Elmendorf Farm in Lexington, Kentucky where his father stood Fair Play, his son Chance Shot and the imported stallion Sickle.

The best horse raced by the Wideners before P.A.B. II's death in 1948 was their Elmendorf home-bred Polynesian (b. 1942), a multiple stakes winner including the 1945 Preakness Stakes, voted 1947 American Champion Sprint Horse and sire of U.S. Racing Hall of Fame inductee, Native Dancer, founder of the Raise A Native sire line that includes Mr Prospector, Alydar, Kingmambo. The Widener's daughter Ella, and her husband Cortright Weatherill, bred Raise a Native.

Peter A.B. Widener II inherited his father interests in the Belmont Park racetrack in Elmont, New York and Hialeah Park racetrack in Miami, Florida. In 1939 P.A.B. II became President of Hialeah, famous for its palm trees and the infield flamingos imported by Joseph E. Widener from Cuba. After his death the Widener family's interest in Belmont passed to the Greater New York Racing Association in 1954 and, in 1954, the interest in Hialeah was sold to New Jersey property developer Eugene Mori, who had built Garden State racetrack in Cherry Hill.^[5]

Personal life

Peter A.B. Widener II married Gertrude Douglas Peabody in 1924. They had two children:

• Peter A. B. Widener III (12 Aug 1925 – 3 Sep 1999)
• Ella Anne Widener-Weatherill (14 June 1928 – 6 May 1986)

Widener was also stepfather of a daughter adopted by Gertrude during her first marriage to Frederick Peabody.

• • Joan (1916-1995) (the natural daughter of Edward C. Johnson and Alice Brandt)^[6]

Gertrude Widener (July 8, 1897 – February 3, 1970) was an American socialite, born in Albany, New York, the daughter of lumber businessman and New York State Senator, Curtis Noble Douglas (1856–1919) and Nancy Sherman Thomson (1867–1927) whose sister Gertrude Alden Thomson was the wife of 38th New York Governor John Alden Dix (1860–1928), the partner in another Albany lumber business with the sisters' father Lemon Thomson.^[7] The wedding of P.A.B. II and Gertrude took place in the Rembrandt Room at Lynnewood Hall, which housed 14 paintings by Rembrandt, in front of 20 family members and friends. The newlyweds set sail on the Berengaria to spend their honeymoon in Europe.^[8][9]

Known to her friends as "Gertie," Gertrude had married Frederick Peabody, a successful men's clothing manufacturer with whom she adopted a daughter, Joan, the natural daughter of Edward C. Johnson and Alice Brandt.[1] The couple divorced in 1924 and in November of that year Gertrude married Peter A.B. Widener II. In 1925 Joseph E. Widener had the stables at the Lynnewood Hall estate converted into a home for his son Peter and new daughter-in-law Gertrude.^[10] When several members of European royalty visited Lynnewood Hall in person to view the Widener art collection, Peter A.B. II and his wife Gertrude acted as hosts. Beatriz, Infanta of Spain, and Alonzo, brother of the King of Spain, visited in 1928. Other guests included the exiled Grand Duchess Marie of Russia and the Crown Prince and Princess of Sweden. In 1934 the Wideners hosted a reception for the Earl and Countess of Athlone at Il Palmetto in Palm Beach. The Earl of Athlone was the brother of Queen Mary, wife of King George V and mother of future kings Edward VIII and his brother George VI.^[11]

Peter Arrell Browne Widener II died at age 52 on April 20, 1948 at Lankenau Hospital in Bryn Mawr, Philadelphia from a rheumatic heart condition. In his will P.A.B. II left his estate to his family having created trust funds for his wife and daughter and leaving his racing farm to his son P.A.B. III.^[12]

After her husband's death, Gertrude Widener continued to own, breed and race Thoroughbreds with considerable success both in the United States and in France, often racing under the name Mme P.A.B. Widener. Amongst the horses trained for her by Etienne Pollet were the classic-winning fillies Hula Dancer and Right Away and Grey Dawn II . By the mid-1950s, Gertrude Widener was living almost full-time in Paris and remained there until 1968 when her failing health led to her dispersing her racing stable and returning home to her apartment at the Lowell Hotel on East 63rd Street in New York City. where she died from cancer on February 3, 1970, aged 71. Her remains were returned to Philadelphia for burial in West Laurel Hill Cemetery next to her husband, Peter A.B. Widener II.^[13][14][15]

Peter A.B. Widener III attended the University of Kentucky but had to stop his studies to take over management of the family's affairs upon the death of his father in 1948.^[16]

The Widener's daughter Ella and her husband Cortright Weatherill (1923-1988) owned Happy Hill Farm in Newtown Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania and bred the very important sire, Raise a Native.^[17]

In 1940 Peter A. B. Widener II published an autobiography with the title 'Without Drums'. In the book P.A.B. II described his gilded upbringing, referring to Lynnewood Hall as "a mausoleum" All royalties from the book went to the Ella Pancoast Widener Memorial Fund which provided medical school scholarships.^[18]

References