Mary Flagler Cary

Mary Flagler Cary (1901-1967) was heir to part of the Standard Oil fortune and became a notable philanthropist, mainly through the charitable trust established at her death. She was the granddaughter of Henry Morrison Flagler, one of the founders of Standard Oil, and inherited 20,000 shares of Standard Oil from her father Harry Harkness Flagler on his death in 1952 (valued then at $1,600,000). She had married Melbert Cary, who died in 1941.

Mrs Cary and her husband were significant collectors. Their main acquisitions were music manuscripts, playing cards, and the work of great printers. Mrs Cary also built a collection of trees on her large estate at Millbrook, New York (now the Mary Flagler Cary Arboretum).

The Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust was established at her death. It has donated major collections as follows:

  • The Melbert B. Cary, Jr. Graphic Arts Collection at the Wallace Library, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York.
  • The Mary Flagler Cary Music Collection at the Morgan Library, New York City, New York.
  • The Cary Collection of Playing Cards at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

The Trust now expects to wind up its remaining work in 2009.

Famous quotes containing the words mary and/or cary:

    Things will not mourn you, people will.
    Hawaiian saying no. 191, ‘lelo No’Eau, collected, translated, and annotated by Mary Kawena Pukui, Bishop Museum Press, Hawaii (1983)

    For me, the principal fact of life is the free mind. For good and evil, man is a free creative spirit. This produces the very queer world we live in, a world in continuous creation and therefore continuous change and insecurity. A perpetually new and lively world, but a dangerous one, full of tragedy and injustice. A world in everlasting conflict between the new idea and the old allegiances, new arts and new inventions against the old establishment.
    —Joyce Cary (1888–1957)