Harold Fowler McCormick

Harold Fowler McCormick was born in Chicago May 2, 1872, to inventor Cyrus Hall McCormick (1809–1884) and philanthropist Nancy Fowler (1835–1923). During the 1890s he competed in the US National Tennis Championships. In 1895 he married Edith Rockefeller (1872–1932), the youngest daughter of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) and schoolteacher Laura Celestia "Cettie" Spelman (1839–1915). McCormick became the third inaugural trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation. He was also a trustee of the Rockefeller-created University of Chicago. He and Edith had five children before divorcing in December 1921:

• John Rockefeller McCormick (February 24, 1896 – January 2, 1901), died young from scarlet fever
• Editha McCormick (September 17, 1897 – June 11, 1898)
• Harold Fowler McCormick Jr. (November 15, 1898 – January 6, 1973), who married Anna Urquhart Brown Potter. She was previously married to James Alexander Stillman and was the daughter of James Brown Potter and Mary Cora Urquhart.
• Muriel McCormick (1903 – March 18, 1959)
• Mathilde McCormick (April 8, 1905 – May 18, 1947)

As an officer of the Aero Club of Illinois, founded February 10, 1910, McCormick became the third president in 1912, following Octave Chanute and James E. Plew.

In 1914, McCormick, Plew, and Bion J. Arnold attempted to form a commuter airline which they announced would begin service in May, "using seaplanes to ferry passengers between various North Shore suburbs and Grant Park and the South Shore Country Club. Lake Shore Airline, which had two seaplanes, was intended to be a profit-making venture charging a steep twenty-eight-dollar round-trip fare between Lake Forest and downtown Chicago on four daily scheduled circuits. However, Chicago's irregular weather, especially the crosswinds, made a shamble of schedules, and the airline disappeared before the end of the year."

McCormick married Polish opera singer Ganna Walska in 1922. They divorced in 1931.

During the transition period between these two women, McCormick sought to fortify himself by undergoing an operation by Serge Voronoff, a surgeon who specialized in transplanting animal glands into aging men with impotency. He resided at 1000 Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. McCormick became chairman of the board of International Harvester Company in 1935, replacing his older brother Cyrus Jr. (1859–1936).

McCormick died on October 16, 1941, of a cerebral hemorrhage, at his home in Beverly Hills, California.

Harold Fowler McCormick with his wife Edith Rockefeller (1895)

Orson Welles claimed that McCormick's lavish promotion of Walska's opera career—despite her renown as a terrible singer—was a direct influence on the screenplay for Citizen Kane, wherein the titular character does much the same for his second wife. Samuel Insull, president of a utilities holding empire that included Commonwealth Edison, was another influence, along with William Randolph Hearst.

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  Frank John Bersbach Sr. and Harold Fowler McCormick in Logan Archbold Vilas' flying boat in 1913