The Wideners: An American Family

Joseph Early Widener
Joseph Early Widener, son of PAB Widener and Hannah Widener was born Aug.19, 1871 in Philadelphia and grew up at his father's home on North Broad Street which was not considered to be a socially desirable location by Philadelphia's upper class. This conflicted with the fact that Joseph was very status conscious. He attended Harvard and briefly went to the University of Pennsylvania where he studied architecture. Joseph never shared his father and brother's avid interest in the business world instead focusing on art and horse racing. The latter interest would influence his nephew, his children, and their descendants to the present day, as the Widener, Dixon, and Wetherill names became synonymous with thoroughbred hose racing.

Joseph married Eleanor Pancoast, who died in 1929 of heart disease, and they had two children, PAB Widener II, born in 1895, and Josephine "Fifi" Pancoast Widener, born in 1902. Joseph and his family moved to Lynnewood Hall with the rest of the Wideners at the turn of the century.

When PAB died in 1915, Joseph became administrator of the family business and, upon inheriting his father's vast estate, one of the richest men in America . At the time the Forbes list placed Joseph’s net worth in the $60 million range, equivalent to about $650 million in today's currency, with an annual income of $3 million.

Joseph Early Widener, his son PAB II and daughter Josephine "Fifi"

He rather quickly set about downsizing PAB's Lynnewood Hall art collection from 400 paintings, housed in one big gallery, to about 100 paintings, split up between several different galleries in which he played music from phonographs he concealed in the walls. He also added to the collection with select items and opened the Lynnewood Hall galleries to the public.

While in London, upon learning that Queen Mary was interested in art, he wrote to her asking permission to send her a catalog of his art collection. The Queen accepted his offer and returned the favor in 1932 by sending him a catalog of the Buckingham Palace collection. Although he never met Queen Mary, she sent him autographed photos of herself and King George along with an annual Christmas card.

However, Joseph met King George V several times after first being introduced to him by Lord Derby, a Widener racing crony, at Ascot. When several members of European royalty visited Lynnewood Hall in person to view the Widener collection, PAB II and his wife Gertrude acted as hosts. Beatriz, Infanta of Spain, and Alonzo ,brother of the King of Spain, visited in 1928. Other guests included the exiled Grand Duchess Marie of Russia and the Crown Prince and Princess of Sweden.

In his will PAB granted Joseph custody of the collection and the authority to give it as a gift to the public in Philadelphia, Washington, or New York. President Coolidge and Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon desired that Widener donate the collection to the American public, promising that it would be displayed in a new museum in Washington, D.C.

In 1939 Joseph Widener agreed to the plan and made the donation in memory of his father. President Roosevelt formally announced the donation at the dedication ceremony for the National Gallery of Art in March 1941. Today the Gallery houses paintings and art objects from the collection along with formal portraits of PAB Widener by John Singer Sargent and Joseph Widener by Augustus Johns.

Joseph with unknown friend, at the races,1930s

For the next 15 years or so, Joseph Widener bred and raced championship race horses and associated with high society both in the racing world and in fashionable resorts such as Palm Beach.

When August Belmont II died in 1925 Widener bought much of his breeding stock and sold many of the horses to a group that consisted of W. Averill Harriman and George Herbert Walker, grandfather of President George Bush. Widener also took ownership of Belmont Park.

George D. Widener Jr. and Joseph Widener at the Kentucky Derby year unknown
Courtesy of the author.

However, his biggest accomplishment in the racing world was his transforming Hialeah Park into a major-league, first class racetrack combined with the introduction of pari-mutual betting in the State of Florida. The Miami area racetrack was founded in 1925 and operated, albeit with illegal betting which was curtailed once or twice by politicians. Joseph Widener purchased the track in 1930 and spent $2 million to upgrade it, creating an architectural masterpiece with extensively landscaped grounds. Over the next few years he built the country's first turf course and brought a flock of pink flamingos in from Cuba whose descendants still inhabited the infield until the present when they began to be farmed out to zoos around the country.

The next several decades were Hialeah's glory days with horses such as Citation, running regularly. Ownership later changed hands a few times and the track saw a downturn in the 1970's. Disputes erupted over when other Florida tracks such as Gulfstream would host the racing season. Today the once magnificent track and grounds sit neglected and rundown, a mere relic of the palace Joseph Widener created.

Joseph Widener also owned Elmendorf Farm in the Bluegrass Region of Kentucky and a horse racing farm in France. He continued to live at Lynnewood Hall and also maintained an estate, Il Palmetto, in Palm Beach which today is owned and being renovated by a computer tycoon. Widener's name was regularly in the sports and society pages of various newspapers related to horse racing and his social life, such as coming and goings to Europe on the Normandie.

He was ill for the last few years of his life and it was said that he bid a tearful goodbye to his art collection when it was moved from Lynnewood Hall to Washington D.C.

Joseph Early Widener spent the summer of 1943 in Ventnor, New Jersey and returned to Lynnewood Hall in September where he died the following month on Oct. 26 of a heart attack. A brief funeral service was held in a flower blanketed church in Elkins Park and he was interred in the family mausoleum at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia. He named his son PAB II and nephew George D. Widener Jr. as executors of his will which placed his estate in trust with equal shares to be paid to his two children.