Mrs. and Mr. McCormick
Here's a close-up of the grave of Colonel Robert McCormick on the right, and his first wife, Amy Irwin, on the left. McCormick and Irwin were married after a scandal involving Irwin's divorce and charges of impropriety McCormick probably paid to make go away, and they stayed married until Irwin's death in 1939. McCormick married the much younger Maryland Mathison Hooper five years later. Hooper outlived McCormick by 40 years, so she didn't get a granite dog to guard her grave.
McCormick is another name you hear a lot in Chicago, and the big convention center on the lake south of Soldier Field is named for him. He was born in 1880 to Robert Sanderson McCormick, a diplomat from the McCormick family of tractor magnates -- they invented the tractor -- and Katherine Medill, daughter of Joseph Medill. All his forebears were, therefore, mucky mucks among Midwest aristocracy, and Robert was determined to continue his family's walk among the greats. He graduated from the Northwestern University School of Law in 1907, but the practice of law wasn't in the cards for him. His brother, Medill McCormick, had taken over the newspaper business after their grandfather's death, but the business left Medill severely depressed. So Medill quit in 1910, and Robert and a cousin took control of the Tribune. (The cousin would eventually move to New York and found the New York Daily News.)
Five years later, after the Great War broke out, McCormick went to Europe to work for a little while as a war correspondent. This evidently triggered something in McCormick's brain, and he soon came home and signed up for the Illinois National Guard. He wound up getting sent to Texas and Mexico to participate in General John Pershing's Punitive Expedition against Pancho Villa (which is a fun story I ought to find some excuse to tell some time), then rode with Pershing to Europe in 1917. This soon led to McCormick being absorbed by the actual Army and instantaneously promoted to lieutenant-colonel, because the U.S. Army is a meritocracy, and nobody has more merit in post-Guilded Age America than the son of a diplomat from a family of tractor magnates. But McCormick was evidently actually kind of good at Army-ing, and there's a quote chiseled into the granite wall of this tomb from General Pershing talking about what a good job McCormick did during the 1918 Battle of Cantigny in France. (That's where McCormick got the name he adopted for the mansion he inherited.)
When McCormick came back from the war, he made everybody call him "Colonel" and dove head-long into the newspaper business. He soon became known as a "publisher crusader," only he was a fierce Republican long after Republicans had abandoned anything related to the freedom and welfare of former slaves, so he was mostly crusading for the Big Guy. He was against pretty much anything Franklin Roosevelt came up with to fight the Depression, and he hated the New Deal. When war came back to Europe, the Colonel became an "America First" isolationist, and he published a secret military plan Roosevelt had developed to fight the war a senator had slipped him three days before Pearl Harbor. He was against unions, the United Nations, any kind of federal programs at all, any form of active national government. He hated Democrats with a passion. And he turned the Chicago Tribune into the city's biggest papers.
Which tells you some things about the ways people can misread Chicago. It's an interesting coincidence that Richard Daley the First was first elected mayor a mere 19 days after McCormick died.
In his personal life, Col. McCormick was an aristocratic elitist who hated everything and everybody, and he commanded his media empire with an cold, distanced attitude from a dark, fortress-like office atop the Tribune Tower. (I took a tour of the office once, but never posted a picture. I should find that.) After his first wife died, he rarely interacted with other people, so I'm not sure how he met his second wife. The general consensus from everybody I've ever heard discuss the Colonel was that he was a real asshole, though most use different words to convey the same thing. His massive and extremely expensive grave is a good indication of how impressed with himself he was. But you can't deny he made Chicago a different place.
Mrs. and Mr. McCormick
Here's a close-up of the grave of Colonel Robert McCormick on the right, and his first wife, Amy Irwin, on the left. McCormick and Irwin were married after a scandal involving Irwin's divorce and charges of impropriety McCormick probably paid to make go away, and they stayed married until Irwin's death in 1939. McCormick married the much younger Maryland Mathison Hooper five years later. Hooper outlived McCormick by 40 years, so she didn't get a granite dog to guard her grave.
McCormick is another name you hear a lot in Chicago, and the big convention center on the lake south of Soldier Field is named for him. He was born in 1880 to Robert Sanderson McCormick, a diplomat from the McCormick family of tractor magnates -- they invented the tractor -- and Katherine Medill, daughter of Joseph Medill. All his forebears were, therefore, mucky mucks among Midwest aristocracy, and Robert was determined to continue his family's walk among the greats. He graduated from the Northwestern University School of Law in 1907, but the practice of law wasn't in the cards for him. His brother, Medill McCormick, had taken over the newspaper business after their grandfather's death, but the business left Medill severely depressed. So Medill quit in 1910, and Robert and a cousin took control of the Tribune. (The cousin would eventually move to New York and found the New York Daily News.)
Five years later, after the Great War broke out, McCormick went to Europe to work for a little while as a war correspondent. This evidently triggered something in McCormick's brain, and he soon came home and signed up for the Illinois National Guard. He wound up getting sent to Texas and Mexico to participate in General John Pershing's Punitive Expedition against Pancho Villa (which is a fun story I ought to find some excuse to tell some time), then rode with Pershing to Europe in 1917. This soon led to McCormick being absorbed by the actual Army and instantaneously promoted to lieutenant-colonel, because the U.S. Army is a meritocracy, and nobody has more merit in post-Guilded Age America than the son of a diplomat from a family of tractor magnates. But McCormick was evidently actually kind of good at Army-ing, and there's a quote chiseled into the granite wall of this tomb from General Pershing talking about what a good job McCormick did during the 1918 Battle of Cantigny in France. (That's where McCormick got the name he adopted for the mansion he inherited.)
When McCormick came back from the war, he made everybody call him "Colonel" and dove head-long into the newspaper business. He soon became known as a "publisher crusader," only he was a fierce Republican long after Republicans had abandoned anything related to the freedom and welfare of former slaves, so he was mostly crusading for the Big Guy. He was against pretty much anything Franklin Roosevelt came up with to fight the Depression, and he hated the New Deal. When war came back to Europe, the Colonel became an "America First" isolationist, and he published a secret military plan Roosevelt had developed to fight the war a senator had slipped him three days before Pearl Harbor. He was against unions, the United Nations, any kind of federal programs at all, any form of active national government. He hated Democrats with a passion. And he turned the Chicago Tribune into the city's biggest papers.
Which tells you some things about the ways people can misread Chicago. It's an interesting coincidence that Richard Daley the First was first elected mayor a mere 19 days after McCormick died.
In his personal life, Col. McCormick was an aristocratic elitist who hated everything and everybody, and he commanded his media empire with an cold, distanced attitude from a dark, fortress-like office atop the Tribune Tower. (I took a tour of the office once, but never posted a picture. I should find that.) After his first wife died, he rarely interacted with other people, so I'm not sure how he met his second wife. The general consensus from everybody I've ever heard discuss the Colonel was that he was a real asshole, though most use different words to convey the same thing. His massive and extremely expensive grave is a good indication of how impressed with himself he was. But you can't deny he made Chicago a different place.