John D. Rockefeller Sr.

Birth Name:
John Davison Rockefeller
Birth Date:
July 8, 1839
Birth Place:
Richford, New York
Death Date:
May 23, 1937
Place of Death:
The Casements, Ormond Beach, Florida
Age:
97
Cause of Death:
Arteriosclerosis
Cemetery Name:
Lakeview Cemetery
Claim to Fame:
Business and Finance
There’s rich, there’s wealthy, and then there’s John D. Rockefeller. Considered by many to be the most financially-prosperous individual in modern history with an estimated $900,000,000 bank balance (unadjusted for inflation) in the early 1910s, Rockefeller made his massive fortune by dominating the oil industry. While Rockefeller was prone to controversy—he was accused of being a monopoly in the fuel business—he was also a generous philanthropist, donating over a half-billion dollars in his lifetime (and that's also unadjusted for inflation).

Fun Fact:

Due to be drafted to serve the Union in the Civil War in 1863, the 23-year-old Rockefeller did what many men of means had done: He paid for someone to serve in his place. This practice was allowed by the U.S. government, which granted draftees the ability to offer up a substitute. No record exists of who the man who took Rockefeller’s spot was. His brother, Frank, chose to serve at age 16, telling a recruiting sergeant he was 18. Despite being wounded in battle, he survived.

Cemetery Information:

Final Resting Place:

Lakeview Cemetery

12316 Euclid Avenue

Cleveland, Ohio, 44160

USA

North America

Map:

Grave Location:

Section 10

Grave Location Description

In the section behind the James A. Garfield Memorial. Just look above the tree line for the tallest monument in the cemetery.

Grave Location GPS

41.51132251, -81.59148066

Visiting The Grave:

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Gilbert F. Heublein

popular name: Gilbert F. Heublein

date_of_death: March 21, 1937

age: 87

cause_of_death: Arteriosclerosis

claim_to_fame: Business and Finance

best_know_for: German-born Gilbert F. Heublein was a prominent hotelier, restaurateur, food and liquor distributor in Hartford, Connecticut. While most people remember Gilbert for securing the license and distribution rights of A-1 Steak Sauce to the United States, his real claim to fame should be his discovery and marketing of pre-made cocktails. As the legend goes, Gilbert and his brother Louis had prepared a quantity of premixed cocktails for a large annual picnic. It rained and the event was canceled. A few days later a employee of the Heubleins was told to dispose of the unused beverages. Deciding to taste them first, he found that the drinks had suffered no deterioration and announced the discovery to his bosses. The Heubleins took note and began selling the premixed libations in their saloon and restaurant. The cocktails proved very popular with customers and increasingly became the focus of the family’s attention. With Gilbert now running the business, the new firm concentrated on the premixed cocktails such as Martinis and Manhattans, advertising them widely as Club Cocktails. Upon the enactment of Prohibition in 1920, Heublein's "secondary sideline" of A.1. Sauce served as a fortunate savior, when the production, transportation and sale of all other Heublein products became illegal in the US for the next thirteen years. Upon Gilbert’s death, the company was taken over by John G. Martin, the son of Alice Heublein and Percy Martin, Gilbert Heublein’s grandson. Through Martin’s business savvy, G.F. Heublein & Bro. acquired the rights to sell Smirnoff vodka, Don Q rum, and Jose Cuervo tequila. In 1969, Heublein, Inc. began to package pre-mixed cocktails in 8-ounce cans, such as the ‘Brass Monkey’. The company also made acquisitions outside the liquor industry with the purchase of Grey Poupon mustard in 1936 and Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1971. In 1982, Heublein, Inc was sold to R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company for 1.4 billion dollars.

Howard Johnson

popular name: Howard Johnson

date_of_death: June 20, 1972

age: 75

cause_of_death: Heart failure

claim_to_fame: Business and Finance

best_know_for: Howard Johnson was an American entrepreneur, businessman, and the founder of an American chain of restaurants and motels under one company of the same name, Howard Johnson's. For three years he sold cigars,. and then in 1924, when he was 27, he assumed the debts, liquidated the business and bought a run‐down drugstore near the Wollaston railroad station. It had a soda fountain, candy and tobacco counter and newspaper stand, and Mr. Johnson soon had the place bringing in $30,000 a year with a staff of 75 boys delivering papers. Still, it was not until he bought the ice‐cream recipe of an elderly German pushcart vendor that the business took off. The peddler's secret was in doubling the butterfat content of the commercial ice cream and in using natural, instead of synthetic, flavoring. By 1928 the gross from ice cream sold at the Store and at several beach stands nearby reached $240,000, and seven years later Mr. Johnson had 25 restaurants beside Massachusetts highways. Between 1961 and 1979 revenues for the company grew every year. The Howard Johnson Company continued to expand, growing to over 1,000 restaurants and over 500 motor lodges in 42 states and Canada.

Sumner Redstone

popular name: Sumner Redstone

date_of_death: August 11, 2020

age: 96

cause_of_death: Natural causes

claim_to_fame: Business and Finance

best_know_for: Redstone was born in a Boston tenement to a father who changed the family name from Rothstein to Redstone and built a regional movie-theater chain. After a short career as an attorney (he graduated from Harvard and Harvard Law), Redstone joined his father's company, National Amusements, in 1954. He became CEO in 1967 and steadily grew the company with profitable investments in studios. Sumner was the founder and chairman of the second incarnation of Viacom which was dissolved in 2019 (a year before Redstone's death) and was the majority owner and chairman of the National Amusements theater chain. Through National Amusements, Redstone, up until his death, was, and his family remains, majority voting shareholder of mass media conglomerate ViacomCBS, in turn, the parent company of the Paramount Pictures film studio, the CBS television network, and various cable networks. According to Forbes, as of April 2020, he was worth US$2.6 billion.

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