feature || for richer, for poorer
Old Money, Young Love The tangled web moneyed Minnesotans weave. | BY ALYSSA FORD
F
power couples Minnesotans well-known for their
generational wealth tend to marry into other influential Minnesota families.
128 Artful Living
| Summer 2014
or the most part, old money marries old money. F. Scott Fitzgerald learned that the hard way when he fell hard for Ginevra King, the beautiful Chicago debutante. They exchanged breathless letters for a year and a half, but she ended up marrying investment banker William Hamilton Mitchell. According to lore, her father, wealthy stockbroker Charles Garfield King, told Fitzgerald, “Poor boys shouldn’t think of marrying rich girls.” The well-born live in a world apart, yet they never fail to fascinate. Partly that’s because they are as rare as red diamonds. The vast majority of millionaires have had their riches for less than a generation. To prove this point (with a Minnesota twist), we spent three months compiling a family tree. The finished product includes 50 old-money families, including the Heffelfingers, the Jaffrays, the Daytons, the Weyerhaeusers, the Hills, the McKnights, the Ordways, the MacMillans and the Velies. Even flirty Ginevra King made it in there: Her husband was the nephew of Maggie Weyerhaeuser. But for all that breadth — 50 families connected across 150 years — the tree is remarkably compact, just shy of 4,000 individuals. To put it another way, all the generational wealth in Minnesota could gather at Roy Wilkins Auditorium, with plenty of room to spare. What we discovered is that old-money Minnesotans tend to marry within the bounds of the state. There are exceptions, of course. Like when Alma Walker married (and then promptly divorced) William Randolph Hearst Jr., or when Gov. Mark Dayton married (and later divorced) Alida Rockefeller. But for the most part — even though they are not geographically constrained and most go away to private schools on the East Coast — the Ordways marry the Jaffrays who marry the Ames who marry the Wintons. It’s not 50 old-money families but, really, one very powerful, very influential family. Don’t believe us? Turn the page.