Oscar Ewing's Sons

Today I will just post some connections to the obituaries of Oscar Ewing's sons. James Dennis, who was named after Oscar Ewing's uncle James. Dennis was Oscar's wife Helen's maiden name. George M. Ewing was named after Oscar's father, George McClellan Ewing.

McClellan was a family name and for years the family thought it had some direct connection to the Civil War General, until Oscar Ewing met THE General McClellan's son. Here are Oscar Ewing's words on the subject.

"Captain Patrick Ewing had a large number of children. The son through whom I trace my ancestry was named Putnam Ewing. He married a Jane McClellan from the adjoining county, Chester County, Pennsylvania. Jane McClellan Ewing was, by tradition, a woman of great beauty and fine intellect. In our family it was for a long time thought that she was closely related to General George B. McClellan, a commander of the Union Army of the Potomac in the Civil War. I mentioned this to General McClellan's son, the former Mayor of New York, George B. McClellan, Jr., when I sat beside him at a lunch back in the 1920s. He said the relationship must be rather remote. He explained that originally there were three McClellan brothers who had migrated from Ireland to America. One settled in Maine, one in Connecticut and one in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Mayor McClellan said that his branch of the family was descended from the brother who settled in Connecticut while Jane McClellan Ewing, being from Chester County, Pennsylvania, was undoubtedly descended from the brother who had settled in that county." - trumanlibrary.org

There is no end to the ambition in this family. Oscar and Helen Ewing's sons were very successful, award-winning newspaper publishers.  Both sons overcame obstacles on the road to success and kept in mind the Ewing family ideal of helping the less fortunate by the way they published their newspapers and by establishing foundations. I hope you will be as proud, surprised, intrigued, and amazed as I am at what has come from our small community through Oscar Ross Ewing.  More to come...

James Dennis Ewing obituary

http://www.sentinelsource.com/news/special_reports/james-d-ewing-co-owner-of-the-keene-sentinel-dies/article_20d01b53-5f4f-564a-a752-7681faa4524c.html

http://www.icfj.org/about/profiles/james-d-ewing

George M. Ewing obituary 

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/fltimes/obituary.aspx?n=george-m-ewing&pid=133050366

http://fingerlakescommunitycollege.blogspot.com/2011/06/local-family-endows-speaker-series-at.html

Oscar Ewing in His Twenties

Oscar Ewing received a bachelor's degree from Indiana University and a law degree from the Harvard School of Law in 1913.  While at Harvard, he was an Editor of the Harvard Law Review, a member of the Lincoln’s Inn Society and the Choate Club. Oscar was united in marriage with Helen Dennis of New Jersey in 1915. More will come later on his wife’s family history. It might be significant that his uncle James Ewing, a noted hometown attorney and Judge died in May, 1917 and his father died less than two months later in July, 1917. Both of these men had provided role models for Oscar Ewing. Both the obituaries are worth reading,  since each could be a short story in itself. Mr. Ewing served in the U.S. Army during World War I, and upon his discharge in 1919 he joined the law firm of Hughes, Sherman and Dwight, headed by Charles Evans Hughes, who was to become Chief Justice of the United States. All these events from 1910 through 1920, I.U., Harvard, marriage, death and war undoubtedly had a huge effect on his life and career.

George Ewing's Obituary:

 http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=24378545

James Ewing's Obituary

 http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=48026598

 Sources: Greensburg Daily News - January 8, 1980 
                findagrave.com
                familysearch.org: 1900 Census 
                trumanlibrary.org

Oscar Ross Ewing

When I next heard about Oscar Ewing, it was his obituary in 1980. I wondered what made a boy born and raised in Greensburg turn up in Washington D.C. as an aid to, and by all accounts good friend of, the President of the United States. 

Oscar Ross Ewing was born in Greensburg in 1889.  He was the son of George McClellan Ewing and Nettie B. (Ross) Ewing. George Ewing was one of fifteen children and the son of Patrick Ewing. Oscar’s paternal grandfather was born in Maryland in 1804. He settled here by way of Kentucky in 1827. Oscar Ewing’s mother was the daughter of Marine Ross.  Oscar’s maternal grandfather was born in Indiana in 1816 and listed in the 1882 Atlas of Decatur County as having come to this county in 1820, when he was four years old. These factors establish that Oscar Ross Ewing came from hardy Hoosier pioneer stock.

I found that Oscar Ewing’s father was 38 and his mother was 27 when they were married in October, 1883. George and Nettie Ewing had their first child, Ludia Ross Ewing one year later in October, 1884. Then Ethel was born in 1886. Ludia died in May, 1888. Oscar Ross Ewing was born in March, 1889. After losing one child, how precious would this baby boy be to his parents?

 In the year 1900, Oscar was eleven years old and the census shows the George Ewing family living on West North Street near the corner of Jackson Street in Greensburg.  Their neighbors were John and Anna Goddard.  John Goddard is listed as a lawyer. Also in the neighborhood and possibly having an effect on the young Oscar Ewing were; another lawyer, his Uncle James Ewing, along with several teachers and the superintendent of schools. Whether it was Oscar Ross Ewing’s heritage or his environment that motivated him, he excelled in academics.  He was valedictorian and class president at Greensburg Community High School in 1906.  He graduated from Indiana University in 1910 as valedictorian. He was president of his junior and senior classes at I.U. It would seem that Oscar was not only intelligent; he was popular with his peers.  This would no doubt be of great use to him in politics later in his career.

 More to come on Oscar Ewing

Oscar Ewing

I am not sure exactly when I became so curious about Oscar R. Ewing.  In 1975, a close friend of mine received one of the four annual Greensburg High School Oscar Ewing Scholarships to Indiana University and that attracted my attention.  Then, in 1976, another friend and his wife rented their first home from the Indiana University Oscar Ewing Foundation.  This past spring Oscar Ewing came on my radar again when he became a member of the Greensburg Community High School Hall of Fame.  Oscar Ewing graduated from GCHS in 1906. Little did I know that I would finally finish my research almost forty years after I first became curious about Oscar Ewing while doing a history blog for the local library.

I was eighteen years old when I first visited the house on the I.U. farm that provided the income for the Oscar R. Ewing Foundation. In 1976, Auburn Hill was a beautiful, two-story brick house on the curve of County Road 80 Northeast where County Road 350 East intersects.  The house, as I remember it, was lavishly furnished with deep burgundy red velvet draperies and rich rugs on beautiful hardwood floors.  The fireplace mantle was very simple, yet elegant and there were very high ceilings where the conversion of the lighting to electricity was apparent.  The largest and oldest part of the house was closed off from the rental area.  The eight foot high locked doors were suggestive of horsehair sofas covered against the dust, ornate chandeliers, and elaborately carved wood furniture.  The outbuildings provided my imagination with numerous nooks and crannies to hide desperate runaway slaves from the cruel owners hunting them down in the dead of a hot summer night.  It was the first time I had been in a home that had a name; Auburn Hill.  I loved it. I was swept back in time. I felt that I had become like Scarlet O’Hara in Gone with the Wind. The owner, Oscar Ewing became a man that I had to know more about.  

Stay tuned for more to come on Oscar Ewing biography.