ROCKEFELLER’S GUARDED LIFE

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 January 1937, Page 2

ROCKEFELLER’S GUARDED LIFE

DAYS OF SECLUSION. NEW YORK, November 24. An accoujit of how Mr John D. Rockefeller, the Standard Oil. magnate, passes his days at the age of 97 is given in a booklet published by Mr Curt Englebrecht, his personal photographer. He gives a picture of a man who has outlived all his friends and business associates, and exists in complete retirement from the world, carefully protected by every resource of science and medicine. “He lives,” writes Mr Englebrecht, “the most cloistered of narrow lives, confined to his quarters on the upper floor of his Florida Winter home at Ormond Beach. There he sits in happy reverie, occupying and amusing himself with simple interests. “His days draw to a close. He has relinquished his determination to live to be 100. ' That now is not nearly so important as it once seemed. “In 1929 living to the century meant another decade of power in the world. But now this has all changed', and today living to be 100 means almost three years more of sitting in a chair or lying in bed, following the ritual of exactly identical days, with even the attendance of a faithful male nurse becoming more than a little trying to one who has been mighty and now is tired. “A man so old and so tired has little use for vanity—no more golf, no more motor-car rides, no more strolls in the garden, no visitors, no films. “The immaculate wardrobe is a museum exhibit. His two silver wigs, each costing more than £lOO a-piece, made to special order, lie idle on their stand's. “He sits there self-sufficient, relaxed, wanting nothing, but still with good mind and astonishing body, patiently measuring time against the ultimate day.