Edith Catherine Gould

Edith Catherine MacNeal ( Gould, formerly Wainwright) (August 3, 1901 – September 10, 1937) was an American heiress and writer.

Early life

Edith was born aboard her father's yacht, Sybarite, on August 3, 1901, while it was anchored off Cold Spring Harbor and was flying the British flag. She was one of seven children born to millionaire George Jay Gould I (1864–1923) and actress Edith Kingdon Gould (1864–1921). Among her siblings were Kingdon Gould Sr., Jay Gould II, Marjorie Gwynne Gould (wife of Anthony Joseph Drexel III), Helen Vivien Gould (wife of John Beresford, 5th Baron Decies), George Jay Gould II, and Gloria Gould (wife of Henry A. Bishop II and Wallace McFarlane Barker).

Her father was the eldest son of the former Helen Day Miller and Jay Gould, a leading American railroad developer and speculator who has been referred to as one of the ruthless robber barons of the Gilded Age, whose success at business made him one of the richest men of his era. Her aunt, Anna Gould, was married to two European aristocrats, Boni de Castellane (the elder son and heir apparent of the Marquis of Castellane) and Hélie de Talleyrand-Périgord, Duke of Sagan (Boni's cousin).

She attended Miss Spence's School in Manhattan. 18 year-old Gould obtained a marriage license a few hours after graduating from Miss Spence's and married artist Carroll Livingston Wainwright, a son of Stuyvesant Wainwright and Caroline Smith ( Snowden) Wainwright. they were the parents of three children:

Stuyvesant Wainwright II (1921–2010), who represented New York's 1st District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1953 to 1961. Caroline DePeyster Wainwright (1924–1969), who married Edward T. Shean, an investment banker, in 1945. They divorced in 1963. Carroll Livingston Wainwright Jr. (1925–2016), who married Nina Walker in 1948.

In 1927, the family moved to East Hampton, New York where they built an imposing house called "Gulf Crest," that was valued at $350,000 in 1937. he was released and shortly thereafter in January 1932, Edith obtained a divorce from Wainwright in Reno, Nevada. There was no property settlement. Immediately after their divorce, she married widower Sir Hector MacNeal, the Scottish shipowner. Her first husband died there in 1967.