MISS ELSIE SWEENEY

The daughter of the Reverend Z. T. Sweeney and Linnie Irwin Sweeney, Miss Elsie Sweeney grew up in Columbus, Indiana and lived her entire life there, devoting her considerable talents to furthering the cultural life of her community, her state, and her nation. She received a degree in music and a Phi Beta Kappa key at Smith College, where she began the study of piano and continued with Josef Lhevinne of Berlin and Ernest Hutcheson of New York City. Thereafter she was a performing musician throughout her life, practicing daily no matter how busy her schedule.

Miss Sweeney first visited Indiana University on Foundation Day, January 20, 1911, at the invitation of the national president of Phi Beta Kappa, Professor Edwin A. Grosvenor of Amherst College, when he came to install the Indiana University chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.

Later, from the mid-40s on, she became closely associated with our School of Music: she entertained musicians and members of the staff, attended concerts, occasionally performed (she gave a recital in Recital Hall only a few years before her death), funded a scholarship to attract an outstanding student, and continually encouraged Music School students, whom she called “her children.” When we began to plan for a musical arts center, she not only contributed generously herself but prompted members of her family and the Irwin-Sweeney-Miller Foundation to participate, making the initial sizable gift which sparked the whole program. An Elsie I. Sweeney Memorial Scholarship Fund has been established by individuals and organizations, particularly Psi Iota Xi, to attract a conspicuously talented young performing musician to our Music School each year.

As chatelaine of her beautiful estate, Castalia, at Harrison Lakes near Columbus, she brought together many people with cultural tastes to interact, perform, or hold meetings. Petite, vivacious, affectionately described as “pixie” by friends, deeply interested in people, she was a delightful hostess.

Also an avid gardener, she saw in the bank to the north of the Auditorium an opportunity to create a beauty spot. She brought her own gardener and plants and, with some WPA aid available at that time and the enthusiastic backing of Ward Biddle, she developed the beautiful rock garden, which is one of the adornments of the campus. Through the years she would come each spring with a supply of annuals and, assisted by staff she had brought along and some of our own staff, would renew the blooming plants for each summer.

Twice Elsie Sweeney brought the Music School to the attention of the highest officer of the State, when she commissioned Walter Kaufmann to compose an opera, “A Hoosier Tale,” in celebration of the State’s Sesquicentennial anniversary, and when she called the governor to insist that he approve IU’s request for permission to build the Musical Arts Center.

Honored in various ways—by being named to state and national boards of music organizations, by “Elsie Sweeney Day” being proclaimed by the governor, and by being elected to the Indiana Academy, for instance—she was recognized on the centennial anniversary of the admission of women to the University by the award of an honorary Doctor of Music degree at the Founders Day ceremony in 1967.

She helped to make a difference at Indiana University.

HERMAN AND ELLNORA KRANNERT

Two philanthropists who made a great difference in the achievement of distinction by Indiana University and in the enrichment of the cultural life of the Midwest were Herman and Ellnora Krannert. Born in modest circumstances on Chicago’s westside, Herman Krannert early learned the discipline of work when an accident left him fatherless at age 11. After graduating from high school, he worked for two years to save enough money to enter college. Of the six dollars he earned each week he gave two dollars to his mother, used two dollars for his expenses, and saved the rest. He worked his way through the University of Illinois, received his degree, and went to work for a Chicago corporation engaged in the container business. In due course he was placed in charge of its plant at Anderson, Indiana, where he met Ellnora, and they were married. Thus began a partnership of great affection and compatibility. With her encouragement, he launched his own container business and henceforth shared with her all matters of business judgment. The great fortune he amassed through this combination and by reason of his innovative managerial skill they jointly dispersed in a philanthropic partnership that carried on the union of their wisdom and talents.

When I became acquainted with them it was in the mature years of their lives. She was a strikingly beautiful woman—white-haired, dignified, and gracious in manner, and immaculately groomed—an altogether delightful human being. A connoisseur of antique French furniture and the decorative arts, she was paradoxically the developer of a purebred Guernsey herd and a keen fan of the Chicago Cubs baseball team. Mr. Krannert was of average height, stocky build, and with an expressive face and penetrating eyes.

During their lifetime they attempted to award most of their major gifts in order to participate in the planning and launching of the projects benefitted by them. What remained of their fortune after their deaths went to the Krannert Charitable Trust which they created, now admirably administrated by Don Earnhart and George Elliott. By the time that the funds in this Trust have been dispersed, Herman and Ellnora Krannert will have given considerably in excess of $200 million for worthy causes, it is estimated.

They had a deep interest in the Midwest and hoped by their gifts for cultural and educational projects to make the Midwest a better place in which to live and work. As their gifts were large, they were not numerous. By making a limited number of gifts they could follow their progress personally and insure their standards of performance. A dramatic example is to be found in the large gift which they made to the Indiana University Medical Center for the construction of the Krannert Pavilion for private care. They not only worked with us and the architects in the planning of the Pavilion, insuring the rooms would be spacious and admirably equipped for their purpose, but Ellnora through long months worked with the interior decorator over the furnishings of the Pavilion. As a result, every room is a thing of beauty, expressing her own high taste and making a stay in the rooms more pleasant than the drabness of hospital rooms usually affords.

Mr. Petrie, the leading jeweler of Indianapolis, once told me that he considered Ellnora Krannert a woman of outstanding taste. Mr. Krannert had a standing order with Mr. Petrie to create some interesting piece of jewelry or bibelot each Christmas for him to give to Mrs. Krannert. Mr. Petrie used all of his ingenuity to create something that would meet her high standards. When we wished to give her a memento at the time of the groundbreaking for the Krannert Pavilion, Mr. Petrie created for us a little pin in the shape of a small platinum shovel with a tiny fringe of chip diamonds.

Since we were going to build the hospital in phases, Mr. Krannert emphasized again and again that the entire plant must be finished before it would be truly the magnificent patient care facility that he and Ellnora and we were envisioning. We have completed a second phase of the hospital, but the third phase is yet to come. I hope that we will keep faith with the Krannerts in this matter.

They gave willingly to public as well as private institutions, in part because Mr. Krannert was an alumnus of the University of Illinois and recognized the importance of private gifts to public universities if they were to achieve peaks of excellence. Also they understood that a public university gives assurance of indefinite continuity which would help to insure the permanency of their gifts. Although many foundations will not invest in bricks and mortar, they did so readily and therefore complemented the gifts from other sources which required bricks and mortar for their execution.

I well remember how carefully they worked together in their philanthropies. When I was presenting a prospectus for our Musical Arts Center to them in their boardroom in Indianapolis, Mr. Krannert sat at one end of the table and Mrs. Krannert at the other. Don Earnhart, Mr. Krannert’s assistant, was there as was the architect, Evans Woollen. We presented the plans in detail, and they asked many questions. When Mr. Krannert was asking a question, he would look at her—it was obvious they were communicating through their glances and jointly making a decision. It was a wonderful partnership. In a subsequent meeting we presented the color schemes, the types of material to be used, all the details which make the difference between just a pedestrian building and the distinguished building which they desired. They wished to participate only in projects which were symbols of excellence, and that determination on their part helped to encourage boards and officers of the various institutions which they benefitted to do things well. Sometimes when trustees and administrators would be tempted to cut corners for the sake of economy, the Krannert voice calling for excellence would stop them short. This insistence was perhaps almost as important as money itself.

Truly they have made a great difference in the development of Indiana University, in its physical contours, and in administrative thinking about standards of excellence.