User:Carptrash/Josephine P. Widener

Josephine "Fifi" Pancoast Widener (August 22, 1902, Newport, Rhode Island - March 6, 1961, West Palm Beach, Florida) was an American socialite, philanthropist and race horse owner.

Daughter of Joseph E. Widener and Ella Pancoast, she was raised at Lynnewood Hall, the 110-room Elkins Park, Pennsylvania mansion built by her grandfather, Peter A. B. Widener. She had a brother, Peter A. B. Widener II.

She married four times. In 1920 at age 17, she eloped with University of Pennsylvania freshman Carter Randolph Leidy. They had a daughter, Joan Leidy (1923-1988); the couple divorced in 1926. Fifi's subsequent husbands were Milton Whitely Holden (married 1926, divorced 1932), who appears to have been a member of the Lafayette Flying Corps, Aksel C. P. Wichfeld (married 1933, divorced 1951), and Anson A. Bigelow (married 1954). She had no more children.

She settled in Palm Beach, Florida, near Hialeah Park, the racetrack rebuilt and managed by her father.

In 1955 her horse, Nail won the Belmont Futurity Stakes race.

Additional places for information

 * here
 * a nice clipping about her second divorce

Category:1902 births Category:1961 deaths Category:Widener family Category:People from Philadelphia Category:People from Palm Beach, Florida Category:People from Newport, Rhode Island