Lydie Marland

Lydie (her preferred spelling) and her older brother George (born November 19, 1897) were the children of Margaret Reynolds (Collins) and George Frederick Roberts of Flourtown, Pennsylvania.

Their grandparents were George W. Roberts and Mary B. (Fine) Roberts, and Samuel Cavin Collins, Sr. and Lydie "Eliza" (Miller) Collins.

Their parents struggled financially.

Lydie Marland (April 20, 1900 – July 25, 1987), an American socialite, was born Lyde Miller Roberts in Flourtown, Pennsylvania, the second child of Margaret Reynolds (Collins) and George Frederick Roberts.

Her parents decided to give up her and her brother for adoption as teenagers by their maternal aunt and uncle, Virginia and Ernest Whitworth Marland, who were both childless and fabulously wealthy from his success in the oil business in Ponca City, Oklahoma.

In 1912 the family visited their mother's sister, Mary Virginia (Collins) (called Virginia) and her husband, E. W. Marland, an oil millionaire in Ponca City, Oklahoma.

The Roberts hoped to interest the childless Marlands in their children, to provide them with a better economic future.

The pair of children stayed with their aunt and uncle and started school in Oklahoma.

In 1916, the Marlands adopted Lydie and George, then 16 and 19.

Lydie attended the local Catholic school, but her adoptive parents soon sent her back East to private boarding schools.

She finished her education at the Oaksmere School in New Rochelle, located in Westchester County, New York on a property overlooking Long Island Sound.

The school was founded by Winifred Edgerton Merrill, the first American woman to be awarded a Ph.D. in mathematics.

Following graduation from Oaksmere, Lydie returned to Ponca City.

Because of her family's wealth, her social activities, which included evening parties and formal fox hunts, were followed by the local and sometimes national press.

Together with polo matches, her adoptive father E. W. Marland had initiated the fox hunts in Oklahoma, importing the red foxes, hunting dogs and hunters (horses) to support his new sports.

He also started a local polo club and had polo ponies shipped in, along with trainers.

At this time the Marlands were living in the Grand House on Grand Avenue, where they had developed eight acres of formal gardens with the mansion.

(This estate is now preserved as the Marland-Paris Mansion and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.)

They also had commissioned a larger Italianate mansion, the "Palace on the Prairie," designed by the architect John Duncan Forsyth.

It was under construction from 1925 to 1928.

Two years after Virginia Marland died in 1926, E. W. annulled the adoption of Lydie Roberts Marland.

They married that year, when she was 28 and he was 54.

Lydie's adoptive mother Virginia Marland died on June 6, 1926, while construction was underway.

Within two years, E. W. returned to Flourtown, Pennsylvania, and had his adoption of Lydie annulled (it was dated from a dozen years before).

Lydie Roberts Marland enjoyed volatile times and drastic changes in fortune with her husband: he lost much of his money in 1928; she accompanied him to Washington, DC after he was elected to the US Congress in 1932, and to the Oklahoma governor's mansion as his First Lady in 1934.

After his gubernatorial term, they lived in the chauffeur's cottage of their former mansion and sold the big house and grounds.

On July 14, 1928, E. W. and Lydie were married in Philadelphia.

She was 28 and he was 54.

After an extended honeymoon and train travel across Canada to California, the Marlands returned to Ponca City.

At one time considered one of the richest men in the world, Marland lost much of his fortune for a second time.

By 1928 the Marland Oil Company, now Conoco, had been taken over by "the Wolves of Wall Street", primarily by J. P. Morgan.

Marland lost much money in the transaction and the stock market crash.

By 1930, the Marlands had moved out of the Palace and set up in the artist studio and guest house, which was modified for them.

Two years later, in 1932, E. W. ran successfully for the U.S. Congress from Oklahoma's 8th congressional district, and the couple moved to Washington, D. C.

In 1934 they returned to Oklahoma after Marland was elected as governor.

Lydie served as his First Lady.

Although his tenure [1935-1939] was politically successful, Marland lost more money while in office.

Following his death in 1941, Lydie Marland became more reclusive.

In the 1950s, she disappeared from Oklahoma for more than a decade.

She returned to Ponca City for her later years, and succeeded in having the Marlands' Palace on the Prairies purchased and preserved by the city.