Death of a Salesman: John N. Willys

 by Susan Zehnder, Education Director

 John North Willys

When an automotive tycoon and multi-millionaire died unexpectedly, leaving a highly unorthodox will, the stage was set for a scandal that would fascinate the public. In many national newspapers coverage would take up full pages, not so in Elmira. It was 1935, and the tycoon was John North Willys, a beloved former Elmiran, who had started his empire in Elmira before moving away. His will left 65 percent of his fortune to Florence, his bride of just one year, and the rest to his daughter, Virginia.  Virginia, a 24-years-old, socialite who had been married twice by this time, had expected to inherit her father's millions. Not a penny was left for his first wife, to whom he had been married for 37 years. Not a penny was left for his sister and their families, or any other relatives or business associates.

Moreover, his will had been revised only recently to exclude these relatives, while Willys lay in a hospital bed, recovering from a heart attack.

The scandal that erupted, lasted throughout the fall and into the spring. The first lawsuit challenging the will was filed by Willys's former secretary and was followed by others from his daughter, one of his sisters, a nephew, and finally a niece. Newspapers across the nation picked up on the story and covered the legal proceedings in great detail. Papers posted headlines like “Two Strong-Willed Women,” “War Over Willys’ Will,” and “Why the Barber’s Daughter Must Fight for her Cinderella Millions,” and filled entire pages with text and photographs of the family’s lavish lifestyle. It was the height of the Great Depression.

In addition to his business investments, Willys’s fortune included a notable collection of priceless paintings, tapestries, expensive jewelry, and properties in a variety of locations, including Toledo, OH, New York, NY, and Palm Beach, FL.

Casa Florencia, Palm Beach. House is no longer standing

It was a long way from where the fledgling bicycle shop owner from Canandaigua, NY, had begun his career.

The skill that guided John North Willys throughout life was his sharpened ability to see opportunities and make sales. He married his hometown sweetheart Isabel and the two moved to 311 Grove Street, in Elmira. At 19, after seeing how popular bicycles were, he started a sales and repair shop.

Willys soon realized that automobiles, not bikes, were the future, and he took over a car dealership. Frustrated when he couldn’t get automotive parts fast enough, he convinced others to help finance his purchase of the struggling Overland car division of the Standard Wheel Company. Once that was secured, he rebuilt the company, increased production, and renamed it the Willys-Overland Company. 

Looking to increase sales, Willys reconnected with Alexander P. Morrow, a friend from his Elmira bicycle days. Morrow agreed to his company helping produce additional parts for cars. In 1916, the Morrow Company became the Willys-Morrow Company and was churning out car parts that would make Willys-Overland the nation’s second largest producer of automobiles during the early twentieth century. When the Willys-Morrow company went into receivership, Willys took over as chairman of the board, and despite ups and downs, Willys’s personal wealth grew into millions of dollars.

Isabel van Wie Willys

In 1911, the couple had Virginia, their only child. Growing up, she wanted for nothing, and her parents doted on her. When it came time for Virginia to be presented in society, not content with the ordinary, her father arranged for her debut before the Queen of England at the Court of St. James. It was 1929.

Virginia Willys

En route by boat, Virginia fell in love with Luis Marcelino De Aguirre, a recently divorced, older, and very wealthy Argentinian rancher. Over her parents’ objections, the two made plans to marry in England. Back in the states, her parents booked passage to England on the next boat. It was during this crossing, that Willys started a friendship with 32-year-old Florence Dingler Dolan, a socialite from New York City. Looking for a fresh start, Florence was heading to Europe to escape an abusive husband.

Florence Dingler Dolan

That same spring, in 1929, Willys sold his Willys-Overland shares and retired from business. Selling months before the stock market crashed, he made a substantial amount of money and now looked for something new to do. He gave generously to the Republican Party, and in 1930, President Herbert Hoover appointed him as the first US ambassador to Poland. He would hold the post for two years, and during this time, he took the opportunity to set up and maintain a house in Paris for his young mistress.

In 1932, Willys announced that he was going back into business. He resigned his ambassadorship and returned to the states. By now, Florence, had divorced her husband.

In January 1935, stockholders elected Willys President of Willys-Overland. He was tasked with reorganizing the company, which had experienced financial difficulties.

After 37 years of an outwardly pleasant marriage, his wife Isabel filed for divorce under Florida’s 90-day quickie divorce law, blaming Willys for extreme cruelty. Her divorce was granted July 30^th. Two hours after the divorce was finalized, Willys married his now 37-year-old mistress and they promptly left for an extended European honeymoon. They returned to the States the following May.

Florence, who had a passion for horse racing, insisted they leave immediately to attend the Kentucky Derby. During the races, Willys experienced a major heart attack. While recovering in a Kentucky hospital, Willys changed his last will and testament to exclude his ex-wife and limit his daughter’s inheritance, and deny anyone who contested it.

The couple returned to New York where Willys suffered an embolism and died on August 26, 1935.

The multiple lawsuits contesting his will took up much of the next nine months until the disputed will went to probate. In May 1936, all challenges were denied.

In his obituary, The New York Times listed three maxims that guided the businessman:

1.       Profits are in goods delivered—not in orders.

2.    . Tell the truth to your banker—and make him believe in you.

3.      Let your men know that you work harder than they do.

Seventy-three years after he died, salesman John North Willys was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in Dearborn, Michigan, for having one of the most acute business minds of his time.

Women Drivers

by Susan Zehnder, Education Director

While living in Vienna, Austria, German born Siegfried Marcus invented the first successful gasoline-powered car in the late 1880s. Not long after, the wife of another automotive inventor took it upon herself to prove that her husband's vehicles were equally worthy. In August of 1888, Bertha Benz, set out on a long drive with her two teenage sons. Stories about her journey include her resourcefulness when it came to making necessary repairs. Hatpins, garters and shoemaker’s leather soles came in handy when dealing with clogged valves, rapidly worn engine parts and wooden brake fatigue. Bertha Benz’s 120-mile journey blazed a trail for other women drivers.

Early 20^th century women who were lucky enough to have the means eagerly learned to drive and some even owned their own cars. Automobiles offered a new freedom and promised adventure.

unknown driver, Circa 1909

The first successful transcontinental US drive was made by Dr. Horatio Jackson in 1903 in a Winton touring car. The first successful cross-country drive by a woman followed six years later by Mrs. Alice Huyler Ramsey. She drove a Maxwell DA. At the time, the Maxwell-Briscoe Company of Tarrytown, NY was the nation’s largest automobile company, and would go on to become the Chrysler Corporation in 1925. The company recognized the growing number and interest of women drivers and saw a cross-country drive as a good publicity tool. In 1909, they sponsored Ramsey, a twenty-two year old wife and mother from New Jersey, to drive from coast to coast.

Ramsey was accompanied by three other women, none of whom knew how to drive. It took them 59 days to complete their adventure. Inspired, Ramsey would make a second trip six months later, this time by herself and over the next seven decades made dozens of cross-country drives. The attention that the Maxwell company received prompted them to align with the women’s rights movement and the company pledged to hire equal numbers of men and women in its sales force. At a promotional reception in NYC they featured a woman assembling and disassembling a Maxwell engine, and the event was attended by well-known suffragettes including Elmira’s Crystal Eastman. (See a blog on Eastman here.)

Elmira featured heavily in the second woman’s quest to drive coast to coast. In 1910, twenty-six year old Miss Blanche Stuart Scott from Rochester, NY was sponsored by the Willys-Overland company to drive an Overland automobile nicknamed the Lady Overland. The Willys-Overland company was owned and operated by John Willys, a businessman from Elmira.

John North Willys had moved to Elmira from his hometown of Canandaigua and had been running a bicycle building and repair business. Seeing changes ahead, he opened a dealership called Southern Tier Motor Company, and one of the line of cars he sold was the Overland.

The Southern Tier Motor Company, Elmira. Cars are Willys-Overland,1916-1917

In 1908 supply issues interfered with Overland distribution, and Willys solved this problem by purchasing the struggling Indiana company. Over the next four years, Willys would lead the company to become second only to the Ford Motor Company in annual sales.

For Scott's 1910 drive from New York City to San Francisco, CA. she was accompanied by reporter Miss Gertrude Buffington Phillips who documented the tour, and the drive took sixty-eight days to complete. They arrived in San Francisco to great fanfare.

Clearly there was a viable market for selling cars to women. Willys-Overland advertising from the mid-teens through the mid-twenties targeted women drivers with images of independent women driving with other women or children as passengers. However, as it was for women’s voting rights, equality was hard fought and less than complete.

1919 Willy-Overland advertisement

Scott went on to operate other early machinery. Publicity from her drive across the country caught the eye of Hammondsport’s Glenn Curtiss. A pioneer in American motorcycling and aviation, Curtiss was looking to increase public awareness of the viability of powered flight. He agreed to give Scott flying lessons and there’s some question as to whether he really intended for her to fly.

Curtiss rigged up a plane for her to practice taxiing back and forth, but when the rigging slipped, she took off. On September 6^th, 1910 her plane lifted forty feet off the ground briefly before making a gentle landing. Today Scott is known for being the first US woman to fly a plane. To think that driving could lead to such adventures, I’m just glad that I don’t have to repair my own car, especially with hairpins and garters.

The Glenn Curtiss Museum displays a 1915 Willys-Overland owned by Blanche Stuart Scott.