What news media attention Mrs. Mellon did attract over the years tended to focus on the superficial, often missing the dedication this talented amateur brought to her gardens (she was instrumental in the restoration of Louis XIV’s potager du roi at Versailles), art collections (she personally acquired from the artist what were long considered the finest Mark Rothko pictures in existence), her role as a mentor to Jacqueline Kennedy and to a manner of living so low key, its simplicity was almost a form of ostentation.