Louisa d'Andelot Carpenter (October 16, 1907 – February 8, 1976) was a du Pont family heiress, noted horsewoman, early woman aviator, Jazz Age socialite, and philanthropist.
Biography
Carpenter was born on October 16, 1907, to Robert Ruliph Morgan Carpenter and Margaretta Lammot du Pont (May 12, 1884 - May 1973). Her mother was the daughter of Lammot du Pont, grandson of the founder of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. Her parents were married on December 18, 1906, in Wilmington, Delaware, and Louisa was born a year later. Four siblings followed: Irene "Renee" du Pont Carpenter Draper (January 21, 1911 - January 28, 1991), Nancy Gardiner Carpenter (June 19, 1912 - July 13, 1914), Robert Ruliph Morgan Carpenter, Jr. (August 31, 1915 - 1990), and William Kemble Carpenter (May 27, 1919 - August 1987).
On July 20, 1929, Carpenter married John Lord King Jenney (1904-2005), a Princeton graduate and DuPont executive who retired from his 40-year career with the company in 1967. The couple divorced in 1935.
Carpenter enjoyed fox hunting as a Master of Fox Hounds, shooting pheasants, and riding and breeding horses. She was said to be the first American woman Master of Hounds. In the 1938 Official Roster of Organized Hunts in America, Carpenter is listed with her father, R. R. M. Carpenter, as Joint Master since 1928, of their private pack at Dilwyne Hunt in Montchanin. The Dilwyne Hunt livery and colors were Royal blue with black velvet color and breeches. Carpenter's adopted daughter Sonia (Sunny) Carpenter Tingle (1932-2019), also an accomplished horsewoman, was a whipper-in for the Dilwyne Hunt.
Carpenter commissioned the paintings of thoroughbred horses Jabneh (b. 1952) in 1956 and his dam Belle Soeur (b. 1945) in 1959 by equine artist Ann Collins. Jabneh, owned by Carpenter's partner in horsebreeding and training Eugenia Bankhead, was the 1957 winner of the Hialeah Turf Cup Handicap.
She was one of the first women airplane pilots.
In 1941, Carpenter was named manager of Delaware's only summer theatre, the Robin Hood Theatre in Arden, Delaware.
Personal life
As an active sportswoman and socialite who hosted social and recreational gatherings at her many homes, Carpenter was mentioned frequently in café society and celebrity columns of the press in her lifetime. Her circle of friends, acquaintances and lovers included Evelyn Eugenia Bankhead and her younger sister Tallulah Bankhead, Jane Bowles, Paul Bowles, Louise Brooks, Marion Carstairs, Noël Coward, Greta Garbo, Libby Holman, Milly Monti, and Z. Smith Reynolds. Carpenter was regarded as a lesbian and often appeared in public in men's suits and ties.
In late 1929, Carpenter met Libby Holman, a Broadway actress and singer, who was to become an important person in her life, from lover to lifelong friend. Clifton Webb, co-starring with Holman in The Little Show, a popular musical review, introduced the two at an international horse show in Manhattan. Through 1929, the couple spent an increasing amount of time together in New York, cruising on The Galaxy (R. R. M. Carpenter's yacht), or at Carpenter's home in Delaware. Libby Holman married tobacco heir and young aviator Zachary Smith Reynolds in 1931, and only months later was indicted for his murder after a drunken house party in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Carpenter sheltered Holman from the hounding press before the indictment was made, and paid Libby's $25,000 bail, appearing at the Wentworth, North Carolina, courthouse in such mannish clothes that bystanders and reporters thought she was a man.
The scandalous murder charge against Holman was dropped in late 1932 and she returned to live with Carpenter in Delaware, awaiting the birth of her child by Reynolds. Christopher Smith ("Topper") Reynolds was born to Holman on January 9, 1933, at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. For the next several years, Holman and Carpenter spent time together at Rim Rock, a 10-acre estate in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, in New York and at Carpenter's home in Delaware. According to Holman biographer Jon Bradshaw, "Their relationship had ripened into what was known in the nineteenth century as a 'Boston marriage': that is, they were romantic friends ... " When Topper Reynolds was about 18 months old, Carpenter adopted "Sunny" from a Philadelphia orphanage and the children were raised as siblings. Holman was Sunny's godmother; Clifton Webb was her godfather.