Anne Empie Kidder Beatty dies at 88

Anne Empie Kidder Beatty

Longtime Quogue summer resident Anne Empie Kidder Beatty died peacefully on Tuesday, May 25, at her home in Wilmington, North Carolina, after a long illness. She was 88.

A distinguished music student and athlete for most of her life, she was well known, family members said, for her social skills, Southern charm and boundless energy.

Born September 11, 1921, in Wilmington, she was the daughter of George Everard Kidder and Frances Bailey Kidder Curtzwiler and spent her childhood in Wilmington and nearby Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. She attended the National Cathedral School in Washington, D.C., where she served as vice-president of the student council, president of the Athletic Association, and as a member of the Missionary Board before being elected president of the graduating class of 1939.

Blessed with great beauty and an adventurous spirit, she learned how to tap dance in the living room of her New York City apartment, survivors recalled, and traveled to more than two dozen countries over six decades. She first moved to New York to study piano with Natalya Drozdoff, a distinguished Russian émigré musician. She also studied at the Juilliard School of Music. During World War II, she was a volunteer with the Red Cross Motor Corps in North Carolina.

In 1943, after meeting him at Camp Davis in North Carolina, she married John Robert Anthony “Bob” Beatty, the son of an American father and a mother from Havana, Cuba. The couple settled in New York, where Mr. Beatty, a graduate of Williams College and Harvard Law School, became a senior partner at the law firm of Shearman & Sterling. He traveled widely for work and Mrs. Beatty joined him on numerous trips to Europe, Peru, Chili, Argentina, India, Iran and Cambodia.

During the couple’s time in New York, she was an active volunteer, at the Children’s Orthopedic Ward at Bellevue Hospital, at the Women’s Division of the Legal Aid Society, and at the New York Junior League, also serving on the board of trustees of the Spence School. She was a proud member of the Society of Colonial Dames and the Cosmopolitan Club.

In the early 1950s Mrs. Beatty and her husband began spending weekends and summers in Quogue, where they owned a home and where, survivors recalled, they rapidly became part of the fabric of the community. They distinguished themselves in their favorite sports, tennis and golf, and Mrs. Beatty was active at the Quogue Field Club and the Quogue Beach Club.

She and her husband also belonged to the National Golf Links of America and the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club. In both New York and Quogue, they had a wide circle of friends, family members said, who delighted in Mrs. Beatty’s particularly Southern charm and marveled at her mastery of ballroom dancing.

In retirement, the couple moved to North Carolina but summered in Quogue and visited New York often. After her husband’s death in 1994, Mrs. Beatty continued to live in their Wilmington home and to travel north as recently as last summer to be with her son and daughter and their families.

She is survived by a daughter, Frances Fielding Lewis Beatty Adler and her husband Allen Adler; a son, William Henry Beatty and his wife Sally Goll Beatty; and three grandchildren, Alexander H.L. Adler, Anthony B. Adler and Anne Fairfax Beatty. Other relatives include Martha Patterson Kidder, two nieces, Pat Kidder Crittenden and Ann Kidder Gore; two cousins, Peggy Moore Perdew and Dr. Antonio Puente, and her faithful and tireless caregiver Joan Arjoon.

Interment will be at the Quogue Cemetery. A memorial service will be held at the Saint James Episcopal Church in Wilmington and at the Church of Atonement in Quogue later this summer. In lieu of flowers contributions to Lower Cape Fear Hospice or East End Hospice would be appreciated by the family.