Rachel Mellon Walton, a quiet, strong matriarch in Pittsburgh's most prominent family and the longest-serving board member of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, died Thursday at her Oakland apartment, where she had lived for the past 31 years. She was 107.
Mrs. Walton donated her time as well as her money. While she endowed a principal oboe chair at the symphony, she also staffed a suicide hot line for 20 years.
Mrs. Walton, using an assumed name, even took calls from suicidal people at her apartment after she stopped visiting the offices of Contact Pittsburgh crisis hot line, said her grandson, Will Whetzel of Philadelphia, adding that the organization made a rare exception to facilitate that arrangement.
In addition to the PSO, Mrs. Walton gave generously to the Women's Center and Shelter in Shadyside, the Children's Institute and the Garden Club of Allegheny County. She also was a longtime member of the Women's Committee of the Carnegie Museum of Art.
With her sister, Margaret Mellon Hitchcock, Mrs. Walton honored her late mother by establishing the Mary Taylor Mellon Scholarship for women at Carnegie Mellon University's business school. In 1971, when Heinz Hall opened, her contribution created the Mary Taylor Mellon green room.
"I feel the reason she lived so long -- 107 years -- and lived in three centuries, is because she cared about people and she listened. She did that with the children and the grandchildren," said her daughter, Farley Whetzel of Shadyside.
Will Whetzel also recalled how Mrs. Walton listened to him for a long time in 1990 as he recounted his struggles over his divorce.
"She gave me very great advice when she was in her '90s. She was the calm voice in the room about it all. I was very confused," Mr. Whetzel said, adding that his grandmother also gave him a copy of a sermon from a retired minister that "gave me very clear guidance."
His grandmother, whose nickname was "Nan," also possessed a playful, somewhat devilish side, Mr. Whetzel said, recalling that she loved to dress as a witch on Halloween.
Louis Talotta, a decorator, recalled that generations of Squirrel Hill children, including himself and his much younger sister, made sure to stop at Mrs. Walton's home on Halloween.
"She was always dressed up as a witch. The whole placed looked just really eerie and wonderful. She had the best treats," Mr. Talotta recalled.
Her fondness of the trick-or-treat holiday prompted her grandchildren to give her unusual birthday gifts, including big red wigs and silly hats with complete birthday cakes perched atop them.
"She would just dissolve when she got those and put them on over her beautifully coiffed hair. It was far more fun and far more important," Mr. Whetzel said.
Annie Whetzel, of Ligonier, said her great-grandmother would conduct spelling bees on family vacations.
"We would go down to the Bahamas together and sit on the porch of her house, look out at the harbor and have spelling bees. She taught me how to spell," Ms. Whetzel said.
Mrs. Walton, the daughter of William Larimer Mellon and Mary Taylor Mellon, was born in 1899 in Pittsburgh. As a teenager, she attended a finishing school in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.
She married John F. Walton Jr., the son of affluent coal barge merchants. The couple lived in Wisconsin for four years while Mr. Walton worked for Alcoa but returned to Pittsburgh in the mid-1930s when he joined Gulf Oil. Mrs. Walton's husband died in 1974 at the age of 81.
"She swam until about a week before she died," said her son, James Walton, of Gulf Stream, Fla. He added that his mother also loved to read and go bone fishing in the Florida Keys and bass fishing in Canada.
A lifelong lover of music, Mrs. Walton joined the symphony's board in 1942.
In 1988, she endowed the principal oboe chair in memory of her brother, Dr. William Larimer Mellon Jr., who had played the oboe.
In 1990, Mrs. Walton was named a life director of the PSO. Two years later, Richard Mellon Scaife and his wife, Margaret, endowed the concertmaster's chair in Mrs. Walton's honor.
"She was just the epitome of generosity. She truly loved and understood music," said Mary Ellen Miller, vice president of donor relations for the PSO.
In 2000, Mrs. Walton received the Elsie Award from WQED for her volunteerism and philanthropy.
In addition to her son and daughter, Mrs. Walton is survived by two other children, Mary Walton Curley of New York City and John F. Walton III of Phoenix; 14 grandchildren; and 27 great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday at Shadyside Presbyterian Church, Amberson Avenue. Visitation will follow in the parish hall. Arrangements are by John A. Freyvogel Sons Funeral Home, Shadyside.
First Published: March 4, 2006, 5:00 a.m.
