Brothers To The End
The fortunes of the Vans rose in the 1920s. By 1929, their holdings were valued at $3 billion, mostly as a result of the high valuation of stocks on the New York Stock Exchange. Their house of cards tumbled when the Great Depression began, causing the Van Sweringen companies to falter in the 1930s. While Shaker Heights rose to join the ranks of Beverly Hills and Wellesley, Massachusetts, the rail empire suffered financial difficulties. Loans were foreclosed upon and assets were sold to meet interest payments for their debts.
M.J. Van Sweringen's health began to decline in 1934, and he died on December 12, 1934. O.P. Van Sweringen was quoted as saying: "I don’t know what to do, or how to do it, or where to go from here." O.P. died on board a train near Hoboken of coronary thrombosis on November 22, 1936. At the time of his death, O.P. was worth less than $3,000.
The brothers are buried together in Cleveland's Lakeview Cemetery under a tombstone that reads: "Brothers".
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Famous quotes containing the word brothers:
“When we choose to be parents, we accept another human being as part of ourselves, and a large part of our emotional selves will stay with that person as long as we live. From that time on, there will be another person on this earth whose orbit around us will affect us as surely as the moon affects the tides, and affect us in some ways more deeply than anyone else can. Our children are extensions of ourselves in ways our parents are not, nor our brothers and sisters, nor our spouses.”
—Fred Rogers (20th century)