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Gwladys Crosby Hopkins (October 26, 1905 - December 13, 1997) was a socialite, horsewoman, and philanthropist. She was born to Mark Hopkins III and Gwladys Sutton Hopkins who were prominent members of Colorado Springs, Boston, and Philadelphia society. In order to distinguish herself from her mother with the same name, Gwladys was better known as “Gee” or “Gigi” by her friends and family. The maternal side of Gwladys' family was Welsh, hence the letter "w" in the spelling of her first name. Her first marriage in 1931 to Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, heir of the powerful Vanderbilt and Whitney families, ended in divorce nine years later. Her second marriage to diplomat Josiah Marvel, Jr. of Delaware was by all accounts, a happy one and concluded with his premature death. Years later, she married neurologist Dr. Frank Abercrombie Elliott of South Africa.

Ancestors and Relatives
Gwladys’ ancestors with the surnames of Hopkins, Floyd, and Crosby, immigrated to the United States before the Revolutionary War. One of them, William Floyd, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and served the Original Colonies prior to 1701, therefore Gwladys belonged to the Colonial Dames of America. On her father's side of the family, Gwladys’ paternal great-grandfather, Mark Hopkins (educator), was a Congregationalist Theologian, and President of Williams College from 1836 to 1872. Her maternal aunt, Nina Floyd Crosby, was a socialite who married French aviator and Olympic financier, Marquis Melchior de Polignac, grandson of Jeanne-Alexandrine Pommery, the inventor of dry champagne. Also on her mother’s side of the family her cousins included the writer and publisher Harry Crosby and Hollywood cinematographer and Oscar winner Floyd Crosby.

Early Years
Gwladys was born and spent her youth in a house located at 250 Beacon Street in Boston where she lived with both her parents and well-to-do great-aunts, Georgeanna and Martha Parsons. She spent summers at her great-aunts’ homes in Newton and Dublin, New Hampshire.

Mark Hopkins III, Gwladys' father, was a Harvard graduate, and her mother, Gwladys Sutton Crosby, was a daughter of Cripple Creek gold mine owner, Walter Floyd Crosby of New York and Colorado Springs. When Gwladys’ father, Mark, was hired as a merchant for a coal company, he moved the family from Boston to the Philadelphia area, and eventually built a home, "Springton Farm” on 150 acres near Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, about 18 miles from the city, where he took up scientific farming. The creek flowing through Springton Farm was dammed and flooded decades later, and in 1931 became the Springton Reservoir.

Gwladys lived a happy, privileged life on the farm, but when she was eight years old her father accidentally shot himself in the chest and died while cleaning his gun. The tragedy happened on the first floor of their home in the library, while Mark was with his sister, Georgeanna. Young Gwladys, her mother, brother, and a cousin were upstairs when the accident occurred.

In 1917, three years after their father’s death, Gwladys and her brother Mark IV left for Philadelphia when their mother married Stevens Heckscher, a lawyer and graduate of both Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania Law schools. Stevens became a widower himself when his wife, Henrietta Armitt Brown, daughter of author and orator Henry Armitt Brown, died in 1912. Stevens Heckscher and Gwladys Crosby raised a blended family of six children in Philadelphia at 2001 DeLancy Street.

Debut and Engagement
Gwladys attended a private boarding high school, the Masters School in Dobbs Ferry, New York, but she never graduated. Her stepfather Stevens Heckscher did not support educating women.

As a beautiful, vivacious, and svelte 18-year-old, Gwladys was a "belle" of Philadelphia's Main Line society when she was introduced as a debutante in 1922. She most likely met her first husband, Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, at age 23 when she traveled by train to the Harriman family’s “Railroad Ranch” near Island Park, Idaho. Cornelius was the son of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, the sculptor and founder of the Whitney Museum of Art, and grandson of railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt II. On his father's side, his equally powerful other grandfather, William Collins Whitney, was a secretary of the Navy, attorney, investment banker, and political mastermind. While Gwladys was engaged to Cornelius, her step father Stevens became sick and died three months before her wedding day, September 28, 1931. Thus, the ceremony was small and quiet with only family attending, and Gwladys’ brother Mark IV stood in place of her father and step-father to give her away. She became the second wife of Cornelius and resided on the Long Island Whitney estate in Old Westbury, New York, and spent the remainder of her time at their homes in Manhattan, Pennsylvania hunt country, Kentucky, or the Adirondacks. Cornelius was active in the formation of Pan Am Airlines; therefore, the Whitneys traveled extensively.

Life
Gwladys was a tall and natural beauty, who possessed extraordinary grace in both her appearance and her demeanor –– she was approachable and down-to-earth, despite her family connections, and prominence on the social register lists. She appeared multiple times in national fashion magazines, including Vogue in 1931, and was presented at Buckingham Palace, and yet, she was also a member of an amateur women’s polo team and raced horses for fun at Piping Rock Country Club.

In 1932, Gwladys tirelessly campaigned for her husband Cornelius’ Congressional bid for the Southern district of Long Island against incumbent Robert L. Bacon. The contest created a stir among the wealthy residents, as both men were friends, but when the mudslinging became personal, it created a rift between social circles, private clubs, and other prominent family members, including the Roosevelts. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney lost the election by a “small landslide,” despite having the political backing of former governor Alfred E. Smith, Charles H. Sabins, the President of Guaranty Trust Co, and Judge Morgan J. O’Brien. Cornelius returned to Pan Am after the election, where he was a board member and head of the financial arm of the company founded by his friend, Juan Trippe. Eventually, Cornelius worked his way up to Chairman of the Board and became increasingly absent at home. When Gwladys discovered that he was having a sustained, overt relationship with Pan Am receptionist Eleanor Searle who was born in Plymouth, Ohio farm county, Gwladys moved to Hobe Sound, Florida and filed for divorce.

Gwladys' second husband and childhood friend, Josiah Marvel, Jr, was a Yale and Harvard educated lawyer, and American diplomat. Josiah served as the Delaware Secretary of State, and after an appointment from President Truman, was promoted to Ambassador to Denmark. In 1946 the Marvels moved to Copenhagen, along with Gail, a daughter from Gwladys' first union with Cornelius, and newly born Josiah Marvel, III. The family stayed in Denmark until the appointment ended in 1949, and six years after returning home to Delaware, Josiah, Jr., died at the age 51. In February 1970, Gwladys married Dr. Frank Abercrombie Elliott, Chief of Neurology at Pennsylvania Hospital, who was born in South Africa and immigrated to the US. They remained married until her death in December 1997.

Children
Unlike most of high society in the first half of the 1900s, Gwladys was a hands-on mother, and devoted much of her time to her children. Cornelius and Gwladys had one daughter, Gail Whitney born in 1939 who died at The New York Hospital of leukemia at age 24. She married twice, first to Richard Cox Cowell, whom she divorced, and then Louis S. Stur, a Hungarian immigrant, professor, Sun Valley, Idaho ski instructor, and Director of Hotels at the Sun Valley Resort.

Gwladys and Josiah had two boys: Josiah Marvel III late of Paris, born February 1945, and Jonathan Marvel, born in May 1947, of Idaho.

Philanthropy
Gwladys was a patron and booster of the visual arts, ballet, and education. A 1928 Henri Matisse oil painting, Two Models Resting, given to her as a gift by her first husband Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, was donated to the Philadelphia Museum of Art by Gwladys in 1968. The Matisse is officially listed as a gift from Mrs. Frank Abercrombie Elliott. An Andrew Wyeth painting, The Cooling Shed and accompanying preparatory drawings acquired by Gwladys were donated in her memory to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1998, by her husband Dr. Frank A. Elliott, and her sons Josiah Marvel III, and Jonathan Marvel. Gwladys was a patron of the Pennsylvania Ballet Company, and frequently paid the tuition of college bound high school seniors who otherwise could not afford to attend.