Samuel L. Mather
The younger Mather had planned to attend Harvard University. However, he was injured working at his father’s mine in Michigan in the summer of 1869 and instead spent the next few years traveling Europe while recovering. He went on to co-found Pickands, Mather & Company, which dealt in mining and shipping, which made him increasingly wealthy.
In 1881, Mather married Flora Stone, the daughter of Amasa Stone. Amasa Stone funded the removal of Western Reserve University from Hudson to Cleveland in 1882. Flora Stone would carry on this legacy of donating money to WRU throughout her life. The gifts spanned from a $50,000 endowment of the first chair in History in 1888 to $167,880 to help fund the construction of Amasa Stone Chapel, which was completed in 1911, two years after her death. (In 1931, the College for Women was renamed in her memory.)
Like his father-in-law and wife, Samuel Mather donated large portions of his wealth to WRU. In 1922, he footed a bill exceeding $2,500,000 to construct a new School of Medicine complex within University Circle to allow for relocation from downtown. For many years, the School of Medicine building (known today as the Wood Building) was informally referred to as the Mather Building for this reason. A Plain Dealer article at the time noted that this gift was in addition to over $1.7 million already publicly given by Mather to WRU from 1911-1922. Another article written in 1931 claimed that Mather’s total public contributions to the community surpassed $7 million, with the full figure likely much larger due to his additional anonymous gifts over the years.
One such example of this private financial backing came in 1917, as the nurses of the Lakeside Unit boarded a ship to head to Europe as members of the first American force sent to aid in World War I. Mather meet with them unexpectedly on the docked ship to wish them well and gave them thousands of francs for their current needs as well as to complete relief work once in France.
On June 22, 1886, Samuel Mather was elected a trustee of Western Reserve University. During his many years as a trustee, Samuel Mather served on several committees. His service included the Budget, Executive, Investment, Prudential, and Nominating committees. Mather also served as vice president of the trustees.
In 1899, WRU honored him with a Master of Arts and again in 1925 with a Doctor of Laws. Shortly after his death in 1931, a joint session between the trustees of WRU and University Hospitals was held to pass a resolution honoring the man who had served on both institutions’ Board of Trustees. It read in part,
“Mr. Mather’s service to this University and Lakeside [Hospital] extended over more than half of his long life. To his work and influence may be attributed final fulfillment of the plan to bring into association the group of institutions now known as University Hospitals. We are thankful that he was spared to participate in the dedication of Lakeside Hospital and to witness the fruition of his many years of patient endeavor, in the accumulation of resources and the development of an organization capable of sustaining and utilizing them.”
Sources
For more information about Samuel Mather, see the list of published histories on our CWRU Archives Sources page. In addition to the published histories, information comes from records in the Case Western Reserve University Archives.
