As you should know by now, I used to live in Flint, Michigan. Before moving to Massachusetts in 1985, I worked at Mott Community College. I was a software training specialist. Honest, I was.
Charles Stewart Mott donated the land upon which the college was built. He was a rich dude who made his money from General Motors (as in, he was the majority shareholder). Across a creek from the college perched his big old mansion, Applewood, which sits back from Kearsley St. behind a screen of trees.
An aside: My neighbor/friend and I used to ride to work together and drove down Kearsley St. (We should have walked, but, hey, this is Flint, MI, we're talking about.) The mansion had a gatehouse, which was a very attractive little house that sat (where else?) by the gates.
I always lusted after that gatehouse, so it was quite shocking when the woman who did live there, a professor, was later found inside it, murdered. Years later, the guy was found, and the murder was featured on one of those cable shows like "Forensic Files."
YIKES! I just read that the first Mrs. Mott died from a fall out of a second floor window of the main house ...
Anyway, all those years in Flint and I barely knew that C.S. Mott had a son and heir, much less more than one child. Now that son, Stewart Mott, has died. Actually, he died nearly 2 weeks ago.
Irreverent, good-looking and effusive, Mr. Mott seemed tailor-made for the 1960s and ’70s, when he attracted his widest attention, not least for his all-too-candid comments about everything from his sex partners (full names spelled out in newsletters) to his father’s parental deficiencies (“a zookeeper”) to his blood type (AB+). (From the New York Times obit; my emphasis.)
At last! My point! ... Maybe it's something in the water?
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