Person:Ward Canaday (1)

In a family of over-achievers, the eldest brother, Ward Canaday, was THE over-achiever. He attended the University of Colorado and graduated from Harvard cum laude in 1907.

    He had learned the principles of selling in New Castle when, as a youth, he peddled papers as well as representing a publication company during his Harvard vacations. He also was a door to door pollster. Following his graduation he represented the Hoosier Kitchen Cabinet company of New Castle as their New England agent and also acted as their advertising director. "The Hoosier" was pioneering the concept of installment selling at a time when the notion of time payment was not a part of the popular culture as it is today.
    Ward's work with time payment brought him to the attention of Willys-Overland Motors, the makers of the military jeep, for whom he worked for 37 years. He pioneered the concept of time payment for the purchase of automobiles, a concept we may find hard to believe has not always existed. He was president and chairman of the board of Willys-Overland when World War II began, and the company became the first to be converted entirely to war production. During the war years it produced more than $700 million in war materials. It was sold in 1953 to the Kaiser-Frazer Corporation for $62.3 million.
    He was man of many activities in addition to his automobile manfacturing interests. In 1933 he joined with the developers of the New Deal and promoted passage of the National Housing Act, then served as assistant administrator and director of public relations for the Federal Housing Administration.
    In 1948 President Truman appointed him chairman of the United States Section of the Caribbean Commission and in 1949 one of the three directors of the Virgin Islands Corporation, an economic development agency. He was reappointed to this post by President Eisenhower in 1953.
    When Willys-Overland was sold, Ward Canaday retained the name of Overland Corporation as an investment firm, which continued promoting the concept of time payment. In 1936 Overland merged with Commercial Credit Corporation. This company merged in the 1960's with the State Street Investment Corporation of Boston, which had an estimated $32 million in assets.
    Ward was married to Miriam Coffin. They were both patrons of the arts and generous benefactors of educational and artistic institutions, and, in this sphere, left a lasting contribution to the world.
    Their special interest was Greek archaeology and art. Ward was chairman emertus of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, and he had supported excavation of the ancient stoa of Attalos, a building near the Athens marketplace which now houses a museum. When the museum was dedicated Ward and his wife were the personal representatives of President and Mrs. Eisenhower to the event. The Canaday family mausoleum in South Mound Cemetery was inspired by Ward's interest in ancient Greek architecture.
    Ward Canaday also served for many years as a trustee of the University of Toledo and the Toledo Museum of Art. The Canaday Gallery, a wing for special exhibits at the Toledo Museum of Art, is a gift of the Canaday family.
    Other educational institutions benefitted from Ward's generosity. Ward and Miriam contributed heavily to the expansion of the archaeology department at Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia, and were the primary donors of the Canaday Library there. A dormitory at Harvard University bears the Canaday name, a gift of alumnus Ward Canaday. He also created the Canaday Humanities Fund at Harvard to encourage among undergraduates "a broad literacy acquaintance with the history of the human culture."
    He also endowed a Japanese Fund for Peaceful Development to help finance study in American by Japanese students.
    He died in February, 1976 and was entombed in the mausoleum he designed. All of his brothers have since joined him there.
    New Castle benefitted as well from the Canaday family. In the 1950's Ward, Miron, Frank, and Wilbur made the first large donation to the building of the First Christian Church as a memorial to their parents.
    Their final resting place is South Mound Cemetery's most prominent feature, a neo-Greek temple atop the high mound, easily visible to passersby on Memorial Drive. Such an edifice, one thinks, must commemorate the life of a successful person. In this case, it commemorates the lives of four such persons, The Canaday brothers: Ward, Miron, Frank, and Wilbur. Although each found his personal success in a different sphere, they were remarkable in their generous sharing of the fruits of those successes. Their philanthropy resulted in donations of a college library, a university dormitory, and a wing of an art museum. In death, however, they returned to New Castle.  (Taken from Henry County Historicalog, Spring, 2001)

1. ↑ Thomas D. Hamm & Mary Louise Reynolds. The Henry County Historicalog,. (Volume 29, Number 1, Spring 2001)
   Pages 12-17.