Ailsa Mellon-Bruce

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Ailsa Mellon Bruce (June 28 1901 - August 25, 1969), born in Pittsburgh, was the daughter of the banker and diplomat Andrew W. Mellon. Mellon-Bruce served from 1921 to 1932 as her father's official hostess during his tenure as United States Secretary of the Treasury, and accompanied him when he was U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1932-33. In 1957, when Fortune prepared its first list of the wealthiest Americans, it estimated that Ailsa Mellon-Bruce, her brother Paul and her cousins Sarah Mellon and Richard King Mellon were all amongst the richest eight people in the United States, with fortunes of between 400 and 700 million dollars each..

Mellon-Bruce established the Avalon Foundation in 1940, which made grants to colleges and universities, medical schools and hospitals, youth programs and community services, churches, environmental projects, and an array of cultural and arts organizations.

She married David K. Bruce in 1926, who, strangely, was also to become United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom (1961-69). However, they divorced in 1945. When their only daughter, Audrey, and her husband, Stephen Currier, died in a presumed plane crash in 1967 leaving three children, Andrea, Lavinia, and Michael, orphans, Mrs. Bruce decided to bequeath her collection of 18th-century English furniture and ceramics to the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

At her death in 1969, Mrs. Bruce bequeathed 153 paintings, primarily by French artists, to the National Gallery of Art, as well as establishing a fund for future acquisitions.

In 1969, the assets of her brother Paul Mellon’s Old Dominion Foundation were merged into those of the Avalon Foundation, which was renamed The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in honor of their father.

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Last updated on Tuesday March 04, 2008 at 10:18:45 PST (GMT -0800)
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