Katharine

Along the east side of County Line Road, south of Hinsdale, is the Katharine Legge Memorial Park.  Adorning its entrance are bas relief depictions of young women engaged in athletic activity.  Who was Katharine Legge and what is the meaning of the bas relief features?

Katherine McMahan began life in humble circumstances in the tiny town of Parker, a Western Pennsylvania hamlet along the banks of the Allegheny River.  By the late 1890s, Katharine and her first husband, Thomas Hall, were working as lawyers (imagine that – a woman corporate lawyer in the 1890s), for or with Alexander Legge of the McCormick Reaper Company in Nebraska.  Legge, in turn worked for or with Harold McCormick, the son of the company founder Cyrus McCormick.  

Katharine Legge

In 1899, Harold McCormick was summoned to come to Chicago to work in company headquarters, likely to work on the impending merger with two other reaper manufacturers.  The 1902 consolidation created the International Harvester Company (which in 1986 became Navistar).  McCormick brought Alexander Legge, a rising star in the company, to join him.  Legge, in turn brought Katherine and Thomas Hall to headquarters as well. Katherine and Thomas bought a home on Walton Place on Chicago’s tony North Side.  Alexander Legge, then a bachelor in his mid-30s, lived as boarder in their home.

Shortly after their relocation to Chicago, Thomas Hall died, leaving Katherine, also in her mid-30s, a widow.  Katherine Hall and Alexander Legge were wed in Chicago in 1908.   Alexander rose quickly at International Harvester, soon becoming the general manager of the large and growing company.  In 1922 Harold McCormick resigned as International Harvester president, and Alexander Legge was designated as his successor, the first company president who wasn’t a McCormick.  Katherine used her position as the “first lady” of the company to promote women’s health and athletic pursuits.

Alexander Legge

In 1916, Katherine and Alexander as a couple, and International Harvester as a company, turned their attention to Hinsdale. Enos Barton, co-founder of Western Electric, who had established a rural estate south of Hinsdale, died.  Katherine and Alexander promptly purchased the easternmost 53 acres as a site for their own estate and dream home.   The following year, the International Harvester bought a nearby 414-acre farm to develop as a venue for tractor design development and as a place to showcase Harvester’s new agricultural implements. 

Katherine and Alexander retained R. Harold Zook, a prominent local architect to design their dream home.  Construction was scarcely underway when America’s entry into World War I, caused a postponement of further work.  Their 53-acre property remained simply as a summer retreat.

By 1922, Katherine and Alexander had changed their plans and instead bought a house in close-in Hinsdale.  The house was being vacated by Francis Peabody, founder of Peabody Coal Company, who was in the midst of having his own estate and dream house – Mayslake – built north of Hinsdale.  Katharine used the retreat property to further her advocacy for International Harvester women’s athletics and recreation.  One Saturday in June, 1923, Katharine hosted an all-day (and evening) picnic for a hundred or more women from the company general office.  The picnic was a rousing success, and plans were made to make it an annual event.  But, alas, it was not to be.

Katherine regularly accompanied her husband on his extensive business travel.   In 1924, the couple visited Los Angeles, where Katherine contracted typhoid fever and died at the age of 54.   Disconsolate Alexander made the multi-day train trip back to Hinsdale without his beloved Katherine.   Despite, or perhaps because of, his grief, Alexander with his customary energy and creativity, established a not-for-profit Katherine Legge Memorial foundation, dedicated, as Katharine would have wished, to rest, recreation, and welfare of International Harvester’s female employees.   Alexander donated the fifty-three acre site to the foundation, and made a substantial financial donation to the organization’s endowment fund.

The Legges' former summer home was enlarged to accommodate ten Harvester girls (as they were known at the time).  R. Harold Zook was commissioned to design a lodge, using plans from the Legge’s unbuilt dream house.  The two-story Lodge, with an assembly and recreation hall with a capacity of 400 people, was opened in 1927, followed by a dormitory, swimming pool, and tennis courts two years later.  The dormitory was dedicated to the memory of Nettie Fowler McCormick, the late wife of Cyrus McCormick, Sr. (and Harold McCormick’s mother), who had died in 1923.  Katherine's ashes were interred under a red granite boulder on a gentle eastern slope of the KLM Lodge property. 

Katharine Legge Memorial Lodge

Alexander lived in the Hinsdale house, alone - the couple bore no children - until 1933, when he suffered a fatal heart attack while working in his garden.  It is not unreasonable to think Alexander’s last thoughts were of the time he and Katherine spent there together.  His ashes were taken to the memorial site and interred with those of Katherine. 

The retreat property has since passed into the hands of the Hinsdale Park District, and is maintained as a recreational facility, featuring an elegant wedding venue as well as a disc (Frisbee) golf course and dog park.  The character of the property stands as a testimonial to Katherine’s devotion to the cause of women's athletics and recreation, and Alexander’s devotion to his beloved Katherine.