Estate of Ellen Sheffield Phelps
MRS. W.W. PHELPS'S ESTATE
Widow of Former German Ambassador Left More Than $3,000,000
The appraisal filed in the Surrogates' Court here yesterday shows that of the $3, 190,000 estate left by the late Mrs. Ellen Sheffield Phelps of Teaneck, Bergen County, N.J., $815,606 was in securities and other holding subject to taxation in this State.
Mrs. Phelps was the widow of William Walter Phelps of the once noted banking firm of Phelps, Dodge & Co., who for years represented one of the New Jersey districts in Congress and was afterward United States Minister to Germany. Her death occurred at her apartments in the Hotel Buckingham on East Fiftieth Street in August of last year.
The principals of the twenty-one beneficiaries are her son, Captain John J. Phelps of Hackensack, N.J., who will receive $259,083, and her daughter, Marion Phelps Peters of 70 West Forty-ninth Street, to whom a bequest of $1,500 is made and the income for life from $250,083. Her grandchildren -- Eleanor S. Phelps and Claudia L. Phelps, both of Aiken, S.C., William Walter Phelps of Millbrook, N.Y. -- will receive $86,361 each; two daughters-in-law -- Rose Phelps of Hackensack, N.J., and Claudia L. Phelps of Aiken, S. C. -- are to have $23,000 each.
To her friend, Ellen M. Cortisoz of 31 West 110th Street, she left $20,000, and to Mabel T. Boardman of 1801 P Street, Washington, D.C., and Louis Felfoy Cort of Princeton, N.J., $10,000 each.
New York Times, New York, NY, Nov. 16, 1921, page 9
