Rockefeller's Partner.

Otago Witness, Issue 2809, 15 January 1908, Page 73

Rockefeller's Partner.

The world is getting more and more interested in discussing Mr John D. Rockefeller's immense fortune and its probable amount. Small attention is given to the fact that one of the most valuable business partners of J. D. is a woman. This statement is mdde on the authority of a close personal friend of the Rockefellers. And the woman is his wife. "It is undoubtedly true," said this friend recently, " that when John Rockefeller married Laura Spelman in 1866 he formed a partnership that brought him many of his present millions, as. well as a faithful and devoted wife and comrade, for whom his affection is strong and beautiful. Not that she was rich when they were wed. But she was then, as she is now, a levelheaded, smart woman, keen in her ability to analyse situations, and of uncommonly sound) judgment. There is no,.

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doubt that a large share of his present unparalleled financial prosperity is due to the fact that many a time he has accepted the advice of his wife in regard to business! matters."

— A Secret of Success. —

It is not hard to believe this after seeing Mrs Rockefeller. She looks as if she were capable of managing affairs other than those pertaining to the supervision of the domestic circle. Nor is it difficult to accept this new sidelight on the success of Mr Rockefeller, who, if he has once deemed a person capable of assisting him in a business way, has ever afterwards reposed implicit confidence in the efficiency of that person. This is one >f the so-called secrets of his remarkable success. Whenever he has found a person who could do a certain thing to his satisfaction, he has straightway relinquished that department of his activities to the individual thus qualified, and transferred the energy previously expended thereon to the cultivation of new crops in the broad fields of his personal ambition.

—An Inaccurate Fortune-Teller. —

There is an amusing incident in connection with the engagement of John D. Rockefeller to Laura Spelman. When news of the proposed alliance first went the rounds, one of Miss Spelman's intimate friends— j-a man who assisted her father in the anti-slavery and! temperance movements, in which Mr Spelman was greatly interested — asked her about the rumour he had heard. She blushingly gave it the stamp of her authority, whereat her friend remarked : " Well, I congratulate you. But, Laura, I hope it is a case of love for love's sake, for I fear he will never be very well off in this world's goods." Which shows what rare judgment this friend exercised in not taking up" the business of fortune-telling. Mrs Rockefeller has always been a great home body. She never cared at all for social gaieties, having devoted the 41 years of her married life to her husband, their home, and their church. For though she was a member of the Congregational Church before her marriage, she went with her husband to the Baptist thereafter, and' has been a consistent and active member of that cummunion ever since. Mrs Rockefeller dresses richly, but plainly, and I am told she has more than once said she would be just as happy and contended as she is if her husband were worth less money. This does not mean she is not proud of his success. It merely evidences the simplicity of her desires, the limits of which seldom reach beyond the four walls of her home. — P.T.O