Elizabeth Wharton Drexel

Elizabeth Wharton "Bessie" Drexel (April 22, 1868 – June 13, 1944) was an American author and Manhattan socialite.

She was born on April 22, 1868 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Lucy Wharton (1841–1912) and Joseph William Drexel. Joseph was the son of Francis Martin Drexel, the immigrant ancestor of the Drexel banking family in the United States.

On June 29, 1889, Elizabeth married John Vinton Dahlgren I (1869–1899), the son of Admiral John Adolph Dahlgren (1809–1870). They had two sons, Joseph Drexel Dahlgren (1890-1891) and John Vinton Dahlgren Jr. (1892–1964). During this marriage, she made generous donations to Roman Catholic charities and to Georgetown University, including funds for the construction of Dahlgren Chapel, named for her first son. The latter asked for her portrait, which was painted in 1899 by the Swiss-born American artist Adolfo Müller-Ury (1862–1947).

Dahlgren died August 11, 1899, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he had gone in hopes of recovering from an illness.

Elizabeth married Henry Symes Lehr (1869–1929), aka Harry Lehr in June 1901. The marriage was never consummated. On her wedding night, she was informed by her husband that he loathed her and could not stand the thought of touching her ever, although he wanted her to understand she was to be cordial to him in public and he might in turn occasionally call her "darling".

In 1915 the Lehrs were in Paris, and Elizabeth worked for the Red Cross. They remained in Paris after World War I, where they bought in 1923 the Hôtel de Canvoie at 52, rue des Saints-Pères in the 7th arrondissement. Harry Lehr died on January 3, 1929 of a brain malady in Baltimore.

On May 25, 1936 she married John Beresford, 5th Baron Decies. His first wife had been Helen Vivien Gould. He died on January 31, 1944.

She died in 1944 at the Hotel Shelton. She was buried in the Dahlgren Chapel at Georgetown University, which she and her first husband had built as a memorial to their son, Joseph Drexel Dahlgren, who died in infancy.

As with her prior book King Lehr and the Gilded Age (1935), Lady Decies' Turn of the World (1937) is a fascinating semi-autobiographical history of American high society during the Gay Nineties through the first World War. Upon the book's publication, The Pittsburgh Press wrote, "The magnificent spectacle that went on behind the scenes in pre-war days of society's Gilded Age at Saratoga, Newport, New York and Paris is detailed by an insider, Elizabeth, Lady Decies, who was Miss Elizabeth Wharton Drexel interesting, amusing and sometimes revolting, as with evident nostalgia she tells of extravagant parties and fortunes spent for clothes and jewels."

• "King Lehr" and the Gilded Age (1935) ISBN 1-4047-8242-7
• Turn of the World (1937) ISBN 978-1-4290-9080-3

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  Elizabeth Wharton Drexel (1868-1944) in 1899

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  Elizabeth Wharton Drexel and Henry Symes Lehr at their wedding in 1901

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  John V. Dahlgren, circa 1897