John Francis Dodge - Death and Legacy

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.