Carolyn Skelly
- Bobby Kelley
- 2 days ago
- 9 min read
Carolyn Mary Skelly was born on December 2, 1905, in Marion, Grant County, Indiana, the elder daughter of William Grove Skelly and Gertrude Elizabeth Frank Skelly. When she was born, her father had not yet reached the level of wealth that later defined the family. As his oil interests expanded, the family relocated to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he built a large home that became their primary residence.
Carolyn was educated at Mrs. Merrill's School in Mamaroneck, New York, a fashionable eastern boarding school attended by daughters of wealthy families. She completed her schooling there and returned to Tulsa in 1925, resuming residence in her parents' 25-room home.
William Grove Skelly & Gertrude Frank Skelly
On May 18, 1926, Carolyn Skelly married Freeman Weedman Burford in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Burford was then a law student who also worked as a truck driver for Skelly Oil Company and was beginning to advance within Skelly's business operations. Following their marriage, Carolyn Skelly Burford and her husband moved to Shreveport, Louisiana, where Freeman Burford managed the Crystal Oil Refining Corporation. Their life there was structured around refinery operations and his growing responsibilities in the oil industry. Here they welcomed their son William in 1927, and daughter Carolyn in 1929.
By the early 1930s, the Burfords relocated to Dallas, Texas, where Freeman Burford became an oil-company executive. Carolyn Burford became active in Dallas society, and her spending expanded sharply, particularly on clothing, furnishings, and entertaining.
In 1933, the Burfords exchanged residences with Sheppard King, acquiring "Rosewood" the large Italian-Spanish palazzo he had built in the 1920s. The Burfords added $76,000 in cash to complete the exchange and moved into the house, which later became known as the Mansion on Turtle Creek. The property contained elaborate architectural and decorative elements assembled from European sources, including a library modeled after Bromley Palace in England, gates and columns from a cathedral in Spain, and a dining room inspired by the Davanzatti Palace in Florence with a ceiling inlaid with thousands of pieces of wood.
After taking possession, Carolyn began an ongoing process of redecoration. Family members later described the scale of her expenditures. Her brother-in-law, Harold Stuart, called her a heavy spender, and her son, Bill Burford, said that even her father was startled by the extent of her spending.
By the mid-1930s, Carolyn and Freeman Burford were prominent figures in Dallas society during the Depression years. They entertained extensively and hosted major political figures, including President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Louisiana governor Huey Long. Rumors circulated that Freeman Burford was being positioned for higher political office. In 1937 their daughter Ann was born.
Carolyn became known for after-hours shopping at Neiman Marcus, where staff remained late to accommodate her. Stanley Marcus later described her as one of the store's most demanding customers. When she selected a fabric, she sometimes ordered matching items made from the same material, requiring special production.
Her spending extended to home renovations. In an earlier Dallas residence, she ordered an oak floor removed and replaced with marble without informing her husband. Freeman Burford later returned from the oil fields late at night and fell through the unfinished floor into the basement, breaking his leg.
Tensions intensified in the late 1930s. Accounts of the separation differ within the family. One version held that Carolyn and her father believed Freeman Burford was violating the Connally "hot oil" act and that legal action followed. Another version held that Freeman Burford moved out first, and that Carolyn threatened to expose him if he did not return. In 1939, Freeman Burford was indicted on charges related to the Connally act. He did not stand trial. The Burfords officially divorced on August 1, 1940.
After the separation, the children were divided. Ann remained with her mother, while Freeman Burford raised the two older children, Bill and Carolyn. For a short time Carolyn continued entertaining, but the finances collapsed. William Skelly cut her allowance and agreed to pay only her personal bills. Household staff left. She began selling antiques and furnishings. Clothing purchased on her father's Neiman Marcus account was resold for cash. She rented out cottages on the property for income, and Tennessee Williams occupied one for a time.
William Skelly Burford (B.1927) Carolyn Burford (B. 1929) Ann Burford (B.1937)
During this same period, Carolyn's physical condition deteriorated and her appearance changed dramatically. No single cause was ever confirmed. Family and acquaintances offered multiple explanations over time, including a skin condition complicated by treatments used in the 1930s and 1940s, injury from a permanent-wave machine, and other theories. Carolyn herself gave differing accounts across the years.
By the end of the decade, burdened by debt and declining health, she sold the Dallas mansion and moved with her youngest daughter into a Dallas hotel. As her condition worsened, her daughter appealed to William Skelly for help. He arranged a private flight in the middle of the night, transporting Carolyn to Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, where she underwent years of treatment and reconstructive surgery under Dr. James Barrett Brown.
After the collapse of her marriage and the loss of her Dallas home, she withdrew for many years from public life. In the early 1940s she was based in St. Louis. She lived in large private residences, including a Beaux Arts mansion at 25 Portland Place, but remained intensely private. Visitors were limited, and she was often seen in darkened rooms, with her face concealed by veils or wigs.
After the deaths of her parents in the 1950's, she became financially independent. Rather than returning immediately to society, she focused on managing and growing her wealth. By the mid-1960s, she placed a discreet advertisement seeking a qualified accountant. Frank Bono Jr. answered and was summoned to her home. When he arrived, she stopped him at the doorway of her upstairs bedroom and asked him to disregard her appearance, attributing her injuries to an oil-field explosion. She questioned him closely about his habits and reliability. After he satisfied her concerns and stated he was bonded, she hired him immediately.
Their working arrangement was controlled and ritualized. Bono slit the envelopes, and she reached inside and pulled out the dividend checks herself. She was receiving checks from dozens of oil companies. She followed her finances closely and instructed Bono that her investing would be in Skelly Oil stock. Bono later described long work sessions that extended into the evening and late dinners afterward. When his wife called to say dinner was ready, Carolyn would ask who was calling and insist he stay until the work was finished, a pattern he attributed to her loneliness.
At the same time, she entered prolonged legal conflict with her sister, Joan, and her brother-in-law, Harold Stuart, over the handling of family estates and trusts. She accused them of wrongdoing and hired investigators to follow them. The dispute expanded into countersuits alleging harassment and defamation and dragged on for years.
When the litigation finally resolved, she remained in St. Louis. Her daily habits showed sharp contradictions. She clipped grocery coupons and watched expenses closely, but insisted her checking account never fall below two million dollars. She lived in grand surroundings, but her life remained constrained and private.
In 1978, at age seventy-two, after years of isolation, she made a deliberate change. Encouraged by Bono to begin spending, she decided she would reenter the world. She lifted the veil she had used for years and replaced it with oversized sunglasses and wigs. She began using Skelly as her last name again after Freeman Burford's death, then she purchased her Newport estate Bois Doré, a French chateau-style mansion built in 1927 in Newport, Rhode Island. It was designed by New York architect Charles A. Platt for William Fahnestock, a New York banker. It was previously owned by the Campbell's Soup heiress Eleanor Dorrance Hill Ingersoll.
Jewelry became central to how she presented herself. She bought large, conspicuous pieces in New York and London, favoring scale and visibility. She retained her St. Louis estate but added residences and long-term rentals, including an apartment at River House in Manhattan and a rental in Southampton known as Keewayden.
From the late 1970s through the 1980s, she became a constant presence in Newport, Palm Beach, Manhattan, and Dallas. She built a wide circle that mixed society figures with diplomats, jewelers, entertainers, and a revolving cast of escorts. Her routine was structured: early mornings, business handled from her bedroom, staff directed daily, correspondence managed, and an escort chosen each evening from what was known as the "Bachelor Book." Escorts were housed in a designated wing at Bois Doré and were expected to announce themselves formally before the evening began. Financial requests from companions were routed through Bono, who became expert at saying no.
Beginning in the early 1980s, she also became the target of an extraordinary series of jewel thefts spanning multiple cities and more than a decade.
In March 1982, after arriving at LaGuardia Airport from a weekend in Newport, she entered a limousine headed to her Manhattan apartment. A masked gunman forced his way into the vehicle, held a gun to her head, and directed the driver to stop about a mile from the airport. He stripped her of the jewelry she was wearing, ordered her and the driver onto the floor, and removed four suitcases from the trunk, including one said to contain about one million dollars' worth of jewelry.
In the early hours of August 16, 1984, Newport police were called to the apartment of one of her maids, where a domestic dispute led officers to a pile of glittering jewelry. The maid had taken it from Bois Doré after a dispute over back wages. Police recovered the jewelry in pillowcases and returned it to the mansion. Items described during the return included a platinum-and-pearl bracelet with diamonds and rubies valued at $585,000 and a necklace said to have belonged to the Empress Joséphine.
Late in 1984, she reported the disappearance of about $1.6 million in newly purchased jewelry after returning from London. She had hidden the purchases in a shoe closet at Bois Doré before traveling to St. Louis for a funeral. When the jewelry was to be retrieved afterward, the bag was missing. An anonymous letter titled "The Skelly Jewels" was later received by her and others, alleging mistreatment of employees and giving a contradictory story about the jewelry being lost at J.F.K. airport. The jewelry was not recovered.
In August 1985, after arriving at J.F.K. from London with more than a dozen pieces of luggage, she later discovered that several bags were missing, including the jewelry case said to contain five to ten million dollars' worth of jewelry. Two bags later surfaced at J.F.K., but the jewelry case did not. Polygraphs were administered to the pilot, cabdriver, and a companion, and they passed, The jewelry was not recovered.
In the early morning hours of August 18, 1986, during a severe storm in Newport, a masked intruder entered her bedroom at Bois Doré while she slept. He carried a knife, addressed her by name, and demanded the rest of her jewelry. When she could not unlatch her bracelets, he removed his gloves and snapped them off himself. He left with what she later estimated at three to five million dollars' worth of jewelry, including diamond and ruby necklaces, a pearl-and-diamond choker, and her favorite ring, a fifty-carat diamond she called "the J Boat." The next night, she went dancing.
Through the late 1980s, jewelry continued to vanish after trips and parties, including a turquoise-and-diamond necklace valued at $300,000, a $500,000 diamond pin, a $320,000 set of South Sea pearls, and a $90,000 diamond butterfly bracelet.
On August 16, 1990, during a formal gathering at Bois Doré attended by international guests, she went upstairs around 1:30 a.m. while the party continued. The next morning she discovered a necklace valued at one million dollars missing, along with additional jewelry valued at about $200,000. Guests asked to be searched. She refused and dismissed the police, saying she could replace jewels but not friends.
Across these incidents, investigators considered a wide range of suspects, including employees, escorts, houseguests, relatives, and close associates. Fingerprints were taken and polygraphs administered in some cases. A large diamond necklace later appeared in a Sotheby's "Magnificent Jewels" auction catalogue in October 1997 and was withdrawn before sale after her family intervened, reopening questions about where some of the stolen pieces had gone.
Even as the thefts accumulated, she did not lock down her household. She continued to host, travel, and move through public life as she wished. In 1995, while ascending the staircase at Bois Doré beneath her father's portrait, she fell backward and struck her head on the marble floor. In the hospital afterward, she insisted she would be dancing again. Carolyn was never the same.
Carolyn Skelly died in Newport, Rhode Island, on December 10, 1996, at age ninety-one, with the cause of death listed as bacterial pneumonia. After her death, her ashes rested in a jewelry box on her bed at Bois Doré. Later Carolyn's ashes were eventually spread in the garden of her beloved estate.
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