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Chapter 11: The Middle Years, 1916–1923 - Dane Starbuck, The Goodriches: An American Family [2001]

Edition used:

The Goodriches: An American Family (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2001).

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


Chapter 11

The Middle Years, 1916–1923

In september 1916, in the thick of James Goodrich’s gubernatorial campaign, Pierre matriculated at Harvard Law School. There, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he was exposed to some of the best minds in American jurisprudence: the great scholar Roscoe Pound, who taught Pierre torts (noncontractual liabilities); Austin Wakeman Scott, a renowned professor of trusts, who taught him legal procedure; and Felix Frankfurter, who taught him public utility law. Frankfurter later became one of the most prominent United States Supreme Court justices of the twentieth century.1

At that time, Harvard required every student to participate in a sport. Although he did not possess the physical dexterity demanded by sports such as tennis, basketball, and golf, Pierre found rowing to be an activity in which he could excel.2 At Harvard, Pierre was extremely studious. His cousin Florence Goodrich Dunn, who was then a student at nearby Wellesley College, remembers Pierre as a “grisly grind,” seldom willing to take a break from his studies even for social outings.3 After only a year at Harvard, however, Pierre was forced to take a reprieve from his books at the behest of a summoner he could not refuse—the draft board. In the summer of 1917, he received notice that he would be a soldier in the United States Army, and later he learned that he would be commissioned to serve in the army’s Quartermaster Corps. Pierre was one of 1,345 men and women from Randolph County who served during World War I.4 While Pierre never served abroad, because of his defective eye, his cousin John Goodrich fought in France.5

While Pierre was at Harvard and in the military (1916–20), his father occupied the governorship of Indiana. By January 1919, Pierre was back at Harvard, having received an honorable discharge from the army. To meet the needs of returning soldiers, Roscoe Pound, by then dean of the law school, had devised a special course for the semester that began in February 1919. The course continued through the summer, fitting in with the regular courses that began that fall.6

At a ceremony in June 1919, Pierre and Tom Veech, who were both students at Harvard, and another close friend of theirs, Ralph Bales, who was a law student at the University of Michigan, returned to Winchester to be admitted into the local bar. The event was recorded locally:

A ceremony of interest to many Winchester people took place Saturday morning when three of this city’s most prominent young men were admitted to the Randolph County Bar with appropriate ceremony. The young men were Pierre Goodrich, Tom Veech and Ralph Bales.

These three young men have been life long friends and their record is rather an unusual one. They entered kindergarten at the same time and after two years’ course received their diplomas and were transferred to the first grade of the public schools, where they were classmates throughout the twelve years and graduated in June 1912.

Messrs. Goodrich and Veech went to Wabash College and again graduated together in 1916. The following September they went to Harvard to take a four years’ course in law. They left school to enter the United States Army Service and took their training at the same time. Mr. Veech was commissioned second lieutenant in the aviation corps. Mr. Goodrich, who also had the rank of lieutenant, was transferred from military service to the quartermaster department because of a defective eye. The two young men received their honorable discharge last January and in February re-entered Harvard and made up their credits.7

In the summer of 1919, an event even more significant to Pierre occurred—he met Dorothy Dugan, who would become his first wife. Pierre was introduced to her by his cousin Florence Goodrich, who was then teaching French at Central High School in Fort Wayne, Indiana.8 Pierre and Florence had grown up only a block from each other in Winchester and were more like brother and sister than first cousins. Florence’s maternal grandparents were the Neffs, who lived in Decatur, Indiana. As a young girl, Florence would visit her grandparents for long periods. There, she became close to two girls, Winnifer Ellingham and Dorothy Dugan. Florence, Winnifer, and Dorothy had much in common: Their families were all stalwart members of the Presbyterian Church and were deeply involved in politics and business in Decatur and Winchester.9

Dorothy’s parents were Charles A. Dugan and the former Fanny B. Dorwin. Charles Dugan, like James Goodrich, was a banker by profession. He served as president of Decatur’s oldest bank, First State Bank, from 1922 until his death in 1935.10 Dugan had formerly been superintendent of the City Schools of Decatur and a professor of mathematics at Carlinville College in Illinois.11 The Dugan house on Monroe Street was a place of great joy, since the Dugans were known in the community for entertaining.12 When the house was completed in 1902, the local newspaper reported that it was probably the most costly home in the city.13 The Dugans also had a private library of approximately nine hundred books, reflecting the intellectual interests of its occupants. The house is now the home of the Adams County Historical Society.

Both the Goodriches and the Dugans valued education highly and sent their children to prestigious eastern schools. Dorothy had graduated from Vassar College in 1918; two of her sisters, Frances and Helen, also graduated from Vassar. Florence Goodrich had graduated from Wellesley College in the spring of 1919.14 Dorothy Dugan was an attractive young woman who especially enjoyed social gatherings and sports. She was known for her high spirit, stubbornness, and strong opinions. After graduating from Decatur High School in 1914, she received her bachelor of arts degree from Vassar. She then returned to teach at her hometown high school during the 1919–20 school year.15

Pierre and Dorothy had many things in common, especially a love of learning and books. Little is known of their courtship, but their wedding announcement was prominently placed in the Indianapolis News.16 Pierre was the Harvard Law–educated son of the governor of Indiana. Dorothy Dugan was the Vassar-educated daughter of one of the most prominent families in northeastern Indiana.

The two were married on Saturday afternoon, July 17, 1920. The wedding was a private affair, taking place in the large foyer of the Dugans’ home in Decatur. Carl McCamish, Pierre’s boyhood friend, served as best man. Dorothy’s sister Helen served as bridesmaid.17 After their wedding, Pierre and his bride went on a two-month honeymoon to the West coast. They camped in Yosemite Valley for two weeks and then took an ocean trip to the Canadian coast.18

Beginning in September 1920, they moved into their temporary home on East Street in Winchester. The back of their property abutted Salt Creek, the small stream that meanders through Winchester. On the east side of the creek directly behind Pierre and Dorothy’s house stood the imposing governor’s mansion of James and Cora Goodrich. Within the immediate neighborhood lived all four of Pierre’s uncles and their wives. By all accounts, Pierre and Dorothy lived a happy and quiet life in Winchester. Their only child, Frances “Nancy” Dorwin, was born in October 1921, in Dorothy’s parents’ home in Decatur.19 Back in Winchester, Pierre was able to reestablish childhood friendships and begin life as a small-town lawyer.

In January 1921, James Goodrich returned to Winchester to resume his duties as president of the Peoples Loan and Trust Company and pursue his many business interests. The previous September, Pierre had begun practicing law with his cousin John Macy, Jr. They maintained an office in Winchester above the old Randolph County Bank, in the same place that their fathers, James Goodrich and John Macy, Sr., had practiced law together for fifteen years around the turn of the century. John Macy, Jr., a man of substantial intellect, had graduated from Wabash College Phi Beta Kappa in 1908. He attended Columbia University Law School in New York City for one year before returning to Winchester.20

In Winchester, Pierre and Dorothy played in a local bridge club. Their closest friends included George and Evelyn Jaqua, John and Matilda Jaqua, Francis and Mary Simpson, Alice and Sarah Miller, and Marie Moorman. Pierre and Dorothy also went on long walks on Sunday afternoons.21 Just three blocks due north of their house was the town’s new library, which Pierre’s father, mother, and grandmother had helped to establish. Pierre and Dorothy attended the First Presbyterian Church, which was located only two blocks away from their home.

The members of the Goodrich family were and continue to this day to be pillars of the Presbyterian Church. Pierre’s grandmother, Elizabeth Goodrich, was a founding board member in 1882. Pierre’s uncle Percy served as superintendent of the Sunday school for a number of years, and his father, James Goodrich, served as an elder of the church for more than twenty-five years and, beginning in 1910, taught a men’s Sunday school class that met until the former governor’s death.22 Pierre’s mother, Cora, also active in the Presbyterian Church, founded the Madonna Class in 1914. Women who were members met both for regular Sunday school and socially at the Goodrich mansion, just a block from the church. Pierre taught an all-boys Sunday school class from 1920 until approximately 1922.

At that time, each of the churches of Winchester had a baseball team. Local contests served as one of the main forms of entertainment.23 Pierre once explained the reason he stopped attending church regularly. He and others on the Presbyterian team had gone to the congregation’s minister, the Reverend Gustav A. Papperman. They sought approval for the church baseball team to play in a Sunday afternoon league. Mr. Papperman refused the young men’s request on the grounds that the day was the Sabbath. Pierre thought the decision totally ridiculous and illogical. He did not think much of the viewpoint that adhered to such a rigid observance. After that, Pierre lost interest in organized religion and did not attend church regularly. He did, however, remain on his hometown church’s membership roll for the rest of his life, but he often called himself a “backslid Presbyterian.”24

By 1923, Pierre had tired of small-town practice in Winchester. He had larger ambitions, especially in the area of corporate law, than he thought his hometown could accommodate. Therefore, against his parents’ wishes, he and Dorothy moved to Indianapolis, where they lived on the affluent north side of the city.25 Pierre had tried to persuade his law partner, John Macy, Jr., to move to Indianapolis also so that they could establish a law practice together. Macy, however, had no desire to leave Winchester. Macy continued to practice law in Winchester until 1939, when he was elected Randolph Circuit Court judge, an office his father had also held. Macy was reelected to the position for the next twenty-eight years and retired in 1966 at the age of eighty.26

James and Cora were disappointed to see their only child, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter leave Winchester shortly after the couple had returned from four years in the governor’s office.27 Pierre’s decision to move to Indianapolis in 1923 was an astute one, however, at least professionally. It became pivotal in his becoming one of Indiana’s leading corporate lawyers.

[1. ]Goodrich mentions Scott in a letter to Dr. Solomon Fabricant of New York University (January 3, 1972, Pierre F. Goodrich Collection, Archives, Wabash College). Goodrich mentions Frankfurter in a letter to Frederick Hayek (March 31, 1959, F. A. Hayek Collection, box 34, folder 17, Hoover Institution) and in a memorandum to the employees of the Indiana Telephone Corporation (March 5, 1970; in author’s possession). Frankfurter was an associate justice of the Supreme Court from 1939 to 1962.

[2. ]“I remember Mr. Goodrich telling me about losing his swimming trunks once while rowing on the Harvard row team,” said Rosanna Amos. “He always had some kind of tale to tell” (interview, December 10, 1991).

[3. ]Florence Dunn, interview, July 18, 1992.

[4. ]Randolph County History: 1818–1990, pp. 223–27.

[5. ]John Goodrich, Pierre’s first cousin, returned to Winchester after World War I. He first worked at the Peoples Loan and Trust Company and later established Standard Securities, Inc. He took a particular interest in furthering the activities of Winchester’s American Legion Post 39 and contributed a considerable sum of money toward that end. See “W.W. I John B. Goodrich ‘Survivors’ Trust,” Randolph County History: 1818–1990, p. 228.

[6. ]Paul Sayre, The Life of Roscoe Pound (Iowa City: College of Law Committee, 1948), p. 210.

[7. ]The source of the article is unknown, but a copy of the article is contained in a scrapbook of the Goodrich and Miller families kept by Mary Miller of Liberty, Indiana.

[8. ]Florence Dunn, interview, July 18, 1992.

[9. ]Winnifer’s father was Lewis G. Ellingham. He owned several newspapers, including the Winchester Democrat and the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette. He was also Indiana’s secretary of state from 1910 to 1914 and a well-known state Democratic Party leader.

[10. ]See Dick D. Heller, Jr., ed., 1979 History of Adams County, Indiana, vol. 1 ([Decatur, Ind.]: Adams County Historical Society, 1979), p. 272.

[11. ]“Charles A. Dugan, Deceased, Decatur, Indiana,” Biographical Sketches of Adams County, Indiana Citizens (Indianapolis: Citizens Historical Association, 1977), pp. 70–71.

[12. ]On one occasion, however, the imposing mansion was the location of great sadness for the family. The year before Dorothy’s marriage to Pierre, her older sister, Naomi (“Billie”), died in childbirth, and her funeral was at the home, as were the funerals of Charles Dorwin Porter (Dorothy’s great-uncle and the husband of Hoosier novelist and naturalist Gene Stratton-Porter) and Dorothy’s father, Charles. In 1968, the Dugan home was purchased by the Adams County Historical Society and converted into the county museum. See Heller, ed., 1979 History of Adams County, Indiana, p. 336.

[13. ]See Decatur (Ind.) Democrat, July 17, 1902, p. 1, col. 4. The Decatur Democrat even reported when the Dugan family moved into the house on November 10, 1902. See “Dugans Occupy New House,” November 12, 1902, p. 2, col. 3.

[14. ]Dorothy’s other sister, Naomi, graduated from Northwestern University. Dorothy’s father, Charles Dugan, had undertaken two years of graduate study in astronomy and mathematics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

[15. ]Dorothy Dugan had spent the summer of 1918 at the National Training School of the Young Men’s Christian Association in New York City. The school was established to train young women for overseas work in World War I. Dorothy Dugan did not go to Europe, but during the latter part of 1919 she performed “club work” for women employees at the DuPont munitions plants at Pompton Lake, New Jersey, and Lowell, Massachusetts. See “Decatur Young Woman and Son of Governor Are to Wed July 17,” Indianapolis News, July 1, 1920, p. 21, col. 6.

[16. ]Ibid.

[17. ]“Leave on a Trip: Mr. and Mrs. Pierre Goodrich Left Saturday Evening Following Wedding,” Decatur (Ind.) Democrat, July 19, p. 1, col. 3.

[18. ]Ibid.

[19. ]Frances was born on October 10, 1921, in the Dugan home at 420 Monroe Street, Decatur.

[20. ]John Macy, Jr., had attended Winchester High School and was admitted to Wabash College in 1904. Macy never received his diploma from Winchester High School; he was denied the parchment for refusing to give the class oration required of every graduating senior. He was admitted into Wabash on the condition that he maintain high grades. Macy pledged with Phi Gamma Delta fraternity and four years later graduated Phi Beta Kappa, earning a bachelor of arts degree in languages and literature. He attended Columbia University Law School for one year but in 1909 was summoned by his father to return to Winchester without a law degree. John Macy, Sr., was forced to resign as Randolph Circuit Court judge because of ill health. Father and son practiced law together until 1912, when John Macy, Sr., passed away. John Macy, Jr., then practiced law with a number of law partners, including Jim Goodrich, until 1920, when Pierre returned to Winchester. Macy and Pierre practiced together for the next three years above the old Randolph County Bank at the intersection of Washington and Meridian streets. See Anna Marie Gibbons, “John W. Macy Retiring as Judge of Randolph Circuit Court,” Winchester (Ind.) News, December 2, 1966, p. 1, col. 3.

[21. ]Mary Simpson, interview, April 12, 1992. Accounts of the local bridge parties and the names of those who attended were published in the local newspaper. See “Bridge Party,” Winchester (Ind.) Journal-Herald, August 27, 1925, p. 5, col. 4.

[22. ]Jim Goodrich seldom missed a Sunday, and he would drive back to Winchester from Indianapolis late on Saturday nights during his years as governor just to teach the class on Sunday mornings. The class would have as many as 100 to 125 men each Sunday morning. It grew so big that the only place large enough to hold it was the church’s sanctuary. James Goodrich was a much-admired Sunday school teacher. Even years after the former governor’s death, his reputation as a religious instructor continued, although the effectiveness of his message may be questioned. Jack Davidson, a former Randolph County Republican chairman, told Claude Barnes, a one-time employee of the governor, “Jim Goodrich was the best goddamn Sunday school teacher I’ve ever had” (Don Welch, interview, December 16, 1991).

[23. ]Ralph Litschert was one of Pierre’s students in the Sunday school class. He remembers playing for several summers on the Winchester Presbyterian baseball team, along with Fred Oxley, Johnny Copeland, and others, all of whom also attended Pierre’s Sunday school class (interview, November 10, 1991).

[24. ]Pierre talked often about his “backsliding” to his two secretaries, Rosanna Amos and Ruth Connolly, though he did occasionally attend church when in Winchester (Rosanna Amos, interview, December 10, 1991; Ruth Connolly, interview, October 25, 1991).

[25. ]According to Goodrich’s first cousins, Elizabeth Terry and Florence Dunn, their uncle James and aunt Cora tried to persuade Pierre and Dorothy to stay in Winchester, but Pierre had plans that he believed were too big for Winchester. The couple moved to 1529 Park Avenue, Indianapolis (Elizabeth Goodrich Terry, interview, November 16, 1991; Florence Dunn, interview, July 18, 1992).

[26. ]Anna Marie Gibbons, interview, December 22, 1992. See also “John W. Macy Retiring as Judge of Randolph Circuit Court,” Winchester (Ind.) News, December 2, 1966, p. 1, col. 2.

[27. ]Florence Dunn, interview, July 18, 1992. Florence Dunn was excited at the prospect of living again near her cousin and Dorothy. In 1921, Florence had married Francis Dunn of Marion, Indiana, who had recently graduated from Harvard. The two moved to Indianapolis, where Francis was a manager with the W. H. Gossard Company.