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Margaretta Large Fitler "Happy" Murphy Rockefeller (June 9, 1926 – May 19, 2015) was the second lady of the United States from 1974 to 1977 as the wife of the 41st vice president of the United States, Nelson Rockefeller. She was also the first lady of New York from 1963 to 1973 when her husband was governor.
Happy Rockefeller | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Second Lady of the United States | |
| In role December 19, 1974 – January 20, 1977 | |
| Vice President | Nelson Rockefeller |
| Preceded by | Betty Ford (Aug. 1974) |
| Succeeded by | Joan Mondale |
| First Lady of New York | |
| In role May 4, 1963 – December 18, 1973 | |
| Governor | Nelson Rockefeller |
| Preceded by | Mary Rockefeller |
| Succeeded by | Katherine Wilson |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Margaretta Large Fitler June 9, 1926 Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, US |
| Died | May 19, 2015 (aged 88) Pocantico Hills, New York, US |
| Spouse(s) | James Murphy (m. 1945-1963, divorced) Nelson Rockefeller (m. 1963-1979, his death) |
| Children | James B. Murphy II Margretta Harrison Murphy Carol Slater Murphy Malinda Fitler Murphy Mark Rockefeller Nelson Rockefeller, Jr. |
Her mother was Margaretta Large Harrison and her father was William Wonderly Fitler, Jr., an heir to a cordage fortune. Rockefeller is known by her nickname, "Happy", given when she was a child. She is a great-great-granddaughter of Union general George G. Meade, the commander in the Battle of Gettysburg.
She married Dr. James Slater Murphy, a virologist associated with Rockefeller Institute who was a close friend to Nelson Rockefeller on December 11, 1945, they divorced on April 1, 1963. They had the following four children, James B. Murphy II, Margaretta Harrison Murphy, Carol Slater Murphy, and Malinda Fitler Murphy, who married Francis Menotti, the adopted son of composer Gian Carlo Menotti.
At the home of Laurance S. Rockefeller in Pocantico Hills, New York, on May 4, 1963, a month after her divorce—which was granted for reasons of what The New York Times called "grievous mental anguish" and her former husband's lawyer called "irreconcilable differences"—she married Gov. Nelson Rockefeller. He had divorced his first wife, Mary Todhunter Clark, on March 16, 1962. Happy and Nelson Rockefeller had two sons: Nelson Rockefeller, Jr.[1] (born 1964) and Mark Rockefeller (born 1967). She previously had worked as a member of his office staff until her resignation in 1961.
Happy Murphy's involvement with Gov. Rockefeller was controversial at the time. As the British journalist Lady Jeanne Campbell wrote in the London Evening Standard, when the Murphy-Rockefeller involvement became a topic of media investigation after the announcement of Rockefeller's filing for divorce from his first wife and Happy Murphy's resignation from his staff, "Already people are comparing Happy Murphy to the Duchess of Windsor when she was plain Mrs. Simpson."[2] Echoing the party-wide concerns, an official of the Michigan Republican Party told The New York Times that the couple's potential marriage likely would cost Rockefeller the 1964 presidential nomination. "The rapidity of it all—he gets a divorce, she gets a divorce—and the indication of the break-up of two homes. Our country doesn't like broken homes."[3]
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In 1971, Rockefeller served as chairwoman of the board for the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. She was appointed as a public delegate to the United Nations by President George H. W. Bush in 1991.
She was a breast cancer survivor who had suffered mastectomy in 1974, two weeks after Betty Ford underwent the same operation.[4] She died of a short-illness at the age of 88.[5]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Happy Rockefeller.
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