Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 February 1886 — Three Model Orphans. [ARTICLE]

Three Model Orphans.

-> The three wealthiest young ladies in Philadelphia are noted more than anything for their ! simple and unostentatious piety. Had they lived 400 or 500 years ago they probably would have founded a community of nuns. It has indeed been reported that one of them was to retire to a convent, but it may be said authoritatively tlvat there is no basis for the report. The ladies are the daughters of the late Francis X. Drexel, himself a man of religious feeling so strong and true that, besides giving away thousands a year during his life, he left at his death more than a million dollars to be divided among churches and charitable institutions. Their mother was possessed of exemplary virtues, and in the rush and whirl of tilings it is a high pleasure,, to speak of one who, with the possession of means to lead a life of splendid luxury, was happiest in the part of almoner to the poor. The young ladies were carefully trained, and they act upon the same general principles that guided the lives of their parents. With the exception of the charities spoken of, they were almost the sole legatees of their father, and the fortune of each exceeds $3,000,000. They are all uhmarried. They are seen very little in society, and place small store by its pleasures. They are now at their superb country place, at Torresdale, some fifteen miles from town. Their fortune is so well invested that the income of each of the girls is about $4,000 per week. Yet the living expenses of each cannot exceed $4,000 a year. They dress with the greatest simplicity, and their only extravagance is their charity. They give away to the poor and to religion five times as much as they spend upon themselves. Since the death of their father they have built tAvo memorial Avings to the chapel of the convent near their country place. In one of them a superb marble altar lias been erected to the memory of their father and in a crypt beneath it the dust of their parents lie. The young ladies attend services at the the cliapel, and they are there at hours so early that the sun has hardly time to rise: They have a Sunday-school for the children of the neighborhood in their own-house, and their pupils number about sixty, avlio, by the way, are very well cared for in temporalities as well as in spiritual matters. Withal they have had an excellent training in the affairs of every-day life, and are thoroughly able to take case of themselA r es. They ase perfect horse-Avomen, and a morning’s canter of ten miles is as child’s play to them. They are excellent book-keepers, too, and themselves maintain the records and accounts incidental to the care for their vast estate.