Personal life
In 1854, Drexel was married to Hannah Jane Langstroth (1826–1858). Hannah was the daughter of Piscator Langstroth and Elizabeth (née Lehman) Langstroth. Together, the parents of two children, Hannah died five weeks after the birth of their second daughter:
Elizabeth Langstroth Drexel (1855–1890), who married Walter George Smith (1854–1924), a son of Gen. Thomas Kilby Smith, in January 1890 and died of puerperal convulsions in September of the same year.
Catherine Mary Drexel (1858–1955), who became a nun, founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, took the name Mother Katharine, and was declared a Catholic saint.
In 1860, he remarried to his second wife, Emma Mary Bouvier (1833–1883). Emma was the daughter of Louise (née Vernou) Bouvier and Michel Bouvier, a French cabinetmaker from Pont-Saint-Esprit in southern France who immigrated to Philadelphia in 1815 after having served in the Napoleonic Wars. Emma was an aunt of John Vernou Bouvier Jr., grandfather of Jacqueline (née Bouvier) Kennedy Onassis. They had one child:
Louise Bouvier Drexel (1863–1945), who married Edward de Veaux Morrell (1862–1917), later a U.S. Representative, in 1889.
Drexel purchased a country estate in Torresdale just outside Philadelphia. Although it was intended as a summer retreat, the family spent the better part of the year there from late spring to mid-autumn with Drexel taking the train to work. It was not far from the Motherhouse of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, where the second Mrs. Drexel's sister, Mother Louis Bouvier, resided for a time. Mrs. Drexel and her daughters were frequent visitors.
His second wife also predeceased him, dying at their residence in Philadelphia in January 1883. He died at his home, 1503 Walnut Street in Philadelphia on February 15, 1885. After a funeral at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Philadelphia, he was buried in the Drexel family vault at the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament Cemetery. Of his estimated $15,000,000 fortune, he left ten percent to charity and the remainder in trust for his three daughters.
