David Rockefeller
David Rockefeller, the banker with the famous last name known for his long time association to Chase Manhattan Corporation, has died aged 101.
Rockefeller served as chairman and chief executive throughout the 1970s, at Chase Manhattan, otherwise known as “David’s bank.”
Chase Manhattan had long been known as the Rockefeller bank, though the family never owned more than 5 percent of its shares, according to the NY Times.
David’s work made him a force in global financial affairs and in his country’s foreign policy. The banker and philanthropist, wielded vast influence around the world even longer as he spread the gospel of American capitalism.
Born June 12, 1915 in New York City, the youngest of six, David grew up in one of the richest and most powerful families in the nation’s history. His grandfather John D. Rockefeller, founded the Standard Oil Company in the 19th century and built a fortune that made him America’s first billionaire.
The privileged David and his siblings grew up in times where their parents dressed up for dinner. His father John D. Rockefeller Jr., –was the only son of the oil titan, he devoted his life to philanthropy. while his mother, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, was the daughter of Nelson Aldrich, a wealthy senator from Rhode Island.
David attended Lincoln School in Manhattan and went on to study at Harvard, receiving his B.S. in 1936. He later spent a year at the London School of Economics. He received a Ph.D in economics from the University of Chicago in 1940.
Two years later he enlisted in the Army where he served in North Africa and France in World War II. He was discharged in 1945. Prior to his army stint, he had served as a secretary to Fiorello H. La Guardia, New York’s, liberal Republican mayor.
Mr. Rockefeller began his banking career in 1946 as an assistant manager with the Chase National Bank. Even after retiring from active management in 1981, Mr. Rockefeller continued to serve Chase as chairman of its international advisory council and to act as the bank’s foreign diplomat.
Late in life Mr. Rockefeller increasingly devoted himself to philanthropy. In 2002 at age 87, he was the first in three generations of Rockefellers to publish an autobiography.
Wife
Margaret McGrath and David Rockefeller wedded in 1940. They were married for 56-years before her passing in 1996. The two had six children together: David Jr., Abby, Neva, Margaret, Richard and Eileen.
Margaret McGrath, also known as Peggy, was born September 28, 1915. Her father, Francis Sims McGrath was a partner in a prominent Wall Street law firm. Her mother, was Neva McGrath and she also had one brother, Gordon Randolph McGrath.
She was a student at the Chapin School in New York. Margaret McGrath met her husband at a dance, when he was a Harvard freshman, about seven years before getting married.
Peggy served as chairman at the Maine Coast Heritage Trust for many years; she worked on behalf of farmland conservation, the American Farmland Trust, the New York Botanical Garden and the New York Philharmonic.
According to her obituary, she also made substantial contributions to Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the New York Philharmonic and was a trustee from 1953 to 1970.
Peggy and her husband who became big art collectors, own prized paintings — by Cézanne, Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso — were lent to the museum permanently.
The couple continued to collect art, including hundreds of paintings as well as works in colored glass, porcelain, petrified wood and furniture.
Peggy McGrath Rockefeller, a dedicated conservationist, died at 80 on March 26, 1996. She was known to have lead a low profile.
Children
1. David Jr., was born July 24, 1941. He has served in many of the family institutions including Rockefeller Family & Associates and Rockefeller Financial Services. He is married to Susan Cohn Rockefeller.
2. Abby Rockefeller who was born in 1943, is known as an ecologist and feminist. She is known as the most rebellious daughter due to her admiration of Fidel Castro.
3. Neva Rockefeller also known as Neva Goodwin was born June 1, 1944. The economist and philanthropist has served as director of the Global Development and Environment Institute; trustee and vice chair of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Director of the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. She married to Bruce Mazlish with whom she had two children.
4. Margaret Rockefeller also known as Peggy Dulany was born in 1947. Peggy who graduated with honors in 1969 from Radcliffe College and earned a masters and doctorate from Harvard‘s Graduate School of Education –worked with the UN and and The Ford Foundation. She has divorced two times. She and first husband, David Quattrone are the parents of one son, Michael Dulany Quattrone.
5. Richard Rockfeller was born January 20, 1949. The physician and philanthropist died in 2014 at age 65 after his plane crashed while retuning home from a visit to his father.
Richard who practiced and taught medicine in Portland, Maine –was married to Nancy King with whom he had four children.
6. Eileen Rockefeller Growald was born in 1952. Also a philanthropist, she received her bachelor’s degree from Middlebury College in 1974 and her master’s in Early Childhood Education from Lesley College in association with the Shady Hill School in 1976.
She and her husband, Paul Growald have two children.
Networth
As of 2016, the businessman, had an estimated fortune of $3 billion according to Forbes. He was named the 49th richest person in the world.
More
Rockefeller, also known as ‘the banker’s banker’, according to the statement, is said to have donated almost $2 billion over his lifetime to various institutions including Rockefeller University, Harvard University and art museum.
In 2005, for his ninetieth birthday, he pledged to donate $5 million a year to the Museum of Modern Art, and bequest another $100 million when he dies.
In his 90’s he traveled more than half the year on behalf of Chase or groups like the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. By 2005, when he was interviewed in his offices at Rockefeller Center, he had remained physically active, working with a trainer at the center’s sports club.
His largest pledge, however, came in 2006, when he announced he would give $225 million to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which he started with his brothers John, Nelson, Laurance and Winthrop, all now deceased.
Rockefeller died in his sleep at home in Pocantico Hills, New York of congestive heart failure.
