Former Wife of FDR Jr. a Suicide

May 25, 1965 - Mrs. Ethel du Pont Warren (pictured in 1945), former wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., was found dead today in her suburban Grosse Pointe Farms home in Michigan.

The police said they found the body of the 49-year-old du Point heiress hanging by a braided bathrobe belt from a shower curtain rod in a locked second-floor bathroom. They listed her death as an apparent suicide.

Miss Martha Weber, a maid, called the police at 10:04 a.m. She said Mrs. Warren had failed to respond to her calls.

Miss Weber reportedly told the police that Mrs. Warren had complained of feeling ill after she was served breakfast in bed at about 9 a.m. The maid said she suggested to Mrs. Warren that she get some more rest, police said.

The maid said that when she heard no sound from the bedroom an hour later and found the adjoining bathroom door locked, she called Dr. Harrison Sadler, the family physician. He told Miss Weber to call the police and rushed to the house.

Sources said Mrs. Warren had been under psychiatric care on a number of occasions and that she had been hospitalized various times during the last several years. She had, on occasion, been a patient at the Silver Hill Foundation, a psychiatric hospital in New Canaan, Conn., and was last there late last year.

Mrs. Warren was married to Benjamin Warren Jr., a socially prominent Detroit lawyer, in December 1950, following her divorce in 1949 from Mr. Roosevelt. Family friends said the Warrens had separated but recently were reconciled.

The former Miss Ethel du Pont was the eldest of four children of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene du Pont. She was a direct descendant of Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, whose sons founded the famous powder mills in Wilmington that opened the door to the creation of the family’s fortune. She was believed to have inherited several million dollars following the death of her parents in 1954. Relatives and associates were unable to give a more precise estimate of her wealth.

The Roosevelts were divorced in May 1949. They had two children, Franklin 3d, 26, who lives in New York City, and Christopher. Mr. Roosevelt is now Under Secretary of Commerce. 

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