Hetty_ The Genius and Madness of America's First Female Tycoon - Charles Slack [108]
Sylvia also remained in touch with Mary Nims Bolles, her old friend from Bellows Falls. Mary visited Sylvia in Greenwich occasionally, and the two exchanged letters and gifts at the holidays. When Mary sent Sylvia some fruit from Florida in 1946, Sylvia replied, “My dear Mary. Many thanks for the oranges & grapefruit—Sorry to hear your eyes are not behaving well. We all have some trouble one way or another.” Sylvia did not, as a rule, send out Christmas cards. But one Christmas, Mary did receive a thin, plain envelope. The envelope, almost overlooked amid the profusion of boxes and presents, contained no card or note, just a check from Sylvia for $500.
Sylvia died in a New York hospital on the evening of February 4, 1951, at the age of eighty. Obituaries noted that Sylvia died without heirs, and that her passing had put an end to the strange and fabulous saga of Hetty Green. And they remarked on Sylvia’s unusual upbringing. “Sylvia was grudgingly permitted to enter New York society in 1897–98 and occasionally visited friends in Newport, but these sorties were timid, reluctant, and accomplished very little beyond the finding of a suitable husband,” the Times noted. The obituary added: “As time wore on, she developed many of the frugal characteristics of her mother in a gentler way. Few friends graced her life, nor did she derive much apparent enjoyment from the wealth at her disposal.”
The Herald Tribune wrote that “Mrs. Wilks, a tall, austere woman, shunned publicity and pursued privacy with almost the intense devotion that fired her famous mother.” The article continued: “Even her estate managers seldom saw her, although she continued to be active in the management of her vast financial affairs, and always made major financial decisions herself.”
The Bellows Falls Times noted somberly: “Despite Mrs. Wilks’ bitterness over the kind of life her mother led and imposed upon her children, she evidently was unable to escape living a life that was much like her mother’s in its dedication to money. Even though she may have hated her mother’s influence, she could not escape it.”
While Ned’s burial had drawn fifteen hundred people to the New Bedford train station, just to observe the procession, Sylvia’s arrangements were as quiet, restrained, and understated as her life. After a small service at a funeral home on Madison Avenue, her body was transported to Bellows Falls to join those of her mother, father, and brother. A small group of New Yorkers joined about fifty local residents standing graveside on a bitter cold day. The New Yorkers included two executives from Chase National Bank, where Sylvia kept more than $31 million in a single cash account; her lawyer; and her chauffeur.
The four Greens—Edward, Hetty, Ned, and Sylvia—lie in the same few square feet of soil next to the church. The children’s names appear on the same obelisk that bears Edward’s and Hetty’s. Ned’s wife and Sylvia’s husband are buried elsewhere.
Sylvia’s will, directing the distribution of around $100 million, was found stashed with four bars of soap in a cabinet in her New York apartment. It named sixty-three individuals and institutions as beneficiaries. There seemed to be little overall plan to the bequests; they were scattered willy-nilly, sometimes to people who pleased her from afar. Sylvia left $10,000 to Robert Moses, New York City parks commissioner, “in appreciation of his work creating public parkways.” Moses had been the mastermind behind the Hutchinson River Parkway, the leafy thoroughfare connecting New York City with her home in Connecticut. The Boston Public Library received a half-million dollars, because one of her father’s cousins had been a trustee there.
She divided $1 million of her estate evenly among ten distant relatives—all, like herself, descendants of