Edith Rockefeller McCormick

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Edith Rockefeller McCormick (1872–1937) was an American socialite and opera patron. McCormick was the fourth daughter of Standard Oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) and his wife Laura Spelman Rockefeller ("Cettie") (1839–1915). Her famous younger brother was John D. Rockefeller, Jr..

She married Harold Fowler McCormick, a son of Chicago's mechanical reaper inventor Cyrus McCormick, in 1895. McCormick and her father had an often stormy relationship, where her extravagance would often conflict with his known frugality.

A famous story of McCormick involves an evening in 1901 during a party at her country retreat in Lake Forest, Illinois. News arrived that McCormick's son, John Rockefeller McCormick, had died of scarlet fever. This was whispered to her at the dinner table; she proceeded to merely nod her head and allowed the party to continue without incident.

She received some minor press in 1923 for claiming to be the reincarnation of the wife of King Tutankhamen, whose tomb had just been explored and was a popular topic. She was quoted as saying, "I married King Tutankhamen when I was only sixteen years old. I was his first wife. Only the other day, while glancing through an illustrated paper, I saw a picture of a chair removed from the King's chamber. Like a flash I recognized that chair. I had sat in it many times."^[1]. She followed up in Time magazine by stating "My interest in reincarnation is of many years' standing."[1]

Contents 1 Children 2 Notes 3 Further reading 4 See also

[edit] Children

1. John Rockefeller McCormick (1896–1901)
2. Editha McCormick (1897–1898)
3. Harold Fowler McCormick, Jr. (1898–1973)
4. Muriel McCormick Hubbard (1903–1959)
5. Mathilde McCormick Oser (1906–1947)

[edit] Notes

Mrs. McCormick went into psychoanalysis with Carl Gustav Jung and contributed generously to the Zürich Psychological Society.

[edit] Further reading

Chernow, Ron. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. London: Warner Books, 1998. Bair, Deirdre, "Jung - A Biography" London: Time-Warner Books UK, 2004

[edit] See also

• Rockefeller family
• John D. Rockefeller