Family
Stokes married Helen Louisa, daughter of Isaac Newton Phelps, on October 17, 1865. In 1893, he built Shadowbrook, a 100 room Berkshire Cottage at Lenox, Massachusetts. Shadowbrook was so large that a family anecdote tells of Anson Phelps Stokes Jr. being told by his mother while playing outside one day that because there was a storm gathering he should come inside and bicycle in the attic. In 1902, Stokes bought land at the southern tip of Long Neck, a small peninsula in Darien, Connecticut and built Brick House, where he and his family lived for many years. (Andrew Carnegie occupied Brick House for several summers, and in 1917 he bought Anson Phelps' estate Shadowbrook, where he died in 1919.) The Stokes family also had a summer house, or Great Camp, on Upper St. Regis Lake in the Adirondacks, where family members spend their summers to this day.
Anson lost one of his legs 15 years previously in a horse-riding accident, when he was thrown against a tree and his leg crushed. At his death on June 29, 1913, in New York City, Anson Stokes was survived by nine children: four sons and five daughters. His sons include Anson Phelps Stokes (1874–1958), an educator and clergyman, architect Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, and noted socialist James Graham Phelps Stokes.
His personal wealth was estimated at USD $25,000,000 at the time of his death, or about USD$ 587,878,788 in today's dollars. However, when his estate was settled, a month after his death, it was reported that the actual value of his estate was between $500,000 and $750,000 (about USD$ 17,636,364 in today's dollars.
Read more about this topic: Anson Phelps Stokes
Famous quotes containing the word family:
“Respectable means rich, and decent means poor. I should die if I heard my family called decent.”
—Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866)
“Some [adolescent] girls are depressed because they have lost their warm, open relationship with their parents. They have loved and been loved by people whom they now must betray to fit into peer culture. Furthermore, they are discouraged by peers from expressing sadness at the loss of family relationships—even to say they are sad is to admit weakness and dependency.”
—Mary Pipher (20th century)
“Public employment contributes neither to advantage nor happiness. It is but honorable exile from one’s family and affairs.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)