Philanthropy
Doheny contributed money to foundations. He helped fund the construction of St. Vincent de Paul Church. After the tragic shooting death of his son, he donated $1.1 million in 1932 to University of Southern California (USC) to build the Edward L. Doheny, Jr. Memorial Library. His second wife, Carrie Estelle Doheny donated her rare book collection to St. John's Seminary in Camarillo, California.
Doheny, Sr., meanwhile, lived in his own mansion, which he had purchased in 1901. Part of Chester Place, a gated community of Victorian mansions, Doheny ended up owning most of the houses, as well as the street, by the time of his death in 1935. Built in 1899 in the French Gothic architectural style, this 3-story, 22-room residence was damaged in the 1933 earthquake but was repaired, and is now part of Mount St. Mary's College's campus, where it houses college departments, runs docent tours, and hosts chamber music concerts by The Da Camera Society.
The Dohenys also owned a great deal of coastal land in Dana Point, California, which was donated to the State of California for Doheny State Beach as a memorial to Edward's murdered son Ned. They also donated the funds for the construction of the original site of St. Edward the Confessor Roman Catholic Church, which has since moved to a bluff-top location overlooking Doheny State Beach. The original building is now home to San Felipe de Jesus Roman Catholic Church.
After he began basing his Mexican oil operations near Tampico, Tamaulipas in 1902, Doheny donated much money towards the construction and maintenance of the Cathedral of Tampico, also known as The Temple of the Immaculate Conception, located in Plaza de Armas.
The Doheny Estate has donated money for the construction of buildings and residence halls to Loyola Marymount University and the land for one of the campuses of Mount St. Mary's College south of downtown Los Angeles.
In 1944, Carrie Estelle Doheny suffered a hemorrhage, leaving her partially blind. Realizing the value of good vision, she created and funded the Doheny Eye Institute, which today has become a world leader in vision research.
Doheny took his yacht, the Casiana (named after his first major producing oil well in Mexico, the Casiana No. 7), to Martinique to pick up a friend's brother who worked as a farmer on the island and who was seriously ill. Doheny brought him back to New York; the steam yacht was able to make the trip in only 5 days.
Read more about this topic: Edward L. Doheny
Famous quotes containing the word philanthropy:
“I shall not be forward to think him mistaken in his method who quickest succeeds to liberate the slave. I speak for the slave when I say that I prefer the philanthropy of Captain Brown to that philanthropy which neither shoots me nor liberates me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Almost every man we meet requires some civility,—requires to be humored; he has some fame, some talent, some whim of religion or philanthropy in his head that is not to be questioned, and which spoils all conversation with him. But a friend is a sane man who exercises not my ingenuity, but me.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“... the hey-day of a woman’s life is on the shady side of fifty, when the vital forces heretofore expended in other ways are garnered in the brain, when their thoughts and sentiments flow out in broader channels, when philanthropy takes the place of family selfishness, and when from the depths of poverty and suffering the wail of humanity grows as pathetic to their ears as once was the cry of their own children.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)