Jerome Case - Death and Legacy

Death and Legacy

Case also owned some Great Lakes ships, a winter home in California, a ranch in Texas, and a stock farm in Kentucky. In 1849 he married Lydia Ann Bull, daughter of DeGrove Bull of Yorkville, Wisconsin. He died on December 22, 1891 in Racine, less than a year before the comeback of his favorite horse. His widow, born August 6, 1826, died December 9, 1909. They had four children live to adulthood: one son and three daughters. Henrietta Case was born March 3, 1858 and married Percival Strong Fuller (1858–1896). Jessie Fremont Case was born April 17, 1861 and married Mitchell Wallis. Amanda Case was born October 1, 1862 and married Jonathan James Crooks of San Francisco. Following in the footsteps of her horse-loving father, in 1926 she was instrumental in the survival and then success of the Pendleton Round-Up, the huge and still thriving Pendleton, Oregon rodeo. Jackson Irving Case was born October 23, 1865, married Henrietta May Roy on May 25, 1886, and had four sons. He was elected mayor of Racine when he was only 26, but died January 8, 1903 before he was 38.

Three other children died young. The family continued its interest in racing, but times had changed. The company sponsored a team of racing cars, led by driver Lewis Strang until he died in 1911. Around 1912, they named a car after Jay-Eye-See, driven by Louis Disbrow. One of the largest at the time, it had a 290 horsepower engine, and a streamlined shape that looked like an upside-down canoe.

A popular, easy to read biography of Case in the context of his company and his times is Stewart H. Holbrook, Machines of Plenty, Pioneering in American Agriculture (New York: Macmillan, 1955).

Jerome I. Case High School, located in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, is named in his honor. It is in what is now suburban Racine, near the site of his farm. Most of Hickory Grove Farm is now developed, except for a small open space at 42°41′56″N 87°48′0″W / 42.69889°N 87.80000°W / 42.69889; -87.80000 (Case-Harmon Field) named Case-Harmon Field. Jay-Eye-See Avenue at 42°42′18″N 87°48′10″W / 42.70500°N 87.80278°W / 42.70500; -87.80278 (Jay-Eye-See Avenue) was named for his horse, a block away from Case Avenue which intersects Jerome Boulevard.

A planned marble monument to Jay Eye See was never erected, and the horse's grave site neglected for almost a century. After a developer planned to build a parking lot over the suspected grave, local historians located and removed the bones in July 1997. The remains were proposed to be re-interred in the Case family mausoleum at Mound Cemetery. However, by 2003 the bones were still stored in a box at the historian's home waiting for funding for the memorial.

In 2008, Case was inducted into the Association of Equipment Manufacturers Hall of fame.