Eileen G. Slocum, a doyenne of Newport, R.I., society who was a stalwart of the Republican Party both in Rhode Island and nationally and whose family history is dotted with connections to the most moneyed and powerful of the American aristocracy, died on Sunday in Newport. She was 92.
...The wife of a diplomat who served in Egypt and Germany, among other places, and a descendant of the Brown of Brown University, Mrs. Slocum came to be described as Newport’s “grande dame” — “that silly name,” Ms. Quinn said — after moving full time to the family estate she inherited from her aunt in the 1960s and becoming involved in politics.
The house, which was built in the 1890s on Bellevue Avenue, often called Millionaire’s Row, has two libraries and its own marble ballroom and was the site of many Republican fund-raisers for the likes of President Gerald R. Ford, Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina and Vice President Dick Cheney.
Mrs. Slocum, who was vice chairman of the Republican State Central Committee for many years, was Rhode Island’s Republican national committeewoman from 1992 until earlier this year and a delegate to several Republican national conventions. She had hoped to be present at the convention next month in St. Paul, said her son, John J. Slocum Jr.
Eileen Gillespie was born on Dec. 21, 1915, in Manhattan. Her father, Lawrence Lewis Gillespie, was a banker. Her mother, Irene Muriel Sherman, was the granddaughter of John Carter Brown, the philanthropist and bibliophile whose book collection formed the basis of the John Carter Brown Library for research in history and humanities at Brown University. His father, Nicholas Brown Jr., was the benefactor for whom the university named itself, changing it from College of Rhode Island in 1804. Other Brown family members included slave traders and abolitionists.
Its a nice life I suppose, but can she cook squirrel in a popcorn popper?
