Heiress, Socialite, Art Collector. Born into great wealth and pedigree, Betty Brooke Blake grew up amid extraordinary privilege and splendor. Her family home, Almondbury, was located on the prestigious Main Line, a string of leisure-class communities extending west out of Philadelphia along the Pennsylvania Railroad. A bastion of old money, the Main Line was home to sprawling estates, cricket and hunt clubs, and the occasional eccentric family. Betty's mother, Lucile Stewart Polk, was a Baltimore debutante of genteel lineage. A descendant of President James Polk, she was a great beauty. Lucile's striking clothes — and antics — were often chronicled in newspapers. By one account, she startled Newport society one summer season, dressed head-to-toe in flaming red. Athletic, she was reported to be the first woman to play polo riding astride, and she was often seen driving her own six-horse carriage through the busy streets. Other ladies of the era spent time reading, sewing, and receiving guests; Lucile preferred to play the stock market. After her marriage to coal-mining heir William Ernest Carter, the couple moved to Europe — their servants and William's string of polo ponies in tow. It was on a return trip to the United States in 1912 that they booked first-class passage on the RMS Titanic. The boat, as we are all now privy, sank after hitting an iceberg. Lucile and her husband survived, along with Betty's 11-year-old half-brother and 14-year-old half-sister. (Betty would be born four years later, when her mother divorced William and married banker and steel manufacturer, George Brooke Jr.) Lucile died in 1934, the same year Betty made her debut. Set somewhat adrift, Betty shuttled between Almondbury — her father adored her, she said — and Palm Beach with her friends. Before the year's end, she eloped to London with the East Coast's most eligible bachelor, 19-year-old Tommy Phipps. Nancy Astor's nephew, the couple had one son, but the marriage lasted only a few years, and she retreated with Tony to New York. Betty remarried, this time to stockbroker and grocery store heir Eddie Reeves. They had a daughter, Joan (now living in New York and married to the writer Lewis Lapham), and when Reeves died, Betty tied the knot with mining heir Jock McLean, who, it turns out, had been a witness at her wedding to Reeves. Jock moved her and the two children to Texas, and when that marriage dissolved, she wed oilman Tom Blake Jr., with whom she had two more children, Douglas Blake and Tom Brooke Blake. In 1960, Betty's first-born son Tony died in a boating accident on Lake Michigan. Betty's union with Tom Blake failed, she dusted herself off and picked out a new husband: Allen Guiberson, an eccentric oilman who had built the first radial diesel aircraft engine, now preserved in the Smithsonian Institution. In 1973 she split with Guiberson, she changed her name back to Blake, spending the next 43 years single. Betty Brooke Blake died in Newport, Rhode Island.
Heiress, Socialite, Art Collector. Born into great wealth and pedigree, Betty Brooke Blake grew up amid extraordinary privilege and splendor. Her family home, Almondbury, was located on the prestigious Main Line, a string of leisure-class communities extending west out of Philadelphia along the Pennsylvania Railroad. A bastion of old money, the Main Line was home to sprawling estates, cricket and hunt clubs, and the occasional eccentric family. Betty's mother, Lucile Stewart Polk, was a Baltimore debutante of genteel lineage. A descendant of President James Polk, she was a great beauty. Lucile's striking clothes — and antics — were often chronicled in newspapers. By one account, she startled Newport society one summer season, dressed head-to-toe in flaming red. Athletic, she was reported to be the first woman to play polo riding astride, and she was often seen driving her own six-horse carriage through the busy streets. Other ladies of the era spent time reading, sewing, and receiving guests; Lucile preferred to play the stock market. After her marriage to coal-mining heir William Ernest Carter, the couple moved to Europe — their servants and William's string of polo ponies in tow. It was on a return trip to the United States in 1912 that they booked first-class passage on the RMS Titanic. The boat, as we are all now privy, sank after hitting an iceberg. Lucile and her husband survived, along with Betty's 11-year-old half-brother and 14-year-old half-sister. (Betty would be born four years later, when her mother divorced William and married banker and steel manufacturer, George Brooke Jr.) Lucile died in 1934, the same year Betty made her debut. Set somewhat adrift, Betty shuttled between Almondbury — her father adored her, she said — and Palm Beach with her friends. Before the year's end, she eloped to London with the East Coast's most eligible bachelor, 19-year-old Tommy Phipps. Nancy Astor's nephew, the couple had one son, but the marriage lasted only a few years, and she retreated with Tony to New York. Betty remarried, this time to stockbroker and grocery store heir Eddie Reeves. They had a daughter, Joan (now living in New York and married to the writer Lewis Lapham), and when Reeves died, Betty tied the knot with mining heir Jock McLean, who, it turns out, had been a witness at her wedding to Reeves. Jock moved her and the two children to Texas, and when that marriage dissolved, she wed oilman Tom Blake Jr., with whom she had two more children, Douglas Blake and Tom Brooke Blake. In 1960, Betty's first-born son Tony died in a boating accident on Lake Michigan. Betty's union with Tom Blake failed, she dusted herself off and picked out a new husband: Allen Guiberson, an eccentric oilman who had built the first radial diesel aircraft engine, now preserved in the Smithsonian Institution. In 1973 she split with Guiberson, she changed her name back to Blake, spending the next 43 years single. Betty Brooke Blake died in Newport, Rhode Island.
