Marietta Peabody Tree
Encyclopedia
Marietta Peabody Tree was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 socialite
Socialite
A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....

 and political supporter, who represented the United States on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights
United Nations Commission on Human Rights
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations from 1946 until it was replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006...

, appointed under the administration of John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

.

Economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...

 George Goodman
George Goodman
George Jerome Waldo Goodman , is an American economist, author, and broadcast economics commentator, best known by his pseudonym Adam Smith . He also writes fiction under the name "George Goodman."-Background, education, and career:Goodman was born in St...

 proclaimed: "All women should go to Marietta Tree School".

Early life

Mary Endicott Peabody was the only daughter of Malcolm Endicott Peabody, the rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Lawrence, Massachusetts
Lawrence, Massachusetts
Lawrence is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States on the Merrimack River. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a total population of 76,377. Surrounding communities include Methuen to the north, Andover to the southwest, and North Andover to the southeast. It and Salem are...

, and Mary Elizabeth Parkman. Her grandfather Rev. Endicott Peabody
Endicott Peabody (educator)
The Reverend Endicott Peabody was the American Episcopal priest who founded the Groton School for Boys , in Groton, Massachusetts in 1884. Peabody served as headmaster at the school from 1884 until 1940, and also served as a trustee at Lawrence Academy at Groton...

 was founder and first headmaster of Groton School
Groton School
Groton School is a private, Episcopal, college preparatory boarding school located in Groton, Massachusetts, U.S. It enrolls approximately 375 boys and girls, from the eighth through twelfth grades...

 where her four brothers Endicott, Samuel, George, and Malcolm were educated.

Although born into an old New England family, Tree's parents were strictly middle-class, and were among the old-line Yankees and Episcopalians in what was fast becoming the Roman Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

 stronghold of Lawrence. Tree's mother Mary was an extensive charity worker, and encouraged her daughter to get involved with the community.

Tree attended St. Timothy's School
St. Timothy's School
St. Timothy's School is a four-year private all-girls boarding high school in Stevenson in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. The school is located just north of Baltimore City in Baltimore County less than a mile north of I-695, the Baltimore Beltway.-About the School:The school is a...

, where she excelled in athletics above studies. An effervescent, leggy blonde, she was an accomplished flirt and irresistible to men from an early age. She undertook a grand tour of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and finishing school
Finishing school
A finishing school is "a private school for girls that emphasises training in cultural and social activities." The name reflects that it follows on from ordinary school and is intended to complete the educational experience, with classes primarily on etiquette...

 in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

 upon graduation to avoid college. When asked to predict her own future, she wrote down: "Parties, people, and politics."

Her father insisted that she, unlike many society girls of the time, attend college, and she enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

 in 1936. Although she withdrew from the Class of 1940 without a degree, in later interviews she often remarked: "I'll never stop being grateful to my father for forcing me to go to college. It changed my life." In 1964 she was presented with an honorary Doctor of Laws degree, and in 1971 with an honorary Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

. She is also an honorary member of Alpha Kappa Alpha
Alpha Kappa Alpha
Alpha Kappa Alpha is the first Greek-lettered sorority established and incorporated by African American college women. The sorority was founded on January 15, 1908, at Howard University in Washington, D.C., by a group of nine students, led by Ethel Hedgeman Lyle...

 Sorority.

Desmond FitzGerald

During college, Tree was courted by Harvard law graduate and New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...


Desmond FitzGerald. The couple married on September 2, 1939, and Marietta gave birth to a daughter Frances FitzGerald. Frances FitzGerald later became a noted journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

 and historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

.

Tree began a career as a fact checker, and latterly writer for Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

magazine. At night she partied with the Astors
Astor family
The Astor family is a Anglo-American business family of German descent notable for their prominence in business, society, and politics.-Founding family members:...

, Paleys
William S. Paley
William S. Paley was the chief executive who built Columbia Broadcasting System from a small radio network into one of the foremost radio and television network operations in the United States.-Early life:...

, and Warburgs
Warburg family
The Warburg family is a financial dynasty of German Jewish origin, noted for their accomplishments in physics, classical music, art history, pharmacology, physiology, finance, private equity and philanthropy. They are believed to be descended from the Venetian Jewish del Banco family, in the early...

; describing these years as: "a fever of happiness."

Her ardent liberal Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 views clashed with those of her Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 husband and created tensions in the marriage. After America entered the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 in December 1941, Marietta accepted a post as part of the American delegation assisting the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 Ministry of Information.

When Desmond left New York to fulfill a role in the war effort, Tree started a passionate and intense affair with the film director John Huston
John Huston
John Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...

. Rumors and historians suggest that Tree was the only woman Huston ever truly loved, and one weekend their love making activity broke a friend's bed. When FitzGerald returned from his duties before the end of the war, Huston returned to Hollywood, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 to await the promised divorce at Marietta's request.

Ronald Tree

Although contemplating marriage with Huston, Marietta and FitzGerald were invited to Barbados
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...

 by a colleague from the British Ministry of Information. Ronald Tree
Ronald Tree
Arthur Ronald Lambert Field Tree , was an American-born British journalist, investor and Conservative Member of Parliament for the Harborough constituency in Leicestershire.-Biography:...

 was then a dollar billionaire, whose mother was the daughter of retail magnate Marshall Field
Marshall Field
Marshall Field was founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago-based department stores.-Life and career:...

; while he himself was the then MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Harborough
Harborough (UK Parliament constituency)
Harborough is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.-Boundaries:...

, Leicestershire
Leicestershire
Leicestershire is a landlocked county in the English Midlands. It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, traditionally its administrative centre, although the City of Leicester unitary authority is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire...

 and friend of Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

. Although both were married, Marietta and Tree began an affair.

Although he was bisexual and twenty years older than Marietta, Tree and Peabody divorced their respective partners at the end of World War II and married on July 26, 1947. Marietta moved into Tree's home, Ditchley Park
Ditchley
Ditchley is a country house and estate about northeast of Charlbury in Oxfordshire.-Archaeology:There are remains of a Roman villa on the Ditchley Park estate at Watts Wells, less than southeast of the house...

, but found herself bored with English country life. Tree and most of his friends were Conservatives
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

, and Democrat Marietta again found herself politically isolated. Their daughter Penelope
Penelope Tree
Penelope Tree is an Anglo-American former fashion model prominent in swinging sixties London.-Life and career:She was the only child of Marietta Peabody Tree, a socialite and Democratic political activist, and Ronald Tree, a bisexual journalist, investor and MP. Tree is a great-granddaughter of...

 was born in 1949.

Recognizing his wife's unhappiness, and for the first time in his life short of money, Ronald Tree sold Ditchley and agreed to return to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 with Marietta, her daughter Frances Fitzgerald and their own daughter, future '60s fashion model Penelope Tree, and his butler Collins.

Politics and Adlai Stevenson

Marietta Tree immediately joined the Lexington Democratic Club, and two years later was elected the county chairwoman. She was elected to the Democratic State Committee in 1954.

In 1952, Tree became involved in the Presidential election campaign of Adlai Stevenson. After his defeat, the couple became constant companions and lovers, but Ronald Tree was unfazed and even invited Stevenson to the couple's homes in New York, Barbados
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...

 and London. Marietta and Stevenson developed code names for each other – Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, and Mr. and Mrs. Richardson – and arranged trysts at various friends' houses that they considered safe.

Tree was part of Stevenson's unsuccessful 1956 Presidential campaign, and upon his return to a legal career the pair continued their affair but became slightly more distant. Stevenson also took other lovers, keeping Marietta on edge, frequently disclosing his encounters by stockpiling in a drawer by his bed a number of poems and meditations of love that he would send and receive from various women.

This encouraged Tree's earlier lover, the film director John Huston, who even gave her a role in his 1960 movie The Misfits
The Misfits (film)
The Misfits is a 1961 American drama film written by Arthur Miller, directed by John Huston, and starring Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Thelma Ritter, and Eli Wallach. It was the final film appearance for both Gable and Monroe...

. But she was devoted to Stevenson, and although she refused to divorce Tree, she gladly accepted John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

's offer of becoming the United States Representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, aptly appointed under Stevenson as the head of the American delegation. She served in this position from 1961 to 1964.

On July 14, 1965, Tree and Stevenson were walking in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 when he suffered a heart attack, and later died at St. George's Hospital. That night in her diary, she wrote: "Adlai is dead. We were together."

Later life

Ronald and Tree became virtually estranged. Ronald Tree died of a stroke on July 14, 1976 in London, while Marietta was in New York.

Ronald Tree left Marietta with little money, and she was forced to sell much of the couple's property to remain financially stable. She started an affair with English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

 Richard Llewelyn-Davies, and financed the married man's business expansion into the United States. But Davies died suddenly, and Tree was forced to cover some of the estate's debts.

Tree through her connections was able to obtain some well paid directorships, including the boards of CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

, Pan Am, and Lend Lease Corporation
Lend Lease Corporation
Lend Lease Group is a global property and infrastructure company headquartered in Sydney, Australia...

 of Australia. She also served as women's trustee on the board of the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

. These positions and incomes enabled her to not only support herself, but resist calls from her later publishing and political community lovers to write her memoirs, including lover Eben Pyne.

In 1987 she appeared in the Danny Huston
Danny Huston
-Early life:Huston was born in Rome, Italy. He hails from the illustrious Huston acting and filmmaking dynasty. He is the son of legendary director John Huston, half-brother of actress Anjelica Huston and screenwriter Tony Huston, uncle of actor Jack Huston, stepbrother of Allegra Huston, and...

 film Mr. North
Mr. North
Mr. North is a 1988 American comedy-drama film starring Anthony Edwards, based on the 1973 novel Theophilus North by Thornton Wilder.Directed by Danny Huston, the film became a family project; produced by John Huston, it also stars Anjelica Huston, Danny's future wife Virginia Madsen, and Allegra...

, and a few weeks before John Huston died of emphysema
Emphysema
Emphysema is a long-term, progressive disease of the lungs that primarily causes shortness of breath. In people with emphysema, the tissues necessary to support the physical shape and function of the lungs are destroyed. It is included in a group of diseases called chronic obstructive pulmonary...

 on August 28, 1987, Tree visited him in a hospital in Middletown
Middletown, Rhode Island
Middletown is a town in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 16,150 at the 2010 census. It lies to the south of Portsmouth and to the north of Newport on Aquidneck Island, hence the name "Middletown."-Geography:...

, Rhode Island
Rhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...

 and his electrocardiogram
Electrocardiogram
Electrocardiography is a transthoracic interpretation of the electrical activity of the heart over a period of time, as detected by electrodes attached to the outer surface of the skin and recorded by a device external to the body...

 "started jumping with excitement as soon as she entered the room." She was, his friends maintained, the only woman he ever really loved. Her friends in the 1980s included Donald Trump
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump, Sr. is an American business magnate, television personality and author. He is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts. Trump's extravagant lifestyle, outspoken manner and role on the NBC reality show The Apprentice have...

, Charles Wrightsman (who in 1986 bought the Lorenzo Lotto
Lorenzo Lotto
Lorenzo Lotto was a Northern Italian painter draughtsman and illustrator, traditionally placed in the Venetian school. He painted mainly altarpieces, religious subjects and portraits...

 artwork Venus and Cupid in her honour for the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

); and President Ronald
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

 and Nancy Reagan
Nancy Reagan
Nancy Davis Reagan is the widow of former United States President Ronald Reagan and was First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989....

, the latter of whom she was criticized for in the Democratic party, which she worked for until 1990 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer
Breast cancer
Breast cancer is cancer originating from breast tissue, most commonly from the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply the ducts with milk. Cancers originating from ducts are known as ductal carcinomas; those originating from lobules are known as lobular carcinomas...

.

Death

Tree fought the disease hard, including undertaking a double mastectomy
Mastectomy
Mastectomy is the medical term for the surgical removal of one or both breasts, partially or completely. Mastectomy is usually done to treat breast cancer; in some cases, women and some men believed to be at high risk of breast cancer have the operation prophylactically, that is, to prevent cancer...

, and told her friends she was suffering from influenza
Influenza
Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae , that affects birds and mammals...

. Tree died on August 15, 1991, at her home in New York. Her ashes were buried by her daughters with her 1991 red leather diary attached to the urn.

Character

Tree was bought up in strict household, whose requirements she transferred to her own daughters: they never had dolls when children. By the time she was a society hostess, Tree had become so obsessed with her self-image it was said she was vapid and humourless. When the photographer David Bailey met Tree while picking up her daughter Penelope for a photo shoot, he described her as, "My God, what a bitch! She was a complete phony, a fake, a snob,... the worst!"

Isaiah Berlin
Isaiah Berlin
Sir Isaiah Berlin OM, FBA was a British social and political theorist, philosopher and historian of ideas of Russian-Jewish origin, regarded as one of the leading thinkers of the twentieth century and a dominant liberal scholar of his generation...

 characterized her political standing as, "a progressive, liberal figure who was mixed up with a lot of naive left-wing sympathizers." Like her contemporary Pamela Harriman
Pamela Harriman
Pamela Beryl Harriman , also known as Pamela Churchill Harriman, was an English-born socialite who was married and linked to important and powerful men. In later life, she became a political activist for the United States Democratic Party and a diplomat...

, Marietta attained through men what women of her time were forbidden to attain for themselves. As the feminist movement gained momentum in the 1960s, Marietta refused to support its cause, and in 1967 she angered her fellow female delegates to the New York state constitutional convention, by refusing to sign three resolutions pertaining to women's rights.

Although flirting and sexual in nature, her attitude to sex was perceived by friends as a "necessary evil" that was required to obtain the favors of powerful men. Others commented that sex for Adlai Stevensen was "not urgent"; Ronald Tree was bisexual; and a friend of Llewelyn-Davies said that sex was "not Richard's thing". Her squeamishness when it came to sex is corroborated by a friend's recollection that she walked out on movies the minute the action took a sexual turn.

External links

  • Marietta Tree Papers at the Schlesinger Library
    Schlesinger Library
    The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America is a research library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. According to Nancy F...

    , Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
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