Walter Hoving
Encyclopedia
Walter Hoving was a Swedish
-born American
businessman and head of Tiffany & Company from 1955 to 1980.
, the son of Johannes Hoving, a surgeon and Helga Rundberg, an opera singer. He was brought to the United States with his parents in 1903 and attended the Barnard School and De Witt Clinton High School in New York City. He received a bachelor's degree from Brown University
in 1920. At Brown, he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon
fraternity.
In 1924, he went to work for R. H. Macy & Company
in the training program and was an immediate success. By the age of 30, he was a vice president. He also underwent his own training program to polish his knowledge of the arts. For four years, he took courses at the Metropolitan Museum in subjects like painting, textile design, old silver and furniture.
When he went to Montgomery Ward & Company as vice president in charge of sales in 1932, he set up a bureau of design to overhaul Ward's Catalogue. He left the mail-order house in 1936 to go to Lord & Taylor
, where he was president until 1946.
Hoving continued to stress the great importance of design, reportedly asking job-seekers to choose between well and badly designed objects and hiring them or rejecting them on the basis of their taste. In 1946 he founded the Hoving Corporation, whose properties came to include Bonwit Teller
, the department store, until he sold it in 1960.
, which was on the brink of going out of business. He started his regime by getting rid of everything in the store that did not meet his standards, holding a giant sale - the first in the store's history -of everything from silver matchbook covers at $6.75 to a diamond and emerald brooch marked down to $29,700.
Under his guidance, the faltering store reacquired its cachet and a new popularity - Tiffany's salesclerks were under orders to treat everyone, even the most obvious browser, as a potential customer - until by Christmas 1980, its aisles were jammed with shoppers.
Hoving took control of a somewhat stodgy Tiffany's in 1955 and, with his fine eye for quality, gave the store its special stamp. Good design meant good business and Tiffany's sales grew to $100 million from $6 million under Hoving. Hoving initiated the idea of good quality, said Labarr Hoagland, who retired from Tiffany as executive vice president. Before, you felt you had to have a million dollars to come into the store. But Hoving introduced mass merchandising, not in the ordinary sense, but in the sense of affordable and good quality.
One of the first things he did when he arrived was to hire a Design Director, Van Day Truex. He told him Design what you think is beautiful, don't worry about selling it. That's our job. His conviction of the correctness of his taste allowed him to give great freedom to designers he continued to add to the stores roster, like Jean Schlumberger
, Angela Cummings or Elsa Peretti
, and a "window dresser" from Bonwit Tellers, Gene Moore
, who designed Tiffany's now world fameous eye-catching Fifth Avenue windows windows.
No item was too small to escape his notice. No cellophane tape, he decreed, was to be used in gift-wrapping boxes with that special Tiffany Blue
paper, and there were to be no knots securing the white bows.
His concept of "esthetic excitement" was supremely important to him, and he was able to make it sell. Give the customer what Tiffany likes, because what it likes, the public ought to like was his motto. His skill was knowing that a well designed product would be attractive to consumers in somehow making the public want to like it, and pay for it.
A tall and distinguished-looking man, always impeccably tailored, Hoving was not hesitant about expressing his tastes outside the store. He won the battle against a plan to put a cafe in a corner of Central Park
, and he lost the fight against making Fifth Avenue one-way.
Hoving resolutely maintained Tiffany's and his standards, which included no diamond rings for men, no silver plate and no charge accounts for customers found being rude to the salespeople.
His firmness in matters of taste took Tiffany's from $7 million worth of business in 1955 to $100 million for the Fifth Avenue store and its five branches in 1980, when he stepped down as chairman.
The only exception to the no-silver-plate rule during Hoving's tenure at Tiffany's - small pins with the message, Try God - illuminated another facet of Hoving's character: his conviction that he was guided by God during his entire career. Hoving was a deeply religious man who had long been actively involved in charitable work. All the proceeds went to the Walter Hoving Home headquartered in Garrison, New York
. The Walter Hoving Home is a non-profit, faith-based rehabilitation center serving women 18 years and older who have been involved in drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution and other life-controlling problems.
. Once in 1960, Hoving met then President-elect, after store hours, and assisted him in selecting a brooch by Jean Schlumberger
with rubies and diamonds for Jacqueline Kennedy. Although its cost was not made known, it is estimated that a similar piece would cost $30,000 today. The Metropolitan Museum of Art
chose the brooch to be the sole piece of fine jewelry chosen for display in the blockbuster exhibition Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years.
Kennedy contacted Hoving again in 1962 after the Cuban missile crisis
, and requested 32 Lucite calendar mementos to be presented to close aides who had worked with him during the crisis. Hoving's response varies slightly in different accounts, but the gist of it was, We don't sell plastic. Tiffany's ended up filling the order, but with the mementos in silver. When Kennedy asked if the President received a discount, Mr. Hoving pointed to the picture of Mary Lincoln wearing a strand of Tiffany pearls, purchased of her by then President Lincoln, stating, "Well President Lincoln didn't receive one.
The President returned to the Tiffany shortly after the birth of his son John, to to purchase a gift for his wife. When Hoving learned he was in the store he rushed down to greet him, stopping on the second floor to pick up a silver baby feeding spoon as a gift for the new born. The President thanked him and slipped it into his pocket, purchased his gift and departed, Many months later, Mr. Hoving received a graceful hand written note from Jackie Kennedy, thanking him profusely and apologizing for the tardiness of their thank you note. She explained that she had recently just found the silver feeding spoon while emptying the Presidents suit pocket before sending it to the dry cleaners.
He started his own consulting firm that specialized in retail design and management and started work on his memoirs that were never published. He also focused his efforts on his philanthropic activities and relaxed in his home in Newport, Rhode Island
playing golf every day.
He would often write the David Mitchell then chairmen of Avon
seeking to buy back Tiffany & Company but his offers were never seriously entertained. As always he was never shy about making his opinions known about the present management of the store who he thought were nice people but “boobs”. He sparred openly with Mitchell writing letters to the editor after almost every interview the Avon chairmen gave mentioning Tiffany in an unfavorable light. He often commented on his regrets on selling the store to Avon. He felt that they had reneged on many of the promises they had made to him prior to the sale of Tiffany.
He always sealed all his deals with a handshake which he saw as the ultimate signature of intent and trust. When he sold the air rights to Tiffany & Company to Donald Trump
in 1979, he shook his hand sealing the deal. The young Trump was astonished at this old school approach but went on to build his famous Fifth Avenue building right next door to Tiffany based on that handshake. He mentioned this episode fondly remembering Hoving in his first book.
After Hoving resigned Henry B. Platt, a great-great-grandson of founder Charles Tiffany took over the helm for a brief period but was fired five months later by Mitchell for being incompetent though this was never discussed openly. Platt stated he was retiring after 34 years at Tiffany but anyone close to the situation knew this was just not the case. Platt also had the very bad habit of claiming credit for many of the milestones that Hoving had actually initiated like putting together the award winning design team of Angela Cummings, Elsa Peretti
and Paloma Picasso
. There was never a time that Platt had the luxury of doing anything unless it was approved by “Mr. Hoving”.
In an interview for the New York Times, Angela Cummings stated:
At Tiffany's I met Walter Hoving, she recalled, and he looked at the little portfolio I had and said, You want to work for us, go ahead and try. It was like a threat, but at the time I didn't even know who he was.
Five years after it was bought by Avon Products Inc., Tiffany & Company was put up for sale. Reports had circulated for more than a year that Avon, the world's largest cosmetic company, was giving up on its efforts to run Tiffany. Despite a series of management, accounting and marketing changes, Avon has been unable to bring the stores in line with its corporate financial goals. Hoving, said at the time, They bought it for prestige reasons and that's not a good reason, If Avon can get $150 million for it, they ought to grab it.
In 1984, Tiffany & Company was bought by private investors, and in 1987 it again became publicly owned. Its stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange
.
A man of conservative political bent, he expressed his opinions in various ways. In one year's annual report, he commented on the taxes paid by the store, saying, It is our hope, but not our expectation, that these sums will be spent with due diligence and a modicum of wisdom.
He used Tiffany advertisements as a soapbox, too. Some of them he wrote as little essays with titles like Is Profit a Dirty Word?. He wrote and ran several others all of which ran in The New York Times in the usual Tiffany & Company placement on page three in the upper right hand corner.
In another he assailed the First National City Bank for its "loud and vulgar Christmas tree" and urged the bank to practice "good esthetics". In yet another he attacked as unconscionable the hoarding of silver, an unmistakable reference to the Hunt empire's efforts to corner the silver market in 1980.
He wrote Table Manners after seeing his young grandson, atrocious table manners. The book is a perennial favorite and has sold millions of copies over the years. In 2011 a 50th Anniversary Edition will be released with a new cover and forward by the grandson it was written about, John Hoving.
His 1924 marriage to Mary Osgood Field ended in divorce in 1936, He married his second wife, Pauline Vandervoort Rogers, in 1937. She died in 1976.
Walter Hoving was a brother of the Delta Kappa Epsilon
fraternity at Brown University
(Upsilon chapter). He was a co founder of the Salvation Army
Association of New York, and gave his time to the United Negro College Fund
and the United Service Organizations
, USO.
He died at the age of 91 in Newport, Rhode Island
. He was survived at the time by his third wife, the former singer and actress Jane Pickens Langley
, whom he married in 1977. She died on February 23, 1992 in Newport as well. Hoving was also survived by a son and a daughter by his first marriage. Thomas Hoving
, author of several best selling books, former editor of Connoisseur magazine, former New York City Department of Parks and Recreation
Commissioner and a former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
. Petrea Hoving Durand, founder of Internet Miniature Pinscher Services Inc. as well as four grandchildren, John Hoving, Samuel Osgood Hoving, Thomas Durand and Petrea Hoving.
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
-born American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
businessman and head of Tiffany & Company from 1955 to 1980.
Background
Mr. Hoving was born in StockholmStockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, the son of Johannes Hoving, a surgeon and Helga Rundberg, an opera singer. He was brought to the United States with his parents in 1903 and attended the Barnard School and De Witt Clinton High School in New York City. He received a bachelor's degree from Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
in 1920. At Brown, he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon
Delta Kappa Epsilon
Delta Kappa Epsilon is a fraternity founded at Yale College in 1844 by 15 men of the sophomore class who had not been invited to join the two existing societies...
fraternity.
In 1924, he went to work for R. H. Macy & Company
Macy's
Macy's is a U.S. chain of mid-to-high range department stores. In addition to its flagship Herald Square location in New York City, the company operates over 800 stores in the United States...
in the training program and was an immediate success. By the age of 30, he was a vice president. He also underwent his own training program to polish his knowledge of the arts. For four years, he took courses at the Metropolitan Museum in subjects like painting, textile design, old silver and furniture.
When he went to Montgomery Ward & Company as vice president in charge of sales in 1932, he set up a bureau of design to overhaul Ward's Catalogue. He left the mail-order house in 1936 to go to Lord & Taylor
Lord & Taylor
Lord & Taylor, colloquially known as L&T, or LT, based in New York City, is the oldest upscale, specialty-retail department store chain in the United States. Concentrated in the eastern U.S., the retailer operated independently for nearly a century prior to joining American Dry Goods...
, where he was president until 1946.
Hoving continued to stress the great importance of design, reportedly asking job-seekers to choose between well and badly designed objects and hiring them or rejecting them on the basis of their taste. In 1946 he founded the Hoving Corporation, whose properties came to include Bonwit Teller
Bonwit Teller
Bonwit Teller was a department store in New York City founded by Paul Bonwit in 1895 at Sixth Avenue and 18th Street. In 1897 Edmund D. Teller was admitted to the partnership and the store moved to 23rd Street, East of Sixth Avenue...
, the department store, until he sold it in 1960.
Tiffany & Company
In 1955 he bought control of Tiffany'sTiffany's
Tiffany's Restaurants, Inc. is a restaurant chain with 6 locations in New Jersey. Its flagship location was opened at Union, New Jersey in 1982 as Tiffany Gardens.-Reviews:...
, which was on the brink of going out of business. He started his regime by getting rid of everything in the store that did not meet his standards, holding a giant sale - the first in the store's history -of everything from silver matchbook covers at $6.75 to a diamond and emerald brooch marked down to $29,700.
Under his guidance, the faltering store reacquired its cachet and a new popularity - Tiffany's salesclerks were under orders to treat everyone, even the most obvious browser, as a potential customer - until by Christmas 1980, its aisles were jammed with shoppers.
Hoving took control of a somewhat stodgy Tiffany's in 1955 and, with his fine eye for quality, gave the store its special stamp. Good design meant good business and Tiffany's sales grew to $100 million from $6 million under Hoving. Hoving initiated the idea of good quality, said Labarr Hoagland, who retired from Tiffany as executive vice president. Before, you felt you had to have a million dollars to come into the store. But Hoving introduced mass merchandising, not in the ordinary sense, but in the sense of affordable and good quality.
One of the first things he did when he arrived was to hire a Design Director, Van Day Truex. He told him Design what you think is beautiful, don't worry about selling it. That's our job. His conviction of the correctness of his taste allowed him to give great freedom to designers he continued to add to the stores roster, like Jean Schlumberger
Jean Schlumberger (jewelry designer)
Jean Michel Schlumberger was a French jewelry designer especially well-known for his work at Tiffany & Co.-Early life:...
, Angela Cummings or Elsa Peretti
Elsa Peretti
-Biography:She was born in Florence, Italy, in 1940, the daughter of a well-to-do Roman family. Educated at Volbicela School in Rome, with a diploma in interior design. In early jobs she was a French teacher, a ski instructor and a model...
, and a "window dresser" from Bonwit Tellers, Gene Moore
Gene Moore (window dresser)
Gene Moore was a leading window dresser of the 20th century. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, he moved to New York City in the 1930s. He worked for Bonwit Teller for sixteen years, then in 1955 joined Tiffany's on Fifth Avenue. He remained with the store for the remainder of his career...
, who designed Tiffany's now world fameous eye-catching Fifth Avenue windows windows.
No item was too small to escape his notice. No cellophane tape, he decreed, was to be used in gift-wrapping boxes with that special Tiffany Blue
Tiffany Blue
Tiffany Blue is the colloquial name for the light medium robin egg blue color associated with Tiffany & Co., the New York City jewelry company.The Tiffany Blue color is protected as a color trademark by Tiffany & Co...
paper, and there were to be no knots securing the white bows.
His concept of "esthetic excitement" was supremely important to him, and he was able to make it sell. Give the customer what Tiffany likes, because what it likes, the public ought to like was his motto. His skill was knowing that a well designed product would be attractive to consumers in somehow making the public want to like it, and pay for it.
A tall and distinguished-looking man, always impeccably tailored, Hoving was not hesitant about expressing his tastes outside the store. He won the battle against a plan to put a cafe in a corner of Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
, and he lost the fight against making Fifth Avenue one-way.
Hoving resolutely maintained Tiffany's and his standards, which included no diamond rings for men, no silver plate and no charge accounts for customers found being rude to the salespeople.
His firmness in matters of taste took Tiffany's from $7 million worth of business in 1955 to $100 million for the Fifth Avenue store and its five branches in 1980, when he stepped down as chairman.
The only exception to the no-silver-plate rule during Hoving's tenure at Tiffany's - small pins with the message, Try God - illuminated another facet of Hoving's character: his conviction that he was guided by God during his entire career. Hoving was a deeply religious man who had long been actively involved in charitable work. All the proceeds went to the Walter Hoving Home headquartered in Garrison, New York
Garrison, New York
Garrison is a hamlet in Putnam County, New York, United States. It is part of the town of Philipstown and is on the east side of the Hudson River, across from the United States Military Academy at West Point...
. The Walter Hoving Home is a non-profit, faith-based rehabilitation center serving women 18 years and older who have been involved in drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution and other life-controlling problems.
Sales to John F. Kennedy
Hoving made two sales to President John F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
. Once in 1960, Hoving met then President-elect, after store hours, and assisted him in selecting a brooch by Jean Schlumberger
Jean Schlumberger (jewelry designer)
Jean Michel Schlumberger was a French jewelry designer especially well-known for his work at Tiffany & Co.-Early life:...
with rubies and diamonds for Jacqueline Kennedy. Although its cost was not made known, it is estimated that a similar piece would cost $30,000 today. The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
chose the brooch to be the sole piece of fine jewelry chosen for display in the blockbuster exhibition Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years.
Kennedy contacted Hoving again in 1962 after the Cuban missile crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
, and requested 32 Lucite calendar mementos to be presented to close aides who had worked with him during the crisis. Hoving's response varies slightly in different accounts, but the gist of it was, We don't sell plastic. Tiffany's ended up filling the order, but with the mementos in silver. When Kennedy asked if the President received a discount, Mr. Hoving pointed to the picture of Mary Lincoln wearing a strand of Tiffany pearls, purchased of her by then President Lincoln, stating, "Well President Lincoln didn't receive one.
The President returned to the Tiffany shortly after the birth of his son John, to to purchase a gift for his wife. When Hoving learned he was in the store he rushed down to greet him, stopping on the second floor to pick up a silver baby feeding spoon as a gift for the new born. The President thanked him and slipped it into his pocket, purchased his gift and departed, Many months later, Mr. Hoving received a graceful hand written note from Jackie Kennedy, thanking him profusely and apologizing for the tardiness of their thank you note. She explained that she had recently just found the silver feeding spoon while emptying the Presidents suit pocket before sending it to the dry cleaners.
Later years
Tiffany & Company was a publicly owned company until it was acquired in 1979 by Avon Products, Inc.. Hoving's resignation the following year was one of a series of management changes stemming from the Avon takeover. Hoving was unhappy with the direction Avon was taking Tiffany & Company and found that despite the promises of autonomy he received when he sold the company to them.He started his own consulting firm that specialized in retail design and management and started work on his memoirs that were never published. He also focused his efforts on his philanthropic activities and relaxed in his home in Newport, Rhode Island
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...
playing golf every day.
He would often write the David Mitchell then chairmen of Avon
Avon Products
Avon Products, Inc. is a US cosmetics, perfume and toy seller with markets in over 140 countries across the world and sales of $9.9 billion worldwide as of 2007.-Business Model:...
seeking to buy back Tiffany & Company but his offers were never seriously entertained. As always he was never shy about making his opinions known about the present management of the store who he thought were nice people but “boobs”. He sparred openly with Mitchell writing letters to the editor after almost every interview the Avon chairmen gave mentioning Tiffany in an unfavorable light. He often commented on his regrets on selling the store to Avon. He felt that they had reneged on many of the promises they had made to him prior to the sale of Tiffany.
He always sealed all his deals with a handshake which he saw as the ultimate signature of intent and trust. When he sold the air rights to Tiffany & Company to Donald Trump
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump, Sr. is an American business magnate, television personality and author. He is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts. Trump's extravagant lifestyle, outspoken manner and role on the NBC reality show The Apprentice have...
in 1979, he shook his hand sealing the deal. The young Trump was astonished at this old school approach but went on to build his famous Fifth Avenue building right next door to Tiffany based on that handshake. He mentioned this episode fondly remembering Hoving in his first book.
After Hoving resigned Henry B. Platt, a great-great-grandson of founder Charles Tiffany took over the helm for a brief period but was fired five months later by Mitchell for being incompetent though this was never discussed openly. Platt stated he was retiring after 34 years at Tiffany but anyone close to the situation knew this was just not the case. Platt also had the very bad habit of claiming credit for many of the milestones that Hoving had actually initiated like putting together the award winning design team of Angela Cummings, Elsa Peretti
Elsa Peretti
-Biography:She was born in Florence, Italy, in 1940, the daughter of a well-to-do Roman family. Educated at Volbicela School in Rome, with a diploma in interior design. In early jobs she was a French teacher, a ski instructor and a model...
and Paloma Picasso
Paloma Picasso
Anne Paloma Picasso known professionally as Paloma Picasso, is a French/Spanish fashion designer and businesswoman, best known for her jewelry designs and signature perfumes. She is the youngest daughter of famed 20th-century artist Pablo Picasso and painter and writer Françoise Gilot...
. There was never a time that Platt had the luxury of doing anything unless it was approved by “Mr. Hoving”.
In an interview for the New York Times, Angela Cummings stated:
At Tiffany's I met Walter Hoving, she recalled, and he looked at the little portfolio I had and said, You want to work for us, go ahead and try. It was like a threat, but at the time I didn't even know who he was.
Five years after it was bought by Avon Products Inc., Tiffany & Company was put up for sale. Reports had circulated for more than a year that Avon, the world's largest cosmetic company, was giving up on its efforts to run Tiffany. Despite a series of management, accounting and marketing changes, Avon has been unable to bring the stores in line with its corporate financial goals. Hoving, said at the time, They bought it for prestige reasons and that's not a good reason, If Avon can get $150 million for it, they ought to grab it.
In 1984, Tiffany & Company was bought by private investors, and in 1987 it again became publicly owned. Its stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...
.
Point of view
Hoving stated in a 1973 interview: Every store must have a point of view. Generally it doesn't. Tiffany's did. We don't claim to have the best taste in America, But we do say it is our taste. For the Tiffany point of view, Hoving acquired space which he thought was the place one’s eye would immediately go to when opening the paper.A man of conservative political bent, he expressed his opinions in various ways. In one year's annual report, he commented on the taxes paid by the store, saying, It is our hope, but not our expectation, that these sums will be spent with due diligence and a modicum of wisdom.
He used Tiffany advertisements as a soapbox, too. Some of them he wrote as little essays with titles like Is Profit a Dirty Word?. He wrote and ran several others all of which ran in The New York Times in the usual Tiffany & Company placement on page three in the upper right hand corner.
In another he assailed the First National City Bank for its "loud and vulgar Christmas tree" and urged the bank to practice "good esthetics". In yet another he attacked as unconscionable the hoarding of silver, an unmistakable reference to the Hunt empire's efforts to corner the silver market in 1980.
Personal life
Walter Hoving was the author of two best-selling books, Your Career in Business (Tiffany & Co., 1978) and Tiffany's Table Manners for Teen-agers (Random House, 1960).He wrote Table Manners after seeing his young grandson, atrocious table manners. The book is a perennial favorite and has sold millions of copies over the years. In 2011 a 50th Anniversary Edition will be released with a new cover and forward by the grandson it was written about, John Hoving.
His 1924 marriage to Mary Osgood Field ended in divorce in 1936, He married his second wife, Pauline Vandervoort Rogers, in 1937. She died in 1976.
Walter Hoving was a brother of the Delta Kappa Epsilon
Delta Kappa Epsilon
Delta Kappa Epsilon is a fraternity founded at Yale College in 1844 by 15 men of the sophomore class who had not been invited to join the two existing societies...
fraternity at Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
(Upsilon chapter). He was a co founder of the Salvation Army
The Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....
Association of New York, and gave his time to the United Negro College Fund
United Negro College Fund
The United Negro College Fund is an American philanthropic organization that fundraises college tuition money for black students and general scholarship funds for 39 private historically black colleges and universities. The UNCF was incorporated on April 25, 1944 by Frederick D. Patterson , Mary...
and the United Service Organizations
United Service Organizations
The United Service Organizations Inc. is a private, nonprofit organization that provides morale and recreational services to members of the U.S. military, with programs in 160 centers worldwide. Since 1941, it has worked in partnership with the Department of Defense , and has provided support and...
, USO.
He died at the age of 91 in Newport, Rhode Island
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...
. He was survived at the time by his third wife, the former singer and actress Jane Pickens Langley
Jane Pickens Langley
Jane Pickens Hoving was a popular singer on Broadway, radio and television for 20 years and later an organizer in numerous philanthropic and society events. Mrs...
, whom he married in 1977. She died on February 23, 1992 in Newport as well. Hoving was also survived by a son and a daughter by his first marriage. Thomas Hoving
Thomas Hoving
Thomas Pearsall Field Hoving was an American museum executive and consultant and the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.-Biography:...
, author of several best selling books, former editor of Connoisseur magazine, former New York City Department of Parks and Recreation
New York City Department of Parks and Recreation
The City of New York Department of Parks & Recreation is the department of government of the City of New York responsible for maintaining the city's parks system, preserving and maintaining the ecological diversity of the city's natural areas, and furnishing recreational opportunities for city's...
Commissioner and a former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
. Petrea Hoving Durand, founder of Internet Miniature Pinscher Services Inc. as well as four grandchildren, John Hoving, Samuel Osgood Hoving, Thomas Durand and Petrea Hoving.
Other sources
- Benson, Adolph B.; Naboth Hedin Swedes In America (New York: Haskell House Publishers, Inc. 1969)