philanthropist pianist trustee
Martha Baird Rockefeller was born in Madera, California, United States, the daughter of William Finley Baird and Almina Abbey Smith of Streator, Ill. She was of Scotch-Irish Presbyterian stock; her ancestors had emigrated to Pennsylvania in the late 1700's. Her father was a coal and oil investor with offices in seven cities.
Martha Baird attended Blairsville School for Girls in Pennsylvania, then Occidental College in Los Angeles, from which she graduated in 1916.
After graduating from the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, in 1917, she studied piano with Artur Schnabel in Berlin and became a concert pianist.
After graduating from the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, in 1917, she studied piano with Artur Schnabel in Berlin and became a concert pianist. In 1918, she toured with Dame Nellie Melba, the Australian soprano. During the 1920's, based in London and New York City, she appeared in Britain, Europe, and the United States as a soloist with leading orchestras. Her British debut took place in 1926 with the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Thomas Beecham. She also played with the Boston Symphony under Serge Koussevitzky. Martha Baird retired from the concert stage in 1931 at the relatively young age of thirty-six. Fond of both serious and light music, she composed "Win With Willkie" several years later for Wendell Willkie's 1940 Republican campaign.
On August 15, 1951, in Providence, Martha Baird Allen married John D. Rockefeller, Jr. , who at seventy-seven years of age, was twenty-one years her senior. Her relations with "Junior's" six children were cordial; the younger generation of Rockefellers called their stepmother "Aunt Martha. " She and Rockefeller spent winters in Tucson, Ariz. , summers in Seal Harbor, Maine, and fall and spring at the 3, 500-acre Rockefeller estate in suburban Pocantico, New York, with occasional visits to Basset Hall in Colonial Williamsburg. After retiring from the concert stage, Martha Baird continued to be actively involved with music as a philanthropist. She was a trustee of the New England Conservatory and served as President of the Providence Community Concert Association from 1937 until 1950. She contributed generously to the City Center in New York, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Metropolitan Opera, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Boston Symphony. In 1962, she founded the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music to assist the careers of young musicians. Between 1962 and 1982 this fund made 1, 262 grants to individuals and 741 to musical organizations worth a total of $9 million. As well as aiding young musicians, it assisted musical scholars and organizations. Martha Baird Rockefeller also supported many of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. 's, interests after he died in 1960; these included Colonial Williamsburg, the Harvard Divinity School, the Metropolitan Museum, Brown University, the National Council of Churches, and Riverside Church. Upon her husband's death, she became a trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, to which John D. Rockefeller, Jr. , bequeathed half his $150-million estate. The other half of his estate was given to Martha Rockefeller, although in fact, she inherited $48 million after taxes plus various properties. Martha Baird Rockefeller was the single largest contributor to the political campaigns of her stepson, Nelson A. Rockefeller. She gave him her late husband's estate, Kykuit, to live in when Nelson Rockefeller became governor of New York. She herself bequeathed $13. 4 million to the Rockefeller Family Fund, $10 million to Lincoln Center, $5 million to her Fund for Music, and the remaining assets of her estate to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The house that Martha Baird Rockefeller had built on the Pocantico estate, Hillcrest, she also left to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which converted it into the Rockefeller Archive Center, established in 1975.
She was of Scotch-Irish Presbyterian stock; her ancestors had emigrated to Pennsylvania in the late 1700's.
trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Martha Baird was married three times, first to Adrian van Laar of New York on August 4, 1920. This marriage lasted only three years and was childless; the couple separated in 1923 and divorced in April 1925. Martha Baird married Arthur Moulton Allen, a lawyer and a classmate at Brown of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. , in May 1930. The couple lived in Providence, R. I. , and had no children; Allen died twenty years later, in May 1950. On August 15, 1951, in Providence, Martha Baird Allen married John D. Rockefeller, Jr. , who at seventy-seven years of age, was twenty-one years her senior. Her relations with "Junior's" six children were cordial; the younger generation of Rockefellers called their stepmother "Aunt Martha. "
She died at her home in New York City of a heart attack.
Martha Baird married Arthur Moulton Allen, a lawyer and a classmate at Brown of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., in May 1930.
On August 15, 1951, in Providence, Martha Baird Allen married John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who at seventy-seven years of age, was twenty-one years her senior.
