Mary C. Rockefeller, Governor's Former Wife, Dead at 91
Mary Clark Rockefeller, who was prominent in the education of nurses and was New York State's First Lady when she was married to Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller, died yesterday at her home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She was 91.
Political and social worlds were shocked in 1961 when Governor and Mrs. Rockefeller announced their separation after 31 years of marriage. Their divorce and his quick remarriage, in 1963, to Margaretta Fitler (Happy) Murphy, caused a furor and turned many Republicans into opponents of the Governor.
Mr. Rockefeller unsuccessfully sought the Republican Presidential nomination in 1964, and many political commentators said that his chances had been damaged by his divorce and remarriage to Mrs. Murphy, who was the mother of four children, just five weeks after she had divorced her first husband.
Mr. Rockefeller, who failed in another attempt to gain the Presidential nomination in 1968, remained Governor until 1973. He went on to be Vice President from 1974 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford. He died in 1979.
Mrs. Rockefeller, the former Mary Todhunter Clark, was known to her family and friends as Tod. She was born in the Germantown section of Philadelphia on June 17, 1907, and raised in the suburban community of Bala-Cynwyd on land that had been in her family since it was acquired from William Penn. She was the second of eight children of Percy Hamilton Clark, a lawyer, and the former Elizabeth Roberts, daughter of George B. Roberts, who was a former president of the Pennsylvania Railroad and a member of an old Pennsylvania family.
Young Tod was tall, slim and hazel-eyed, and she charmed Nelson Rockefeller, a grandson of John D. Rockefeller Sr., when they were young people summering in Maine with their families.
Cary Reich, in his book ''The Life of Nelson Rockefeller: Worlds to Conquer, 1908-58'' (1996, Doubleday), wrote of the start of their romance: '' 'She is always full of good fun and never dull,' he told his parents. He was captivated by her energy, her athleticism, her willingness to try anything. Nelson's friend Bill Alton, who stayed with him during those summers, remembers that 'he was always coming up with something to do -- a hayride, or something like that -- and Tod was always part of it. She'd fall into the spirit and carry out her end of it. She wasn't a shrinking violet.' ''
Tod Clark attended Foxcroft in Middleburg, Va., studied at the Sorbonne without receiving a degree, returned to Philadelphia, made her debut and became active in the Junior League.
In 1929, Nelson Rockefeller, who was then an undergraduate at Dartmouth, made it known that he was going to marry her. Afterward, as Ron Chernow wrote in his 1988 book ''Titan: the Life of John D. Rockefeller Sr.'' (Random House), Nelson and Tod went to see his grandfather, ''who gave his blessing after golfing with this young lady from the Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia.''
''Tod struck observers as witty and intelligent, an excellent mimic and fine sportswoman, if rather cool and self-contained.''
In 1929, she also traveled to Egypt with Nelson's parents while he was still at Dartmouth.
In 1930, soon after his graduation, the young couple, both in their early 20's, married in Bala-Cynwyd. His father, John D. Rockefeller Jr., provided them with a trip around the world and a Dutch Colonial farmhouse in Westchester County. The house had a door bearing deep gashes, which, according to local legend, had been cut by the sabers of Hessian soldiers during the American Revolution.
As a young matron, Mrs. Rockefeller began following in the footsteps of her mother, who was a member of the board of Polyclinic Hospital in Philadelphia and served on the nurses residence committee of Bryn Mawr Hospital.
Mrs. Rockefeller held volunteer posts in the field of nurses' education for years, while managing family homes in Manhattan, Westchester County, Maine and Washington.
In 1932 she became a volunteer at the Bellevue Schools of Nursing; two schools, one for women and one for men, which were jointly administered with Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.
She was on the schools' board for years and was the board's president for a time. By 1953 the schools were united, in a building on East 26th Street. They ceased operation in 1969.
In 1959, Mrs. Rockefeller was given an award for ''her 27 years of outstanding achievement on behalf of the nursing profession and the health care of the American people'' from the New York County Registered Nurses. In 1971, she received the National League of Nursing's distinguished service award for her work as a member of its board.
In 1980, she was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters by Hunter College for her efforts on behalf of nursing education. She had served on special committees at Yale, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania to examine nursing education in junior and community colleges.
From 1951 to 1956 she was a member of a national panel, the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, and headed its subcommittee on professional services. She was a member of the National Advisory Health Council, a group advising the United States Public Health Service, from 1955 to 1959.
For his part, Nelson Rockefeller held important Washington jobs in the 1940's and 1950's. But Mrs. Rockefeller showed an aversion to the spotlight and was not much in the public eye until her husband set about trying to become New York's governor, and succeeded by unseating W. Averell Harriman in 1958. Mrs. Rockefeller was plunged into a world to which she had had no previous exposure.
Joe Alex Morris wrote in his 1960 book ''Nelson Rockefeller: a Biography'' about Mr. Rockefeller's first campaign for governor: ''The nominee's family turned out to be good campaigners. Mrs. Rockefeller went with him almost everywhere.'' But she ''tried to keep the family's private affairs separate from her husband's political career,'' Mr. Morris said.
He added: ''She could be tart and blunt when she thought reporters were too inquisitive and once when she was being questioned about her political background and was asked if she had ever been in Albany, she snapped: 'No, I haven't. Have you?' ''
Mr. Reich, in his 1996 biography of Mr. Rockefeller, said of her campaigning before the 1958 election: ''One morning, during a tour of western New York, she went to a local diner for breakfast. Such a stop might be an occasion for garrulous glad-handing for her husband, but not so for Tod. Settling in on a counter stool, she was greeted by the cook, a gnarled fellow in a food-begrimed apron.
'''What'll you have?' he asked her. 'Well,' Tod sniffed, 'the first thing I'll have is a clean apron on you, my man.' ''
Mrs. Rockefeller worked hard at being a good First Lady. She continued to be a companion of the Governor on his political trips around New York State, and on journeys he made in his official capacity, until just a few months before the couple announced their separation in November 1961.
Looking back in 1996, Geoffrey C. Ward wrote in The New York Times Book Review that Mr. Rockefeller's ''marriage to Mary Todhunter Clark, of Philadelphia's Main Line, produced five children but soured because of his wife's unease with the public life she hadn't bargained for and her unhappiness over his fondness for young women, which in our more intrusive times might have aborted his career.''
After separating in 1961, the Rockefellers divorced in 1962. Mrs. Rockefeller obtained the divorce in Reno, Nev. on grounds of extreme mental cruelty. The Governor entered a formal denial of the allegations, but in effect did not actively contest the suit. As part of the Rockefellers' divorce settlement, he kept one floor of their three-floor penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side and she kept the two upper floors.
Nelson and Tod Rockefeller experienced tragedy in 1961 when their 23-year-old son Michael, who was deeply interested in primitive cultures, died while on an anthropological expedition in New Guinea.
Mrs. Rockefeller is survived by two sons, Rodman C. of Manhattan and Steven C. of Middlebury, Vt.; two daughters, Ann R. Roberts and Mary Morgan Callard, both of Manhattan; 15 grandchildren; 23 great-grandchildren; and two brothers, John R. Clark of Philadelphia and Dr. Thomas W. Clark of Gwynedd, Pa.
Although Tod Rockefeller was very serious about her work in nursing education and about other aspects of her life, as time passed she retained what Peter Collier and David Horowitz called, in their 1976 book ''The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty''(NAL-Dutton), ''an athletic grace and whimsical good humor the world at large didn't often see.''
Mr. Collier and Mr. Horowitz wrote that Mrs. Rockefeller's niece, Marion Rockefeller Weber, remembered ''seeking her out time after time, while she knelt at work in her gardens, to ask her questions and wait for the amusing replies to float up like bubbles from under the voluminous sunbonnet.''
And more than once over the years, Mrs. Rockefeller surprised those around her by dancing the Charleston.
(Source: New York Times, 22 April 1999)
Mary Clark Rockefeller, who was prominent in the education of nurses and was New York State's First Lady when she was married to Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller, died yesterday at her home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She was 91.
Political and social worlds were shocked in 1961 when Governor and Mrs. Rockefeller announced their separation after 31 years of marriage. Their divorce and his quick remarriage, in 1963, to Margaretta Fitler (Happy) Murphy, caused a furor and turned many Republicans into opponents of the Governor.
Mr. Rockefeller unsuccessfully sought the Republican Presidential nomination in 1964, and many political commentators said that his chances had been damaged by his divorce and remarriage to Mrs. Murphy, who was the mother of four children, just five weeks after she had divorced her first husband.
Mr. Rockefeller, who failed in another attempt to gain the Presidential nomination in 1968, remained Governor until 1973. He went on to be Vice President from 1974 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford. He died in 1979.
Mrs. Rockefeller, the former Mary Todhunter Clark, was known to her family and friends as Tod. She was born in the Germantown section of Philadelphia on June 17, 1907, and raised in the suburban community of Bala-Cynwyd on land that had been in her family since it was acquired from William Penn. She was the second of eight children of Percy Hamilton Clark, a lawyer, and the former Elizabeth Roberts, daughter of George B. Roberts, who was a former president of the Pennsylvania Railroad and a member of an old Pennsylvania family.
Young Tod was tall, slim and hazel-eyed, and she charmed Nelson Rockefeller, a grandson of John D. Rockefeller Sr., when they were young people summering in Maine with their families.
Cary Reich, in his book ''The Life of Nelson Rockefeller: Worlds to Conquer, 1908-58'' (1996, Doubleday), wrote of the start of their romance: '' 'She is always full of good fun and never dull,' he told his parents. He was captivated by her energy, her athleticism, her willingness to try anything. Nelson's friend Bill Alton, who stayed with him during those summers, remembers that 'he was always coming up with something to do -- a hayride, or something like that -- and Tod was always part of it. She'd fall into the spirit and carry out her end of it. She wasn't a shrinking violet.' ''
Tod Clark attended Foxcroft in Middleburg, Va., studied at the Sorbonne without receiving a degree, returned to Philadelphia, made her debut and became active in the Junior League.
In 1929, Nelson Rockefeller, who was then an undergraduate at Dartmouth, made it known that he was going to marry her. Afterward, as Ron Chernow wrote in his 1988 book ''Titan: the Life of John D. Rockefeller Sr.'' (Random House), Nelson and Tod went to see his grandfather, ''who gave his blessing after golfing with this young lady from the Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia.''
''Tod struck observers as witty and intelligent, an excellent mimic and fine sportswoman, if rather cool and self-contained.''
In 1929, she also traveled to Egypt with Nelson's parents while he was still at Dartmouth.
In 1930, soon after his graduation, the young couple, both in their early 20's, married in Bala-Cynwyd. His father, John D. Rockefeller Jr., provided them with a trip around the world and a Dutch Colonial farmhouse in Westchester County. The house had a door bearing deep gashes, which, according to local legend, had been cut by the sabers of Hessian soldiers during the American Revolution.
As a young matron, Mrs. Rockefeller began following in the footsteps of her mother, who was a member of the board of Polyclinic Hospital in Philadelphia and served on the nurses residence committee of Bryn Mawr Hospital.
Mrs. Rockefeller held volunteer posts in the field of nurses' education for years, while managing family homes in Manhattan, Westchester County, Maine and Washington.
In 1932 she became a volunteer at the Bellevue Schools of Nursing; two schools, one for women and one for men, which were jointly administered with Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.
She was on the schools' board for years and was the board's president for a time. By 1953 the schools were united, in a building on East 26th Street. They ceased operation in 1969.
In 1959, Mrs. Rockefeller was given an award for ''her 27 years of outstanding achievement on behalf of the nursing profession and the health care of the American people'' from the New York County Registered Nurses. In 1971, she received the National League of Nursing's distinguished service award for her work as a member of its board.
In 1980, she was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters by Hunter College for her efforts on behalf of nursing education. She had served on special committees at Yale, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania to examine nursing education in junior and community colleges.
From 1951 to 1956 she was a member of a national panel, the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, and headed its subcommittee on professional services. She was a member of the National Advisory Health Council, a group advising the United States Public Health Service, from 1955 to 1959.
For his part, Nelson Rockefeller held important Washington jobs in the 1940's and 1950's. But Mrs. Rockefeller showed an aversion to the spotlight and was not much in the public eye until her husband set about trying to become New York's governor, and succeeded by unseating W. Averell Harriman in 1958. Mrs. Rockefeller was plunged into a world to which she had had no previous exposure.
Joe Alex Morris wrote in his 1960 book ''Nelson Rockefeller: a Biography'' about Mr. Rockefeller's first campaign for governor: ''The nominee's family turned out to be good campaigners. Mrs. Rockefeller went with him almost everywhere.'' But she ''tried to keep the family's private affairs separate from her husband's political career,'' Mr. Morris said.
He added: ''She could be tart and blunt when she thought reporters were too inquisitive and once when she was being questioned about her political background and was asked if she had ever been in Albany, she snapped: 'No, I haven't. Have you?' ''
Mr. Reich, in his 1996 biography of Mr. Rockefeller, said of her campaigning before the 1958 election: ''One morning, during a tour of western New York, she went to a local diner for breakfast. Such a stop might be an occasion for garrulous glad-handing for her husband, but not so for Tod. Settling in on a counter stool, she was greeted by the cook, a gnarled fellow in a food-begrimed apron.
'''What'll you have?' he asked her. 'Well,' Tod sniffed, 'the first thing I'll have is a clean apron on you, my man.' ''
Mrs. Rockefeller worked hard at being a good First Lady. She continued to be a companion of the Governor on his political trips around New York State, and on journeys he made in his official capacity, until just a few months before the couple announced their separation in November 1961.
Looking back in 1996, Geoffrey C. Ward wrote in The New York Times Book Review that Mr. Rockefeller's ''marriage to Mary Todhunter Clark, of Philadelphia's Main Line, produced five children but soured because of his wife's unease with the public life she hadn't bargained for and her unhappiness over his fondness for young women, which in our more intrusive times might have aborted his career.''
After separating in 1961, the Rockefellers divorced in 1962. Mrs. Rockefeller obtained the divorce in Reno, Nev. on grounds of extreme mental cruelty. The Governor entered a formal denial of the allegations, but in effect did not actively contest the suit. As part of the Rockefellers' divorce settlement, he kept one floor of their three-floor penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side and she kept the two upper floors.
Nelson and Tod Rockefeller experienced tragedy in 1961 when their 23-year-old son Michael, who was deeply interested in primitive cultures, died while on an anthropological expedition in New Guinea.
Mrs. Rockefeller is survived by two sons, Rodman C. of Manhattan and Steven C. of Middlebury, Vt.; two daughters, Ann R. Roberts and Mary Morgan Callard, both of Manhattan; 15 grandchildren; 23 great-grandchildren; and two brothers, John R. Clark of Philadelphia and Dr. Thomas W. Clark of Gwynedd, Pa.
Although Tod Rockefeller was very serious about her work in nursing education and about other aspects of her life, as time passed she retained what Peter Collier and David Horowitz called, in their 1976 book ''The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty''(NAL-Dutton), ''an athletic grace and whimsical good humor the world at large didn't often see.''
Mr. Collier and Mr. Horowitz wrote that Mrs. Rockefeller's niece, Marion Rockefeller Weber, remembered ''seeking her out time after time, while she knelt at work in her gardens, to ask her questions and wait for the amusing replies to float up like bubbles from under the voluminous sunbonnet.''
And more than once over the years, Mrs. Rockefeller surprised those around her by dancing the Charleston.
(Source: New York Times, 22 April 1999)
Mary C. Rockefeller, Governor's Former Wife, Dead at 91
Mary Clark Rockefeller, who was prominent in the education of nurses and was New York State's First Lady when she was married to Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller, died yesterday at her home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She was 91.
Political and social worlds were shocked in 1961 when Governor and Mrs. Rockefeller announced their separation after 31 years of marriage. Their divorce and his quick remarriage, in 1963, to Margaretta Fitler (Happy) Murphy, caused a furor and turned many Republicans into opponents of the Governor.
Mr. Rockefeller unsuccessfully sought the Republican Presidential nomination in 1964, and many political commentators said that his chances had been damaged by his divorce and remarriage to Mrs. Murphy, who was the mother of four children, just five weeks after she had divorced her first husband.
Mr. Rockefeller, who failed in another attempt to gain the Presidential nomination in 1968, remained Governor until 1973. He went on to be Vice President from 1974 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford. He died in 1979.
Mrs. Rockefeller, the former Mary Todhunter Clark, was known to her family and friends as Tod. She was born in the Germantown section of Philadelphia on June 17, 1907, and raised in the suburban community of Bala-Cynwyd on land that had been in her family since it was acquired from William Penn. She was the second of eight children of Percy Hamilton Clark, a lawyer, and the former Elizabeth Roberts, daughter of George B. Roberts, who was a former president of the Pennsylvania Railroad and a member of an old Pennsylvania family.
Young Tod was tall, slim and hazel-eyed, and she charmed Nelson Rockefeller, a grandson of John D. Rockefeller Sr., when they were young people summering in Maine with their families.
Cary Reich, in his book ''The Life of Nelson Rockefeller: Worlds to Conquer, 1908-58'' (1996, Doubleday), wrote of the start of their romance: '' 'She is always full of good fun and never dull,' he told his parents. He was captivated by her energy, her athleticism, her willingness to try anything. Nelson's friend Bill Alton, who stayed with him during those summers, remembers that 'he was always coming up with something to do -- a hayride, or something like that -- and Tod was always part of it. She'd fall into the spirit and carry out her end of it. She wasn't a shrinking violet.' ''
Tod Clark attended Foxcroft in Middleburg, Va., studied at the Sorbonne without receiving a degree, returned to Philadelphia, made her debut and became active in the Junior League.
In 1929, Nelson Rockefeller, who was then an undergraduate at Dartmouth, made it known that he was going to marry her. Afterward, as Ron Chernow wrote in his 1988 book ''Titan: the Life of John D. Rockefeller Sr.'' (Random House), Nelson and Tod went to see his grandfather, ''who gave his blessing after golfing with this young lady from the Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia.''
''Tod struck observers as witty and intelligent, an excellent mimic and fine sportswoman, if rather cool and self-contained.''
In 1929, she also traveled to Egypt with Nelson's parents while he was still at Dartmouth.
In 1930, soon after his graduation, the young couple, both in their early 20's, married in Bala-Cynwyd. His father, John D. Rockefeller Jr., provided them with a trip around the world and a Dutch Colonial farmhouse in Westchester County. The house had a door bearing deep gashes, which, according to local legend, had been cut by the sabers of Hessian soldiers during the American Revolution.
As a young matron, Mrs. Rockefeller began following in the footsteps of her mother, who was a member of the board of Polyclinic Hospital in Philadelphia and served on the nurses residence committee of Bryn Mawr Hospital.
Mrs. Rockefeller held volunteer posts in the field of nurses' education for years, while managing family homes in Manhattan, Westchester County, Maine and Washington.
In 1932 she became a volunteer at the Bellevue Schools of Nursing; two schools, one for women and one for men, which were jointly administered with Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.
She was on the schools' board for years and was the board's president for a time. By 1953 the schools were united, in a building on East 26th Street. They ceased operation in 1969.
In 1959, Mrs. Rockefeller was given an award for ''her 27 years of outstanding achievement on behalf of the nursing profession and the health care of the American people'' from the New York County Registered Nurses. In 1971, she received the National League of Nursing's distinguished service award for her work as a member of its board.
In 1980, she was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters by Hunter College for her efforts on behalf of nursing education. She had served on special committees at Yale, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania to examine nursing education in junior and community colleges.
From 1951 to 1956 she was a member of a national panel, the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, and headed its subcommittee on professional services. She was a member of the National Advisory Health Council, a group advising the United States Public Health Service, from 1955 to 1959.
For his part, Nelson Rockefeller held important Washington jobs in the 1940's and 1950's. But Mrs. Rockefeller showed an aversion to the spotlight and was not much in the public eye until her husband set about trying to become New York's governor, and succeeded by unseating W. Averell Harriman in 1958. Mrs. Rockefeller was plunged into a world to which she had had no previous exposure.
Joe Alex Morris wrote in his 1960 book ''Nelson Rockefeller: a Biography'' about Mr. Rockefeller's first campaign for governor: ''The nominee's family turned out to be good campaigners. Mrs. Rockefeller went with him almost everywhere.'' But she ''tried to keep the family's private affairs separate from her husband's political career,'' Mr. Morris said.
He added: ''She could be tart and blunt when she thought reporters were too inquisitive and once when she was being questioned about her political background and was asked if she had ever been in Albany, she snapped: 'No, I haven't. Have you?' ''
Mr. Reich, in his 1996 biography of Mr. Rockefeller, said of her campaigning before the 1958 election: ''One morning, during a tour of western New York, she went to a local diner for breakfast. Such a stop might be an occasion for garrulous glad-handing for her husband, but not so for Tod. Settling in on a counter stool, she was greeted by the cook, a gnarled fellow in a food-begrimed apron.
'''What'll you have?' he asked her. 'Well,' Tod sniffed, 'the first thing I'll have is a clean apron on you, my man.' ''
Mrs. Rockefeller worked hard at being a good First Lady. She continued to be a companion of the Governor on his political trips around New York State, and on journeys he made in his official capacity, until just a few months before the couple announced their separation in November 1961.
Looking back in 1996, Geoffrey C. Ward wrote in The New York Times Book Review that Mr. Rockefeller's ''marriage to Mary Todhunter Clark, of Philadelphia's Main Line, produced five children but soured because of his wife's unease with the public life she hadn't bargained for and her unhappiness over his fondness for young women, which in our more intrusive times might have aborted his career.''
After separating in 1961, the Rockefellers divorced in 1962. Mrs. Rockefeller obtained the divorce in Reno, Nev. on grounds of extreme mental cruelty. The Governor entered a formal denial of the allegations, but in effect did not actively contest the suit. As part of the Rockefellers' divorce settlement, he kept one floor of their three-floor penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side and she kept the two upper floors.
Nelson and Tod Rockefeller experienced tragedy in 1961 when their 23-year-old son Michael, who was deeply interested in primitive cultures, died while on an anthropological expedition in New Guinea.
Mrs. Rockefeller is survived by two sons, Rodman C. of Manhattan and Steven C. of Middlebury, Vt.; two daughters, Ann R. Roberts and Mary Morgan Callard, both of Manhattan; 15 grandchildren; 23 great-grandchildren; and two brothers, John R. Clark of Philadelphia and Dr. Thomas W. Clark of Gwynedd, Pa.
Although Tod Rockefeller was very serious about her work in nursing education and about other aspects of her life, as time passed she retained what Peter Collier and David Horowitz called, in their 1976 book ''The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty''(NAL-Dutton), ''an athletic grace and whimsical good humor the world at large didn't often see.''
Mr. Collier and Mr. Horowitz wrote that Mrs. Rockefeller's niece, Marion Rockefeller Weber, remembered ''seeking her out time after time, while she knelt at work in her gardens, to ask her questions and wait for the amusing replies to float up like bubbles from under the voluminous sunbonnet.''
And more than once over the years, Mrs. Rockefeller surprised those around her by dancing the Charleston.
(Source: New York Times, 22 April 1999)
Mary Clark Rockefeller, who was prominent in the education of nurses and was New York State's First Lady when she was married to Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller, died yesterday at her home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She was 91.
Political and social worlds were shocked in 1961 when Governor and Mrs. Rockefeller announced their separation after 31 years of marriage. Their divorce and his quick remarriage, in 1963, to Margaretta Fitler (Happy) Murphy, caused a furor and turned many Republicans into opponents of the Governor.
Mr. Rockefeller unsuccessfully sought the Republican Presidential nomination in 1964, and many political commentators said that his chances had been damaged by his divorce and remarriage to Mrs. Murphy, who was the mother of four children, just five weeks after she had divorced her first husband.
Mr. Rockefeller, who failed in another attempt to gain the Presidential nomination in 1968, remained Governor until 1973. He went on to be Vice President from 1974 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford. He died in 1979.
Mrs. Rockefeller, the former Mary Todhunter Clark, was known to her family and friends as Tod. She was born in the Germantown section of Philadelphia on June 17, 1907, and raised in the suburban community of Bala-Cynwyd on land that had been in her family since it was acquired from William Penn. She was the second of eight children of Percy Hamilton Clark, a lawyer, and the former Elizabeth Roberts, daughter of George B. Roberts, who was a former president of the Pennsylvania Railroad and a member of an old Pennsylvania family.
Young Tod was tall, slim and hazel-eyed, and she charmed Nelson Rockefeller, a grandson of John D. Rockefeller Sr., when they were young people summering in Maine with their families.
Cary Reich, in his book ''The Life of Nelson Rockefeller: Worlds to Conquer, 1908-58'' (1996, Doubleday), wrote of the start of their romance: '' 'She is always full of good fun and never dull,' he told his parents. He was captivated by her energy, her athleticism, her willingness to try anything. Nelson's friend Bill Alton, who stayed with him during those summers, remembers that 'he was always coming up with something to do -- a hayride, or something like that -- and Tod was always part of it. She'd fall into the spirit and carry out her end of it. She wasn't a shrinking violet.' ''
Tod Clark attended Foxcroft in Middleburg, Va., studied at the Sorbonne without receiving a degree, returned to Philadelphia, made her debut and became active in the Junior League.
In 1929, Nelson Rockefeller, who was then an undergraduate at Dartmouth, made it known that he was going to marry her. Afterward, as Ron Chernow wrote in his 1988 book ''Titan: the Life of John D. Rockefeller Sr.'' (Random House), Nelson and Tod went to see his grandfather, ''who gave his blessing after golfing with this young lady from the Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia.''
''Tod struck observers as witty and intelligent, an excellent mimic and fine sportswoman, if rather cool and self-contained.''
In 1929, she also traveled to Egypt with Nelson's parents while he was still at Dartmouth.
In 1930, soon after his graduation, the young couple, both in their early 20's, married in Bala-Cynwyd. His father, John D. Rockefeller Jr., provided them with a trip around the world and a Dutch Colonial farmhouse in Westchester County. The house had a door bearing deep gashes, which, according to local legend, had been cut by the sabers of Hessian soldiers during the American Revolution.
As a young matron, Mrs. Rockefeller began following in the footsteps of her mother, who was a member of the board of Polyclinic Hospital in Philadelphia and served on the nurses residence committee of Bryn Mawr Hospital.
Mrs. Rockefeller held volunteer posts in the field of nurses' education for years, while managing family homes in Manhattan, Westchester County, Maine and Washington.
In 1932 she became a volunteer at the Bellevue Schools of Nursing; two schools, one for women and one for men, which were jointly administered with Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.
She was on the schools' board for years and was the board's president for a time. By 1953 the schools were united, in a building on East 26th Street. They ceased operation in 1969.
In 1959, Mrs. Rockefeller was given an award for ''her 27 years of outstanding achievement on behalf of the nursing profession and the health care of the American people'' from the New York County Registered Nurses. In 1971, she received the National League of Nursing's distinguished service award for her work as a member of its board.
In 1980, she was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters by Hunter College for her efforts on behalf of nursing education. She had served on special committees at Yale, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania to examine nursing education in junior and community colleges.
From 1951 to 1956 she was a member of a national panel, the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, and headed its subcommittee on professional services. She was a member of the National Advisory Health Council, a group advising the United States Public Health Service, from 1955 to 1959.
For his part, Nelson Rockefeller held important Washington jobs in the 1940's and 1950's. But Mrs. Rockefeller showed an aversion to the spotlight and was not much in the public eye until her husband set about trying to become New York's governor, and succeeded by unseating W. Averell Harriman in 1958. Mrs. Rockefeller was plunged into a world to which she had had no previous exposure.
Joe Alex Morris wrote in his 1960 book ''Nelson Rockefeller: a Biography'' about Mr. Rockefeller's first campaign for governor: ''The nominee's family turned out to be good campaigners. Mrs. Rockefeller went with him almost everywhere.'' But she ''tried to keep the family's private affairs separate from her husband's political career,'' Mr. Morris said.
He added: ''She could be tart and blunt when she thought reporters were too inquisitive and once when she was being questioned about her political background and was asked if she had ever been in Albany, she snapped: 'No, I haven't. Have you?' ''
Mr. Reich, in his 1996 biography of Mr. Rockefeller, said of her campaigning before the 1958 election: ''One morning, during a tour of western New York, she went to a local diner for breakfast. Such a stop might be an occasion for garrulous glad-handing for her husband, but not so for Tod. Settling in on a counter stool, she was greeted by the cook, a gnarled fellow in a food-begrimed apron.
'''What'll you have?' he asked her. 'Well,' Tod sniffed, 'the first thing I'll have is a clean apron on you, my man.' ''
Mrs. Rockefeller worked hard at being a good First Lady. She continued to be a companion of the Governor on his political trips around New York State, and on journeys he made in his official capacity, until just a few months before the couple announced their separation in November 1961.
Looking back in 1996, Geoffrey C. Ward wrote in The New York Times Book Review that Mr. Rockefeller's ''marriage to Mary Todhunter Clark, of Philadelphia's Main Line, produced five children but soured because of his wife's unease with the public life she hadn't bargained for and her unhappiness over his fondness for young women, which in our more intrusive times might have aborted his career.''
After separating in 1961, the Rockefellers divorced in 1962. Mrs. Rockefeller obtained the divorce in Reno, Nev. on grounds of extreme mental cruelty. The Governor entered a formal denial of the allegations, but in effect did not actively contest the suit. As part of the Rockefellers' divorce settlement, he kept one floor of their three-floor penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side and she kept the two upper floors.
Nelson and Tod Rockefeller experienced tragedy in 1961 when their 23-year-old son Michael, who was deeply interested in primitive cultures, died while on an anthropological expedition in New Guinea.
Mrs. Rockefeller is survived by two sons, Rodman C. of Manhattan and Steven C. of Middlebury, Vt.; two daughters, Ann R. Roberts and Mary Morgan Callard, both of Manhattan; 15 grandchildren; 23 great-grandchildren; and two brothers, John R. Clark of Philadelphia and Dr. Thomas W. Clark of Gwynedd, Pa.
Although Tod Rockefeller was very serious about her work in nursing education and about other aspects of her life, as time passed she retained what Peter Collier and David Horowitz called, in their 1976 book ''The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty''(NAL-Dutton), ''an athletic grace and whimsical good humor the world at large didn't often see.''
Mr. Collier and Mr. Horowitz wrote that Mrs. Rockefeller's niece, Marion Rockefeller Weber, remembered ''seeking her out time after time, while she knelt at work in her gardens, to ask her questions and wait for the amusing replies to float up like bubbles from under the voluminous sunbonnet.''
And more than once over the years, Mrs. Rockefeller surprised those around her by dancing the Charleston.
(Source: New York Times, 22 April 1999)
Family Members
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