Edith Rockefeller McCormick
Encyclopedia
Edith Rockefeller McCormick (August 31, 1872 – August 25, 1932) was an American socialite
and opera patron.
tycoon John D. Rockefeller
(1839 – 1937) and his wife Laura Spelman Rockefeller
("Cettie") (1839–1915). Her famous younger brother was John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
McCormick and her father had an often stormy relationship, where her extravagance would often conflict with his known frugality.
She married Harold Fowler McCormick
, a son of Chicago's mechanical reaper
inventor Cyrus McCormick
, in 1895. The married couple spent their first two years living in Council Bluffs, Iowa
. They later moved to Chicago
. Her country retreat, located directly on Lake Michigan in Lake Forest
, Illinois
, named Villa Turicum, was famous for its ostentatious scale, and extensive gardens.
A famous story about McCormick involves an evening in 1901 during a party. News arrived that McCormick's son, John Rockefeller McCormick, had died of scarlet fever
. It was rumored that when this was whispered to her at the dinner table, she proceeded to merely nod her head and allowed the party to continue without incident. A biographer of her father, however, makes it clear that this could not have been true. At the time of her son's death, Edith was with him at the family estate, Kykuit
, at Pocantico Hills, New York
. A year later, she and her husband established the John McCormick Institution of Infectious Diseases in Chicago, a source of funding for the researchers
who later isolated the bacterium responsible for the disease.
In 1913 she travelled to Zurich
to be treated for depression
by Carl Gustav Jung and contributed generously to the Zürich Psychological Society. In 1919 McCormick donated land she had received from her father as a wedding gift to the Forest Preserve of Cook County, to be developed as a zoological garden, later to become Chicago's Brookfield Zoo
. She returned to America in 1921 after an 8 year stay.
She and Harold Fowler McCormick
were divorced in December, 1921. A year later, Harold was given custody of 17 year old Mathilde, so that she could marry Max Oser, a 47-year-old Swiss riding instructor. Mathilde and Max were married in London in April, 1923. Meanwhile, Harold married Ganna Walska
, a famous Polish opera singer in August, 1922. Within days of Harold's remarriage, Edith announced plans to marry Edward Krenn, a 28 year old Austrian archietect. The plan fell through for undisclosed reasons in December, 1922. In 1927, she was mentioned in a newspaper article about Chicago's wealthy unmarried, divorced, and widowed wealthy women. The article noted that she was "glad to be rid of the gay Harold McCormick, but hasn't succeeded in convincing her friends she will never marry again." ." Over the next few years, Edith and Harold frequently found themselves in court in lawsuits over the divorce agreement.
In February, 1923 she received some minor press for claiming to be the reincarnation of the wife of King Tutankhamen, whose tomb had just been explored and was a popular topic. She was quoted as saying, "I married King Tutankhamen when I was only sixteen years old. I was his first wife. Only the other day, while glancing through an illustrated paper, I saw a picture of a chair removed from the King's chamber. Like a flash I recognized that chair. I had sat in it many times." She followed up in Time magazine by stating "My interest in reincarnation is of many years' standing." She was also said to be interested in astrology and to celebrate Christmas on December 15.
In 1925, she and other wealthy Chicago women including Miss Helen M. Bennett, Mrs. John V. Farwell, Mrs. Silas Strawn, Mrs. John Alden Carpenter, Mrs. B.F. Langworthy, Mrs. Florence Fifer Bohrer, and Mrs. Medill McCormick sponsored an international exposition to celebrate the progress and achievements of American women -- The Women's World's Fair, which was held at the American Exposition Palace on Lake Michigan in April 1925, and was held again each year in Chicago in April or May from 1926 to 1928. A local paper noted, of the first fair, that "One feature of the exhibit will be a collection of newspaper and magazine clippings, from various countries during the last 200 years emphasizing the storm of protest which greeted every suggestion for a freer social status for women." Newspaper articles mention organizing troubles that caused it to be cancelled in 1929. It was not held thereafter.
In 1930 Edith had a growth removed from her breast and died of cancer two years later. She and two of her children, John and Editha, are buried in Graceland Cemetery
in Chicago.
Socialite
A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....
and opera patron.
Biography
McCormick was the fourth daughter of Standard OilStandard Oil
Standard Oil was a predominant American integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refiner in the world and operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational...
tycoon John D. Rockefeller
John D. Rockefeller
John Davison Rockefeller was an American oil industrialist, investor, and philanthropist. He was the founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of...
(1839 – 1937) and his wife Laura Spelman Rockefeller
Laura Spelman Rockefeller
Laura Celestia Spelman Rockefeller, , , was a philanthropist, the namesake of Spelman College, founded to educate black women in the South, and the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, and the wife of John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil...
("Cettie") (1839–1915). Her famous younger brother was John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
John Davison Rockefeller, Jr. was a major philanthropist and a pivotal member of the prominent Rockefeller family. He was the sole son among the five children of businessman and Standard Oil industrialist John D. Rockefeller and the father of the five famous Rockefeller brothers...
McCormick and her father had an often stormy relationship, where her extravagance would often conflict with his known frugality.
She married Harold Fowler McCormick
Harold Fowler McCormick
Harold Fowler McCormick, Sr. was chairman of the board of International Harvester Company.-Biography:He was born on May 2, 1872, the sixth child of Cyrus McCormick, inventor and manufacturer of the mechanical reaper; and Nancy Fowler McCormick.He graduated from Princeton University in 1895...
, a son of Chicago's mechanical reaper
Reaper
A reaper is a person or machine that reaps crops at harvest, when they are ripe.-Hand reaping:Hand reaping is done by various means, including plucking the ears of grains directly by hand, cutting the grain stalks with a sickle, cutting them with a scythe, or with a later type of scythe called a...
inventor Cyrus McCormick
Cyrus McCormick
Cyrus Hall McCormick, Sr. was an American inventor and founder of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, which became part of International Harvester Company in 1902.He and many members of the McCormick family became prominent Chicagoans....
, in 1895. The married couple spent their first two years living in Council Bluffs, Iowa
Council Bluffs, Iowa
Council Bluffs, known until 1852 as Kanesville, Iowathe historic starting point of the Mormon Trail and eventual northernmost anchor town of the other emigrant trailsis a city in and the county seat of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, United States and is on the east bank of the Missouri River across...
. They later moved to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. Her country retreat, located directly on Lake Michigan in Lake Forest
Lake Forest, Illinois
Lake Forest is an affluent city located in Lake County, Illinois, United States. The city is south of Waukegan along the shore of Lake Michigan, and is a part of the Chicago metropolitan area and the North Shore. Lake Forest was founded around Lake Forest College and was laid out as a town in...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, named Villa Turicum, was famous for its ostentatious scale, and extensive gardens.
A famous story about McCormick involves an evening in 1901 during a party. News arrived that McCormick's son, John Rockefeller McCormick, had died of scarlet fever
Scarlet fever
Scarlet fever is a disease caused by exotoxin released by Streptococcus pyogenes. Once a major cause of death, it is now effectively treated with antibiotics...
. It was rumored that when this was whispered to her at the dinner table, she proceeded to merely nod her head and allowed the party to continue without incident. A biographer of her father, however, makes it clear that this could not have been true. At the time of her son's death, Edith was with him at the family estate, Kykuit
Kykuit
Kykuit , also known as John D. Rockefeller Estate, is a 40-room National Trust house in Westchester County, New York, built by the oil businessman, philanthropist and founder of the prominent Rockefeller family, John D. Rockefeller, and his son, John D...
, at Pocantico Hills, New York
Pocantico Hills, New York
Pocantico Hills is a hamlet in the town of Mount Pleasant, New York, northeast of the village of Sleepy Hollow and southwest of the village of Pleasantville. The area was originally settled by native Americans of the Wecquaesgeek tribes; "Pocantico" means "running between two hills," and the name...
. A year later, she and her husband established the John McCormick Institution of Infectious Diseases in Chicago, a source of funding for the researchers
Gladys Dick
Gladys Rowena Henry Dick was an American physician who co-developed a vaccine for scarlet fever with her husband, George F. Dick.-Life and career:...
who later isolated the bacterium responsible for the disease.
In 1913 she travelled to Zurich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
to be treated for depression
Clinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
by Carl Gustav Jung and contributed generously to the Zürich Psychological Society. In 1919 McCormick donated land she had received from her father as a wedding gift to the Forest Preserve of Cook County, to be developed as a zoological garden, later to become Chicago's Brookfield Zoo
Brookfield Zoo
The Brookfield Zoo is zoo located in the Chicago suburb of Brookfield, Illinois. The zoo covers an area of and houses around 450 species of animals....
. She returned to America in 1921 after an 8 year stay.
She and Harold Fowler McCormick
Harold Fowler McCormick
Harold Fowler McCormick, Sr. was chairman of the board of International Harvester Company.-Biography:He was born on May 2, 1872, the sixth child of Cyrus McCormick, inventor and manufacturer of the mechanical reaper; and Nancy Fowler McCormick.He graduated from Princeton University in 1895...
were divorced in December, 1921. A year later, Harold was given custody of 17 year old Mathilde, so that she could marry Max Oser, a 47-year-old Swiss riding instructor. Mathilde and Max were married in London in April, 1923. Meanwhile, Harold married Ganna Walska
Ganna Walska
Ganna Walska born Hanna Puacz was a Polish opera singer and garden enthusiast who created the Lotusland botanical gardens...
, a famous Polish opera singer in August, 1922. Within days of Harold's remarriage, Edith announced plans to marry Edward Krenn, a 28 year old Austrian archietect. The plan fell through for undisclosed reasons in December, 1922. In 1927, she was mentioned in a newspaper article about Chicago's wealthy unmarried, divorced, and widowed wealthy women. The article noted that she was "glad to be rid of the gay Harold McCormick, but hasn't succeeded in convincing her friends she will never marry again." ." Over the next few years, Edith and Harold frequently found themselves in court in lawsuits over the divorce agreement.
In February, 1923 she received some minor press for claiming to be the reincarnation of the wife of King Tutankhamen, whose tomb had just been explored and was a popular topic. She was quoted as saying, "I married King Tutankhamen when I was only sixteen years old. I was his first wife. Only the other day, while glancing through an illustrated paper, I saw a picture of a chair removed from the King's chamber. Like a flash I recognized that chair. I had sat in it many times." She followed up in Time magazine by stating "My interest in reincarnation is of many years' standing." She was also said to be interested in astrology and to celebrate Christmas on December 15.
In 1925, she and other wealthy Chicago women including Miss Helen M. Bennett, Mrs. John V. Farwell, Mrs. Silas Strawn, Mrs. John Alden Carpenter, Mrs. B.F. Langworthy, Mrs. Florence Fifer Bohrer, and Mrs. Medill McCormick sponsored an international exposition to celebrate the progress and achievements of American women -- The Women's World's Fair, which was held at the American Exposition Palace on Lake Michigan in April 1925, and was held again each year in Chicago in April or May from 1926 to 1928. A local paper noted, of the first fair, that "One feature of the exhibit will be a collection of newspaper and magazine clippings, from various countries during the last 200 years emphasizing the storm of protest which greeted every suggestion for a freer social status for women." Newspaper articles mention organizing troubles that caused it to be cancelled in 1929. It was not held thereafter.
In 1930 Edith had a growth removed from her breast and died of cancer two years later. She and two of her children, John and Editha, are buried in Graceland Cemetery
Graceland Cemetery
Graceland Cemetery is a large Victorian era cemetery located in the north side community area of Uptown, in the city of Chicago, Illinois, USA. Established in 1860, its main entrance is at the intersection of Clark Street and Irving Park Road...
in Chicago.
Children
- John Rockefeller McCormick (1896–1901) was the eldest son of Harold Fowler McCormick and his wife Edith Rockefeller McCormick. McCormick was a grandson of Cyrus McCormick, inventor of the mechanical reaper, and Standard Oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller. He died of scarlet fever.
- Editha McCormick (1897–1898)
- Harold Fowler McCormick, Jr. (1898–1973) who married Anna Urquhart Brown-Potter. She was the daughter of Cora Urquhart Brown-Potter, and was previously married to James A. StillmanJames A. StillmanJames Alexander Stillman was a chairman of Citigroup whose messy divorce grabbed tabloid headlines in the Roaring Twenties.Stillman was born in New York City and graduated Harvard University in 1896...
- Muriel McCormick Hubbard (1903–1959)
- Mathilde McCormick Oser (1906–1947)
Further reading
- Chernow, Ron. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. London: Warner Books, 1998.
- Bair, Deirdre, "Jung - A Biography" London: Time-Warner Books UK, 2004
See also
- Rockefeller familyRockefeller familyThe Rockefeller family , the Cleveland family of John D. Rockefeller and his brother William Rockefeller , is an American industrial, banking, and political family of German origin that made one of the world's largest private fortunes in the oil business during the late 19th and early 20th...
- John D. RockefellerJohn D. RockefellerJohn Davison Rockefeller was an American oil industrialist, investor, and philanthropist. He was the founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of...