Page 42 - Copshaholm Curriculum Book_2015

Oliver Family History 16

frequently entertained at Copshaholm, where she met Charles Frederick Cunningham,
of Paterson, New Jersey. Mr. Cunningham was a graduate of Stevens Institute of
Technology. They were married September 30, 1916 in First Presbyterian Church,
South Bend. Cunningham, who later played a major role in Oliver family affairs, was
appointed secretary of the operating committee for general management of the Oliver
Chilled Plow Works. Gertrude, in 1920, was named a director of the company, a post
she held until the company’s dissolution in 1929. The Cunningham’s had three children,
Joseph Oliver, Ann Gertrude, and Fredrika Jane, all of whom were to carry on the Oliver
family tradition of service to the South Bend community.

Joseph Doty Oliver, Jr., the third child of J.D. and Anna Gertrude, was born
January 14, 1892. Quiet and studious, he graduated from South Bend High School and
the University of Chicago, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree. A month
before his 21st birthday, he was elected treasurer of the Oliver Chilled Plow Works and
held that post, as well as a directorship, until the company was dissolved in 1929. He
apparently inherited his father’s ability to handle large financial investments and
undoubtedly was his father’s favorite son. After the Oliver company was dissolved he
took over management of the many trusts his father had established, and, after the
death of his father in 1933, he assumed total management of the family’s financial
affairs. In 1917, Joseph Jr. married Ellinor McMillan of Nashville, Tennessee, daughter
of one of the South’s best-known Democrats who had held numerous high-ranking
offices in the U.S. government. She died in 1919 of injuries suffered when thrown from
a horse. After his father’s death, Joseph Jr., moved into Copshaholm where he resided
with his sister, Susan Catherine. In later life he became a virtual recluse, living in a
small apartment on the third floor of Copshaholm. He died July 6, 1972 at the age of
80.

The fourth Oliver child was Susan Catherine who was born March 6, 1896. She
never married. She graduated from South Bend High School in 1914, attended the
Finishing School of Mrs. Davis at Briarcliff-on-the-Hudson, and received a degree from
Finch College, New York, in 1916. Catherine served in the Red Cross in World War I
and also carried on a number of intellectual and physical pursuits, among them, golf, at
which she excelled. She reportedly was engaged to the well known golf professional
Chick Evans, but because her father objected she cancelled the engagement.
Catherine became a symbol of the emancipated liberated woman of the 1920s. There
were rounds of parties at Copshaholm, entertainment for as many as 600 guests at
South Bend’s Palais Royale Ballroom, and lengthy foreign cruises. She also served as
a member of the board of directors of the Oliver company, but took no part in company
management. Half her lifetime involved two men who were exceedingly different in their
interests. One was an intellectual, the other more physical. For almost 50 years she
saw them on alternate days.

After the death of her parents, she, like Joseph, lived out her life in Copshaholm,
he in his third floor apartment and she in a suite of rooms on the second floor. They
saw each other only at dinner or on a special occasion. She died April 19, 1970 in
Copshaholm of vascular complications.

***See timeline for an abridged version of this history-or for quick reference.