Ruth Ellen du Pont Lord (January 14, 1922 – August 4, 2014) was an American writer, psychotherapist, philanthropist, and patron of the arts.
The last private resident of the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library, she also wrote a biography of her father, Henry Francis du Pont.
[1] Lord grew up in an era where wealthy women were generally expected not to go to college but rather to focus on obtaining a suitable husband and then raising a family.
At Yale, she performed a variety of roles, including co-leading support groups for parents of severely ill children.
She also wrote papers on various topics, including a teenage girl's right to refuse dialysis and the effect on patients when their psychoanalysts die.
Reviewers praised her blend of "tart wit, honest introspection and filial concern"[5] and called it "a delightful as well as thoroughly well documented book.
[2] Lord was the last private resident of the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library, a 175-room mansion and large estate that her father, Henry Francis du Pont, developed to house his collection of American decorative arts, breed cattle, and cultivate gardens.