WORLD’S RICHEST WOMAN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 109, 11 May 1931, Page 11

WORLD’S RICHEST WOMAN

FORTUNE OF £40,000,000. LIFE OF STERNEST THRIFT. Everyone in New Y'ork was recently manifesting impatience to learn the details of the will of Miss Ella Wendel, the world’s richest and loneliest woman, who died there on March 14. at tho age of eighty, after a life of sternest thrift. There is general agreement that; Miss Wendel possessed property worth at least £40,000,000, but many believe that tho value of the estate will far exceed that figure. Every philanthropic institution in the city is excited, because it is understood that all the fortune will go to charity. The history of tie Wendel family and its fortune is one of the wo‘ld’s romances. More then 200 years ago John Gottlieb Wendel started in the real estate business in New York. He was an eccentric man. and one of his queerest fancies was the insertion of a clause in his will that none of his property should pass out of the family by marriage until the line was extinct. That provision has been faithfully followed, and the time came when two spinster sisters were the last survivors. Both lived their lives of recluses and they spent their time as hermits m tho great mansion on Fifth Avenue. Tan years ago one sister died, and after that the surviving sister, Miss Ella Wendel. lived a solitary life, her only companion be ng a white poodle. The majestic front door of the house was nailed up. Electricity was never installed. The house grew mouldy and damp, and the once ornate furniture went to decay. Miss Wendel and her dog ate their meals together at the long red velvet covered banqueting ♦•‘ble in the immense dining-room. Only one visitor was allowed t> enter the house. He was the veterinary surgeon who came to the. poodle when the dog had male itself ill by eating t<o much calf’s Ever—the only | extravagance of the economical household. 'G.j attendant cared for the old w .man, and together the,' watched the one-time famous houje fall into utte r iuin. And all the time fabulous wealth :ly wj t.ng at her e* I.