Pic of Dorothy Pierson, one of George D's wives
Peter Fokes
Photograph of Dorthy De Mohrenschildt (maiden name Pierson) in the
Victoria Advocate (May 27, 1955):
By the way, "mucoviscidosis" is an old term for cystic fibrosis. It
apparently afflicted both Nadya and Sergei, the young children of the
couple.
<quote on>
1943-Married Dorothy Pierson. Exhibited paintings at Newton Gallery in
New York.
1944-Traveled to Texas. Got a loan from the Russian Student fund.
Applied at Colorado School of Mines, Rice Institute and University of
Texas. Entered University of Texas School of Geology with minor in
petroleum engineering.
1945-Received masters degree in petroleum geology. Worked as field
engineer for Pantepec Oil Co. in Venezuela.
1946-Returned to the United States. Went to work for Rangely Field
Committee in Colorado and worked in drilling statisitcs and
technology. Met Phyllis Washington during vacation in New York.
1947-First went to Haiti and began establishing mining and development
business.
July 1949-Became American citizen.
1949-Received divorce from Phyllis Washington.
1950-Moved to Denver. Formed Hooker and de Mohrenschildt partnership
in drilling and leases.
April 1951-Married Wynne Sharples.
1952-Terminated partnership with Ed Hooker, returned to New York.
1953-Son Sergei born.
1954-Daughter Nayda born. Formed Walden Oil Co. with wife's uncle,
Col. Edward J. Walz.
1956-Took job in Haiti with Sinclair Oil co. Traveled to Nigeria,
France, Mexico on oil exploration, also Ghana, Togoland, France.
Traveled to Cuba for Pantetec Oil Co. Traveled for Charmex, Cuban
Venezuelan Trust, Warren Smith Co., Three States Oil and Gas and
Legman Trading Corp.
1957-Contacted by Core Lab of Dallas about work in Yugoslavia for
International Cooperation Administration and Yugoslav Government.
1957-Divorced from Didi Sharples.
<quote off>
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/jfkinfo4/jfk12/hscademo.htm
(Above the photo of Dorothy is an interesting photo of 5 sets of
identical boy twins .... which one looks like Oswald? hehe)
Peter Fokes,
Toronto
Peter Fokes
wrote:
Dorothy and George apparently appointed Jacqueline Kennedy as honorary
chairman of their new foundation for cystic fibrosis:
<quote on>
Now, my ex-wife and I started a foundation, National Foundation for
Cystic Fibrosis in Dallas, of which Jacqueline Kennedy was the
honorary chairman.
<quote off>
See WC testimony about this marriage and the children below (if
interested):
<quote on>
Mr. JENNER. Now, we have you back in New York City--this is when we
went to lunch--around 1953--1952, 1953.
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Your partnership with Mr. Hooker had terminated.
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. No, no; still active. I think it was in
1952--because I was not married---we still had the partnership. I was
visiting Ed Hooker in New York at that particular time, and through
him I met my next wife, my last wife.
Mr. JENNER. All right. Now, who was she?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Wynne Sharples.
Mr. JENNER. She at that time was a student?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. She was just graduating from the medical school
at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University. That
was her last year. And she was late in her studies. She was 28 or 29
years old at that time. So she had missed a couple of years, you see.
And we fell in love with each other and decided to get married.
Mr. JENNER. Tell me about the Sharples family.
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. The Sharples family is from Philadelphia,
Philadelphia Quakers. He is in the centrifugal processing business and
also in the oil business. And I had dealings with his nephew for many
years.
Mr. JENNER. What is his name?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Butler, Samuel Butler, Jr. He runs the oil end
of Mr. Sharples' operations. And they had a small interest in Rangely
Field. That is how I got acquainted with Mr. Butler.
So we knew about each other before--my wife's father, and so on and so
forth--and--the daughter asked his advice, whether she should marry
such an adventurous character like me, and the father said, all
right---obviously had sufficient good information from Butler about
me. Butler was my best man at the wedding.
Mr. JENNER. Best man at your wedding to Miss Sharples?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; Sam Butler.
There were several ushers. He was one of the ushers. I don't remember
who was the best man. My brother was the best man. He was one of
ushers. So we got married.
Mr. JENNER. Was the Sharples family wealthy?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Very wealthy.
Mr. JENNER. Socially prominent?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Socially prominent. But not too interested in
society, because they are Quakers, you know. But my wife is
interested.
Mr. JENNER. She has a nickname?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; Didi.
Mr. JENNER. Some of the people apparently--voluntarily--they know her
with that nickname Didi.
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. That is right. We got married, I think, after
her graduation immediately in the Unitarian Church in Chestnut Hills.
Mr. JENNER. What is that--a suburb of Philadelphia?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. A suburb of Philadelphia. And she moved to
Dallas, and I moved to Dallas, also, from Abilene, where I used to
live, so she could continue her work in the medical field, and to take
her residence in the hospital in Dallas. She was a resident
physician----
Mr. JENNER. In what hospital?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. In the Baylor Hospital.
Mr. JENNER. Baylor University?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Was it university connected?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. I don't remember. But it is Baylor Hospital, in
Dallas. It is not the same as Baylor University. It is called Baylor
Hospital.
Mr. JENNER. All right.
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. And she stayed there as a resident. I worked
very often in my office in Dallas, instead of Abilene, and continued
my partnership with Ed Hooker. But there developed a tremendous
animosity between Ed Hooker's wife and my wife, Didi.
Mr. JENNER. And Ed Hooker's wife was----
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Was an ex-model, very attractive girl, Marion.
And probably my wife snubbed her or something. She didn't come from
such a prominent family.
Anyway, there was a great deal of animosity there.
...
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. She came to Dallas to live with me. We had an
apartment first. Then we bought a house jointly, a farm, a small farm
outside of Dallas. And then she had--we had two children, Sergei, and
a girl, Nadejeda, whom we called Nadya because the name is very
difficult. It is my aunt's name, and Sergei is my father's name.
Mr. JENNER. When were those children born?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. One year difference in 1953 and 1954.
Mr. JENNER. Your son was born in 1953 and your daughter in 1954?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. I think you were about to tell me some differences arose,
you thought, between Mr. Hooker's wife and your wife.
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. And did that have an effect on your partnership?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; it was more or less, I would say, a social
problem and personal dislike. Ed is very much devoted to his wife. He
told me one day, "We cannot continue this partnership in such
unpleasant circumstances, and I think we should break our partnership
and sell out what we have." We had some oil properties and we sold it
out and divided the proceeds.
Oh, yes--also, Ed was dissatisfied that I moved away from the
oilfield--another reason we broke our partnership. Because I was
staying in the oilfields before that all the time. But now I moved to
Dallas, and I could not be right in the center of the oil activity,
according to him. It turned out to be that this actually was much
better for the oil business, to be in Dallas than to be in Abilene.
Mr. JENNER. Why is that?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, because we are more or less in the center
of things than just in a small hick town, you see.
Mr. JENNER. You----
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. At the same time about, when we were breaking
this partnership, my wife's uncle, Col. Edward J. Walz, from
Philadelphia, who is an investment man and a man who is fascinated by
the oil business, offered me to form a partnership with him, and we
formed a partnership just about the same time.
Mr. JENNER. Have you identified this new man?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; Col. Edward J. Walz, this was my wife's
uncle, Miss Sharples' uncle much younger than his--than her mother,
but a man of substance, from Philadelphia--with whom we developed
friendly relationship. He liked me and I liked him. And we decided to
form a partnership, and we called this partnership Waldem Oil
Co.--with the idea of doing the same thing I did with Ed Hooker--that
I would do the fieldwork and he would do, more or less, the financial
end of the business in Philadelphia.
We had several very successful dealings together. On our first
drilling venture we found oil. I kept producing that little field for
quite some time.
Mr. JENNER. What field?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Post field, in Texas--a small part of this field
belonged to us, and we kept on producing. We did other operations in
the oil business, selling leases, buying leases, and things like that.
But we didn't do anything spectacular because he never could provide
any large amounts of money for anything spectacular. We did small
things. It was a small operation. But we always made money together.
Eventually, after my wife and I got divorced.
Mr. JENNER. Now, you mention divorce. You and Wynne Sharples were
divorced?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. And when did that take place?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. That, I think, was in 1957, I guess, or 1956. We
were married for 5 years.
Mr. JENNER. Well, it must have been 1957, then.
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. 1957, yes; it turned out to be that both of our
children had cystic fibrosis--it is a terrible illness of genetic
nature. The children who have it have no hope to recover, as yet.
Now, my ex-wife and I started a foundation, National Foundation for
Cystic Fibrosis in Dallas, of which Jacqueline Kennedy was the
honorary chairman.
Now, my ex-wife says that I didn't have much to do with this
foundation, this Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, but actually I did,
because I collected most of the money from my Dallas friends. It
started with very little we--started with $10,000 or $20,000, and now
it is a $2 million foundation, with headquarters in New York. Last
year I was chairman of this foundation in Dallas for the first public
subscription to our Cystic Fibrosis Fund for the Dallas children, and
we got $25,000.
Now my son, Sergei, died from cystic fibrosis in 1960.
By the way, the reason for our divorce, in addition to whatever
disagreements we had, which was not very important, was the fact that
we both obviously have a tendency for cystic fibrosis, a genetic
affinity for cystic fibrosis, and the children born from such a
marriage have a very poor chance to survive. She wanted more children.
She was scared to have more children with cystic fibrosis. The little
girl is still alive. She lives in Philadelphia.
Mr. JENNER. She is with her mother?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. With her mother, yes.
Mr. JENNER. Is her mother pursuing her profession in Philadelphia?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Her mother is not actually practicing but she is
in charge of the Cystic Fibrosis Research Institute in Philadelphia,
she is a trustee of Temple University.
But her husband, Dr. Denton----
Mr. JENNER. She remarried?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. She remarried.
Mr. JENNER. What is his-full name?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Dr. Robert Denton. He is the doctor who treated
our children for cystic fibrosis. At present he is a professor of
pediatrics and assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of
Pennsylvania.
Mr. JENNER. I don't want to go into the litigation. There was some
litigation, was there not, between you and your former wife with
respect to some trust?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Trust fund.
Mr. JENNER. Established for whom?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Established for Sergei, for our son. Now, I had
to contribute, according to the divorce, $125 a month for the support
of the children, which I did, and she put that money in a trust fund.
She did not want to use that money for the upkeep of the children,
because she is independently wealthy, and eventually she refused to
accept any more contribution of money from me. I objected on my side
to the fact that I was removed away--that the children were very far
away from me. They were living in Boston at the time, and I
encountered constantly difficulties in regard to my visitation rights
of the children. Well, anyway, finally all of a sudden, after Sergei
died, a long time afterwards, I received a notification that we
inherited, my ex-wife and I--we inherited this trust fund.
Mr. JENNER. Which trust fund?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Established for Sergei, our son.
Mr. JENNER. Who established the trust fund?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Her grandfather, my boy's grandfather, Mr.
Sharples, plus the money that came from my monthly contribution for
the children's support--whatever money she could put in it. Anyway, it
was a small trust fund of $24,000, which, eventually was split up
between my ex-wife and myself--about $12,000 each. There was a
litigation in regard to that, but I don't know if it is interesting
for you.
Mr. JENNER. No---I have the complaints. Your ex-wife--Dr. Denton lives
in Philadelphia?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. And she does research work, does she?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. She doesn't do the actual research. She is more
or less running the administration end of a second foundation. She was
eventually asked to leave the National Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
which we had formed together in Dallas, and which became this national
foundation.
She developed some difficulty with the other trustees and was asked to
resign, or resigned herself---I don't know for sure the other trustees
say they asked her to resign. She says she was forced to resign. And
she formed with the help of her father and her friends another
foundation in Philadelphia which is much smaller, and I think which
does also research on cystic fibrosis. And she is running the
administrative end of it. She is not doing the actual research, but
she is running this foundation as an administrator.
Mr. JENNER. Do you visit your child?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. I used to. Right now I have a great deal of
difficulty in visiting my daughter, Nadya, because she wants to live
with me, you see.
Mr. JENNER. The daughter?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. The daughter, yes. And she thinks that by living
in Texas her health will improve. Now, the mother thinks it is just
the opposite that if she lives in Texas that she will die, because of
the inadequate medical facilities. So we had rather bitter litigation
last year as to--I tried to take the custody away from her, because of
various reasons--mainly, I think that the daughter would be happier
with me, and with my new wife. And the little girl has developed a
tremendous liking for my new wife. But the court decided that--we went
into such bitter fighting, that I stopped this litigation in the
middle, and I said, "I am going to Haiti anyway. Let's leave things as
they are for a year. I am not going to see Nadya for a year, on the
condition that she will get all my letters, all my gifts, and that I
get a medical report from her every 4 months." And the poor girl is
also under psychiatric treatment.
Mr. JENNER. Who is?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Nadya, my little girl. She is under psychiatric
treatment--because of her illness, and also she developed a dislike
for the other members of her family, for her half brothers and
sisters, because they are healthy, and she is not.
Mr. JENNER. I take it that your former wife--there had been some
children born of her present marriage?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; who have no cystic fibrosis.
Mr. JENNER. All right. Now, when the divorce took place, your wife
filed suit in Philadelphia, didn't she?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. No; the suit was filed in Dallas.
Mr. JENNER. She commenced it?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Did you resist it?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. No; we came to an agreement that we would get a
divorce anyway. I don't know what you call it in legal terms. The
lawyers made an agreement that, here it is, you see. We decided to
sell our house and settle our accounts.
Mr. JENNER. Property?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Property settlement. And I think it was very
fair for her, just as my lawyer, Morris Jaffe, can tell you the whole
story about that.
Mr. JENNER. Now, upon your divorce from Wynne, or Didi, Sharples, did
you remain in Dallas?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; I stayed in Dallas, carried on my
consulting work in the same manner, concentrating mostly from then on
on the foreign end of this business.
Mr. JENNER. What do you mean foreign end?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. I started taking more and more foreign jobs. In
1956 I took a job in Haiti for a private--for some private individuals
connected with Sinclair Oil Company.
Mr. JENNER. When was that?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. In 1956--just before our divorce, I think. We
were already separated. Then we must have been divorced the end of
1956.
Sorry--too many marriages, too many divorces. So I started taking more
and more foreign jobs. And, also, in my relationship with Mr.
Sharples, because my ex-wife's father--I did some foreign work for
him, mainly in Mexico. He had some foreign exploitation in Mexico,
some oil operations in Mexico. Anyway, I started getting a lot of
foreign jobs--maybe jobs in Nigeria.
<quote off>
Peter Fokes,
Toronto
>
chefst...@gmail.com
children that George had that passed away from cystic fibrosis were his
children with her.