W. E. D. Stokes Jr., who first attracted my attention by being name a corespondent during his father's first effort to divorce Weddie's stepmother, eventually shook off the effects of the fiasco, settled out of court after he was sued by his stepmother for his obvious lie, bounced back from a short first marriage, and lived a long and apparently happy life with wife number two.
Stokes Jr. attended Andover, Yale, the United States Naval Academy, was a lieutenant during the first World War, and afterward earned a law degree from the University of Chicago. From what I can tell online, he also compiled a detailed history of the Stokes family, covering 1,000 years.
He also took over his father's pride and joy, New York's Hotel Ansonia, but while he inherited the building, he didn't inherit his father's love for it. According to "The Building of the Upper West Side," an article in New York Magazine (May 21, 2005), author Steven Gaines wrote:
"Weddie, who as a young man had shown signs of inheriting his father’s brio and eccentricity, aged into a stern, difficult man who was afraid of germs and refused to enter the home of anyone with a cold. He never cared much about the Ansonia and left its operation to a series of management companies, one of which installed a miniature-golf course in the ballroom, and all of which let the building fall into disrepair. The restaurants and kitchens closed with the Depression. Although the Ansonia kept its 'hotel' designation, it turned into a residence with no services. In 1930, the elegant central entrance on Broadway was bricked up and storefronts were installed."
In 1942, wrote Gaines, "the most grievous affront to the building occurred. In a patriotic gesture, nearly all its glorious metal ornamentation was stripped to supply material for bullets and tanks for World War II. The copper cartouches on the corner domes, each seven feet tall and weighing half a ton, came down."
"Weddie" Stokes sold the hotel in 1945. How much he was paid for it, I don't know, but it's certain it was reduced considerably from that $5,000,000 price tag Mrs. Stokes' lawyer had put on it. The new owner, Samuel Broxmeyer, hatched a crooked money-making scheme at the expense of the hotel tenants and wound up in jail. The Ansonia was sold at bankruptcy auction – for $40,000.
Stokes Jr. must have been successful at avoiding germs. He was 96 years old when he died in 1992. He was married twice, first to Florence Crittenton and then to Lucia Houston Hobson. His first marriage lasted only four years (1926-1930), but he and his second wife spent 53 years together before she died in 1991.
