Mr. JENNER. She remarried?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. She remarried.
Mr. JENNER. What is his full name?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Dr. Robert Denton. He is the doctor who treated
our children for cystic fibrosis. At present he is a professor of
pediatrics and assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of
Pennsylvania.
Mr. JENNER. I don't want to go into the litigation. There was some
litigation, was there not, between you and your former wife with
respect to some trust?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Trust fund.
Mr. JENNER. Established for whom?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Established for Sergei, for our son. Now, I had
to contribute, according to the divorce, $125 a month for the support
of the children, which I did, and she put that money in a trust fund.
She did not want to use that money for the upkeep of the children,
because she is independently wealthy, and eventually she refused to
accept any more contribution of money from me. I objected on my side
to the fact that I was removed away--that the children were very far
away from me. They were living in Boston at the time, and I encountered
constantly difficulties in regard to my visitation rights of the
children. Well, anyway, finally all of a sudden, after Sergei died, a
long time afterwards, I received a notification that we inherited, my
ex-wife and I--we inherited this trust fund.
Mr. JENNER. Which trust fund?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Established for Sergei, our son.
Mr. JENNER. Who established the trust fund?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Her grandfather, my boy's grandfather, Mr.
Sharples, plus the money that came from my monthly contribution for the
children's support--whatever money she could put in it. Anyway, it was
a small trust fund of $24,000, which eventually was split up between
my ex-wife and myself--about $12,000 each. There was a litigation in
regard to that, but I don't know if it is interesting for you.
Mr. JENNER. No--I have the complaints. Your ex-wife--Dr. Denton lives
in Philadelphia?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. And she does research work, does she?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. She doesn't do the actual research. She is more
or less running the administration end of a second foundation. She
was eventually asked to leave the National Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
which we had formed together in Dallas, and which became this national
foundation.
She developed some difficulty with the other trustees and was asked
to resign, or resigned herself--I don't know for sure--the other
trustees say they asked her to resign. She says she was forced to
resign. And she formed with the help of her father and her friends
another foundation in Philadelphia which is much smaller, and I think
which does also research on cystic fibrosis. And she is running the
administrative end of it. She is not doing the actual research, but she
is running this foundation as an administrator.
Mr. JENNER. Do you visit your child?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I used to. Right now I have a great deal of
difficulty in visiting my daughter, Nadya, because she wants to live
with me, you see.
Mr. JENNER. The daughter?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. The daughter, yes. And she thinks that by living
in Texas her health will improve. Now, the mother thinks it is just
the opposite--that if she lives in Texas that she will die, because of
the inadequate medical facilities. So we had rather bitter litigation
last year as to--I tried to take the custody away from her, because of
various reasons--mainly, I think that the daughter would be happier
with me, and with my new wife. And the little girl has developed a
tremendous liking for my new wife. But the court decided that--we
went into such bitter fighting, that I stopped this litigation in the
middle, and I said, "I am going to Haiti anyway. Let's leave things as
they are for a year. I am not going to see Nadya for a year, on the
condition that she will get all my letters, all my gifts, and that I
get a medical report from her every 4 months." And the poor girl is
also under psychiatric treatment.
Mr. JENNER. Who is?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Nadya, my little girl. She is under psychiatric
treatment--because of her illness, and also she developed a dislike for
the other members of her family, for her half brothers and sisters,
because they are healthy, and she is not.
Mr. JENNER. I take it that your former wife--there had been some
children born of her present marriage?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; who have no cystic fibrosis.
Mr. JENNER. All right. Now, when the divorce took place, your wife
filed suit in Philadelphia, didn't she?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No; the suit was filed in Dallas.
Mr. JENNER. She commenced it?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Did you resist it?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No; we came to an agreement that we would get
a divorce anyway. I don't know what you call it in legal terms. The
lawyers made an agreement that, here it is, you see. We decided to sell
our house and settle our accounts.
Mr. JENNER. Property?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Property settlement. And I think it was very fair
for her, just as my lawyer, Morris Jaffe, can tell you the whole story
about that.
Mr. JENNER. Now, upon your divorce from Wynne, or Didi, Sharples, did
you remain in Dallas?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; I stayed in Dallas, carried on my consulting
work in the same manner, concentrating mostly from then on on the
foreign end of this business.
Mr. JENNER. What do you mean foreign end?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I started taking more and more foreign jobs. In
1956 I took a job in Haiti for a private--for some private individuals
connected with Sinclair Oil Company.
Mr. JENNER. When was that?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. In 1956--just before our divorce, I think. We
were already separated. Then we must have been divorced the end of 1956.
Sorry--too many marriages, too many divorces. So I started taking
more and more foreign jobs. And, also, in my relationship with Mr.
Sharples, because--my ex-wife's father--I did some foreign work for
him, mainly in Mexico. He had some foreign exploitation in Mexico, some
oil operations in Mexico. Anyway, I started getting a lot of foreign
jobs--maybe jobs in Nigeria.
Mr. JENNER. I want to know what countries you were taken to in
connection with those.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, all in all, I visited and I did foreign
work, which means preparation for taking of concessions and suggestion
of what areas should be taken for an oil and gas concessions--it was
in Nigeria, in Togoland, in Ghana, in France--I may have forgotten
with some other countries where I did not have to go, but I did some
work right there in Dallas--examined the geological work and made
suggestions.