Untold Wealth

You have to have been incredibly wealthy if in your six-column New York Times obituary mention is made of your homes in Newport, Rhode Island—Beaulieu, one of Newport Rhode Island's oldest mansions with 16-bedrooms overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, a true Newport "cottage" — and Under Oak, a residence in northwest Washington, D.C. named for a 400-year-old tree on a 2¾ acre estate—and you cannot find a single $ in the text that steers clear of embarrassingly mentioning your net worth.

Such is the obit for Ruth Buchanan in today's paper, a philanthropist and society grande dame who has passed away at 101.

At 22, Ruth Elizabeth Hale married 26-year-old Wiley T. Buchanan Jr., a member of a Texas family that made its fortune in timber, oil and cotton, while her fortune was from her grandfather, Herbert Henry Dow, who founded Dow Chemical in 1897. The marriage was a wedding, as well as a merger of individual balance sheets.

If the name Buchanan might sound familiar, it should, since young Wiley was a descendant of James Buchanan, the 15th President of the United States. Ruth was never referred to as Daisy Buchanan.

Ruth and Wiley's life together was a social whirl, she the hostess, and he a United States ambassador to Luxembourg and Austria. She was a proficient painter, avid gardener, and award-winning flower arranger who served on several philanthropic boards and who probably couldn't tell you anything about a single 'I Love Lucy' episode.

The obit is accompanied by three photos, one of which is the standard photo that all wealthy people are posed with—their dogs. In the photo, the neatly coiffed Ruth can be seen with what looks like a French poodle of medium size, alongside husband Wiley, looking absolutely smashing in a window pane sport coat, sporting a set of shades with a dog cradled under his left arm, being held somewhat like a football, ready to charge through the line.

Mr. Buchanan passed  away in 1986. In 1999 Mrs. Buchanan married Edward Kendall Wheeler, a Washington lawyer who made his money through being an early investor in cable television, satellite and paging interests. She described Edward as her high school sweetheart who was the son of a four-term Montana Democratic U.S. Senator, Burton K. Wheeler. On Burton's retirement from the Senate in 1947, he joined his son's law firm. Definitely, all in the family.

Mr. Wheeler passed away in 2002, leaving Ruth to have survived two husbands and no newsworthy scandals, leaving two daughters and a son from her first marriage along with seven grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren.

At a gathering of 150 family members in 2008 when she was 90 (she passed away in November 2019, her demise long unreported) Ruth thoroughly enjoyed herself, but did miss not being able to dance.

Family wealth is still not disclosed.

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