{{Short description|American activist}} {{Use American English|date=April 2026}} {{Use mdy dates|date=September 2019}} {{Infobox person | name = Margaret Rockefeller Strong | image = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth date|1897|6|11|mf=y}} | birth_place = | death_date = {{death date and age|mf=yes|1985|12|5|1897|6|11}} | death_place = | alma_mater = | spouse = {{plainlist| * {{marriage|George de Cuevas|1927|1961||end=died}} * {{marriage|Raymundo de Larraín|1977}} }} | children = 2, including Elizabeth de Cuevas | parents = Charles Augustus Strong<br>Elizabeth Rockefeller Strong | relatives = }} '''Margaret Rockefeller Strong''' (June 11, 1897 – December 5, 1985) was an American heiress and prominent member of the Rockefeller family. She was the maternal granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller and his wife Laura Spelman Rockefeller.
== Early life and education == She was the daughter of Elizabeth "Bessie" Rockefeller (1866–1906) and Dr. Charles Augustus Strong (1862–1940).<ref name="SantayanaHolzberger2008">{{cite book|author1=George Santayana|author2=William G. Holzberger|title=The Letters of George Santayana, Book Eight, 1948–1952|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tCobBRiv3_MC&pg=PA162|year=2008|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-0-262-19571-3|pages=162–}}</ref> Her maternal grandfather was Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937).
== Career == Margaret saved a row of Neo-Federal townhouses on Park Avenue designed by McKim, Mead & White from destruction by purchasing the property and giving one of the townhouses to the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute in 1965. She then donated the corner townhouse to her cousin, David Rockefeller, who there founded the Center for Inter-American Relations, now the Americas Society. In December 1979, Margaret donated her father's estate, Villa Le Balze in Fiesole, Tuscany, Italy to Georgetown University which operates an overseas campus there.<ref>[http://www11.georgetown.edu/oip/os/villalebalze/about.htm Villa Le Balze, Georgetown University in Fiesole Italy] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080408145014/http://www11.georgetown.edu/oip/os/villalebalze/about.htm |date=April 8, 2008 }}</ref>
Her life can be read at ''El Inútil de la Familia'', a book written by Jorge Edwards, a Chilean writer.
==Personal life== She married Chilean ballet businessman George de Cuevas on August 3, 1927. They had two children: *Elizabeth de Cuevas (1929–2023)<ref>{{Cite news |last=Williams |first=Alex |date=2023-04-06 |title=Elizabeth de Cuevas, Sculptor With a Flair for the Monumental, Dies at 94 |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/06/arts/elizabeth-de-cuevas-dead.html |access-date=2023-04-26 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> who married Joel Carmichael, a writer, in 1960. They had one daughter; Deborah Carmichael.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Carmichael |first=Isabel |title=Elizabeth de Cuevas, Sculptor {{!}} The East Hampton Star |url=https://www.easthamptonstar.com/obituaries/2023330/elizabeth-de-cuevas-sculptor |access-date=2023-04-26 |website=www.easthamptonstar.com |language=en}}</ref> *John de Cuevas (October 6, 1930 – December 6, 2018), an educator and philanthropist, who married three times. His first marriage to his boyhood sweetheart Phyllis Nahl Van Wyck was in 1951. He remarried in April 1962 to Silvia Maria Bartucci having one daughter; Margaret de Cuevas and two granddaughters. In 1988, he married a third time to Sue Lonoff.<ref>{{Cite web |title=John de Cuevas, 88, Educator, Philanthropist {{!}} The East Hampton Star |url=https://www.easthamptonstar.com/archive/john-de-cuevas-88-educator-philanthropist |access-date=2023-04-26 |website=www.easthamptonstar.com}}</ref> By the time her husband George de Cuevas died in 1961, they had been separated.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Stasz |first=Clarice |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m4FahrcJmIEC&dq=Raymundo+de+Larrain&pg=PA304 |title=The Rockefeller Women: Dynasty of Piety, Privacy, and Service |date=2000-06-19 |publisher=iUniverse |isbn=978-1-58348-856-0 |pages=304 |language=en}}</ref> On April 25, 1977, she married his protégée Raymundo de Larrain (Raimundo Larraín Valdés), who was over thirty years her junior.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1977-05-10 |title=John D's Grandaughter Weds |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-miami-herald-margaret-rockefeller-st/183915487/ |access-date=2025-10-29 |work=The Miami Herald |pages=2–A}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite magazine |last=Dunne |first=Dominick |date=February 1987 |title=Danse Macabre: The Rockefeller and the Ballet Boys |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/1987/02/dunne198702 |access-date=2025-10-29 |magazine=Vanity Fair |language=en-US}}</ref> Although several newspapers reported that de Larrain was the nephew of her late husband—and he even referred to him as his uncle—they were not actually related by blood.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Dunne |first=Dominick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-5RBDwAAQBAJ&dq=Raymundo+de+Larra%C3%ADn&pg=PA407 |title=Fatal Charms and The Mansions of Limbo |date=1999-03-09 |publisher=Random House Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-345-43059-5 |pages=406–407 |language=en}}</ref> He was a descendant of the Chilean aristocratic Larraín family.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Meylac |first=Michael |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X7qKDwAAQBAJ&dq=Raymundo+de+Larrain&pg=PA212 |title=Behind the Scenes at the Ballets Russes: Stories from a Silver Age |date=2017-10-30 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-78673-205-7 |pages=212 |language=en}}</ref> He choreographed, designed sets and costumes for de Cuevas's ballet company and was later a photographer.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Graves |first=Ralph |date=October 3, 1969 |title=Editor's Note |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CFEEAAAAMBAJ&dq=Raymundo+de+Larrain+ballet&pg=PA3 |magazine=LIFE |volume=67 |issue=14 |pages=3}}</ref><ref name=":0" />
Following her death in 1985, there was a dispute about her estate between her husband and children, which ended in a court settlement in 1987.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Johnson |first=Kirk |date=1987-09-25 |title=Fight Settled On the Estate Of an Heiress |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/25/nyregion/fight-settled-on-the-estate-of-an-heiress.html |access-date=2023-04-26 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Pessin |first=Esther |date=September 2, 1987 |title=The former lawyer for the Rockefeller heiress who disinherited... |url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/09/02/The-former-lawyer-for-the-Rockefeller-heiress-who-disinherited/1880557553600/ |access-date=2025-10-29 |website=UPI |language=en}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{Rockefeller family}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Strong, Margaret Rockefeller}} Category:1897 births Category:1985 deaths Margaret Margaret