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In 1919, 31-year-old Helen Clay Frick inherited $38 million -- more than $404 million in today's dollars -- making her the richest unmarried woman in America.
But even with Helen's newfound fortune, she continued to live and work under her father's influence. She devoted the ensuing years to perpetuating Henry Clay Frick's legacy, as well as defending it.
A new book -- "Helen Clay Frick: Bittersweet Heiress" (Universirty of Pittsburgh Press, $40) -- chronicles Helen Clay Frick's lifelong commitment to social welfare, the environment and her purchase of many significant works of art. Those pieces found homes in a number of places -- her private collection, The Frick Collection in New York, the University of Pittsburgh teaching collection and the Frick Art Museum in Point Breeze.
The biography was written by Martha Frick Symington Sanger, of Stevenson, Md. She is the great-granddaughter of Henry Clay Frick and granddaughter of Helen's brother, Childs.
For all of her great aunt's eccentricities, Sanger says, a portrait of Helen Frick as a heroic figure began to emerge while Sanger worked on the book. During her 96 years, Helen Clay Frick stood up for her convictions.
"I saw a deeply wounded woman who was up against the sexism of the times, up against the misunderstanding of abuse of power by the father, just up against so much," Sanger says. "But she pulled her bootstraps up and did it anyway."
As Sanger tells it, living in the shadow of one of America's great industrialists was no walk in the park.
Of course, growing up in a life of privilege in the 1890s, Helen had everything at her fingertips, from ivory dominoes crafted by Tiffany to playing cards from Vienna. She often entertained important visitors in her playroom at the family's Pittsburgh mansion, Clayton, serving tea to Andrew Carnegie and to the Mellon brothers, Andrew and Richard.
But such trappings were overshadowed by the loss of two siblings before the age of 4, especially the loss of her sister, Martha, who died when Helen was just 3.
Born in 1885, Martha was the first daughter of Henry Clay Frick and Adelaide Howard Childs Frick. She was nicknamed "Rosebud" because of her creamy complexion and soft red curls.
The circumstances of her...