Death and Legacy
In January 1920, Dodge and Horace contracted Spanish flu and pneumonia while in New York City. Dodge died on January 14, 1920 at the Ritz-Carlton, aged 55. He was interred in the Egyptian-style family mausoleum in Detroit's Woodlawn Cemetery guarded by two Sphinx statues.
Horace died the following December, and in 1925 their widows sold the Dodge Brothers automobile business to Dillon Read investment bankers for $146 million. Dodge's newborn daughter Anna Margaret died of the measles before age five, while his son Daniel drowned in the waters off Manitoulin Island after blowing himself up with dynamite shortly after marrying at age 21.
After Dodge's death, Matilda married Alfred Wilson and adopted two children with him, Richard and Barbara Wilson. Matilda Dodge Wilson was Lieutenant Governor of Michigan briefly in 1940 under Republican Governor Luren Dickinson.
In 1957, the Wilsons donated their 1,500-acre (6.1 km2) Meadow Brook Farm, including Meadow Brook Hall, Sunset Terrace and all its other buildings and collections, along with $2 million, to Michigan State University to establish an extension campus. In 1963, the Michigan State University-Oakland was renamed Oakland University.
Read more about this topic: John Francis Dodge
Famous quotes containing the words death and, death and/or legacy:
“Immortal mortals, mortal immortals, one living the others’ death and dying the others’ life.”
—Heraclitus (c. 535–475 B.C.)
“On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend’s life also, in our own, to the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)