Carolyn Mary Skelly (December 2, 1905 – December 10, 1996) was an American oil heiress and

socialite A socialite is a person from a wealthy and (possibly) aristocratic background, who is prominent in high society. A socialite generally spends a significant amount of time attending various fashionable social gatherings, instead of having traditio ...

. She was well known for her extravagant parties but was herself mysteriously disfigured. As the owner of

Bois Doré Bois Doré is a French chateau-style mansion built in 1927 in Newport, Rhode Island. It was designed by New York architect Charles A. Platt for William Fahnestock, a New York banker. It is described as one of the last great houses built for New ...

, she continued clubbing well into her 80s and became “America’s No. 1 Jewelry Robbery Victim”.

Early life

Carolyn Mary Skelly was born in

Marion, Indiana Marion is a city in Grant County, Indiana, United States. The population was 29,948 as of the 2010 United States Census. The city is the county seat of Grant County. It is named for Francis Marion, a brigadier general from South Carolina in the ...

, to

William Grove Skelly William Grove Skelly (June 10, 1878 – April 11, 1957), often known as Bill or William G. Skelly, was an entrepreneur who made a fortune in the oil business. Born in Erie, Pennsylvania, he moved to Kansas in 1916, then to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 19 ...

, founder of the

Skelly Oil Company Skelly Oil Company was a medium-sized oil company founded in 1919 by William Grove (Bill) Skelly, Chesley Coleman Herndon and Frederick A. Pielsticker in Tulsa, Oklahoma. J. Paul Getty acquired control of the company during the 1930s. It b ...

(which became part of Getty Oil) and Gertrude Elizabeth Frank. Carolyn's only sibling was a younger sister named Joanne. The family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Marriage

In Tulsa, she met and started dating Freeman W. Burford, a law student at Tulsa University. Freeman also moonlighted as a truck driver for Skelly Oil. Once married, the couple moved to

Shreveport Shreveport ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the third most populous city in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Baton Rouge, respectively. The Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan area, with a population o ...

, Louisiana, where Freeman became the vice-president and general manager of Crystal Oil Refining Corp, a division of Skelly Oil. Later he started working independently in Dallas, Texas. The family moved to Dallas in 1929, where Freeman became the organizer and general manager of Burford Oil Company after he opened the East Texas Refining Company in Pecos, Texas, which operated from 1929–1939 before it was destroyed in an explosion. They became part of the Dallas elite. When their close friend, Sheppard King, was in financial trouble in 1933, they traded him their home and $76,000 in cash for the Rosewood mansion. During her lifetime she had jewelry stolen worth an estimated $20 million.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Skelly, Carolyn 1905 births 1996 deaths American socialites Marion, Indiana People from Tulsa, Oklahoma