Happy Rockefeller

Margaretta Large "Happy" Rockefeller (née Fitler, formerly Murphy; June 9, 1926 – May 19, 2015) was a philanthropist who, as the wife of the 41st vice president of the United States, Nelson Rockefeller, served as second lady of the United States from 1974 to 1977. She was previously the first lady of New York from 1963 to 1973, during her husband's last three terms in office.

She graduated from the Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania in 1944. on May 4, 1963, at the home of Laurance S. Rockefeller in Pocantico Hills, New York. Rockefeller was eighteen years her senior and had divorced his first wife, Mary Todhunter Clark, on March 16, 1962. Happy and Nelson Rockefeller went on to have two sons together: Nelson Rockefeller Jr. (born 1964), and Mark Rockefeller (born 1967).

There has been speculation surrounding Malinda Fitler Menotti, the youngest daughter of Happy Rockefeller and James Slater Murphy, with many in the Rockefeller inner circle believing her to be Nelson Rockefeller's daughter. In his diary, Rockefeller close friend Ken Riland used a tone of knowing irony when mentioning Malinda, putting the word stepfather in quotes. Ellen, the wife of Wallace Harrison, the architect and close friend of Nelson Rockefeller, claimed that Malinda's parentage was an open secret among Rockefeller associates.

Nelson Rockefeller first campaigned for president in 1960, during which time he remained governor of New York, and Mary Rockefeller remained first lady of New York. According to The Independent, Happy was pregnant during the 1964 campaign, and made "a fine candidate's wife on the campaign trail." As the British journalist Lady Jeanne Campbell wrote in the London Evening Standard, when the Murphy-Rockefeller involvement became a subject of media scrutiny after the announcement of Rockefeller's filing for divorce from his first wife and Happy Murphy's resignation from his staff, "Already people are comparing Happy Murphy to the Duchess of Windsor when she was plain Mrs. Simpson." More damaging still was the political fallout for Rockefeller. Echoing the party-wide concerns, an official of the Michigan Republican Party told The New York Times that the couple's potential marriage likely would cost Rockefeller the 1964 presidential nomination. "The rapidity of it all—he gets a divorce, she gets a divorce—and the indication of the break-up of two homes. Our country doesn't like broken homes." Nelson began to drop in the polls and withdrew from the race after losing several primaries, with the election going to Lyndon Johnson after Rockefeller was replaced as the Republican front-runner by Barry Goldwater. WWD also noted that she was "known for relaxed charm" and frankness, with the latter to such a point that his 1968 campaign had an internal rule that she was not to be quoted directly.

After discovering tumors in a self-inspection, she underwent surgery on October 17, 1974, in an operation that was described in a news conference by her doctor, Jerome Urban of Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases, and her husband. Both President Ford and Henry Kissinger, then Secretary of State, phoned the families with best wishes after the announcement. The operation was reported on in detail by publications such as The New York Times. According to WWD, the combination of Happy Rockefeller and Betty Ford, as well as Shirley Temple, coming public about their cancer treatments helped raise awareness of a disease that had been extremely stigmatized.

Her husband died in January 1979, two years after having left the vice presidency.

In 1985, she lent a tapestry of Picasso's anti-war themed Guernica to the UN, and after a year of cleaning and preservation, it hangs again since 2022 outside the Security Council chambers. In 1991, she was appointed a public delegate to the United Nations by US President George H. W. Bush. She also became president of the board of the Saratoga Performing Arts Center at north Albany, New York.

Happy Rockefeller died on May 19, 2015, at the age of 88, following a short illness. She died at her home in Tarrytown, New York, in her sleep. The auction also included items from their Fifth Avenue apartment.