Your Town: Elizabeth Taylor, Dwight D. Eisenhower’s connections to the Howard Young

For a couple of days now, we’ve been featuring some of the attractions in the Your Town: Greater Minocqua Area. Now, we’re taking you inside the Howard Young Medical Center, a hospital with a rich history.

Walk inside and you can’t help but notice all the photos, telling the rich history of the facility. A history that dates back decades and decades and it all started thanks to a woman by the name, Dr. Kate. “Back then she went out and said we need a little hospital here,” said Trig Solberg, Board Chairman of the Howard Young Foundation.

Building it wasn’t easy to say the least. That’s until an idea from a math class at Arbor Vitae-Woodruff High School. “They started out with the Penny Parade,” said Solberg. They set out to collect one million pennies. After donations from all over the U.S. and other continents, Lakeland Memorial Hospital became a reality, founded in 1954. Fastforward now and we meet Howard Young, an art dealer.

Solberg said, “His niece was Elizabeth Taylor and she spent the summers up here. Many, many summers up here as a young girl.” Young fell in love with the Your Town: Greater Minocqua Area after he developed a nervous ailment. Doctors suggested a summer vacation in Wisconsin’s northwoods. Even though he had homes in other states like Florida and Connecticut, Minocqua was his favorite.

Young’s good friend was President Dwight D. Eisenhower and he, too, spent time in the area. “There are several pictures, him and Howard Young would fish here and also President Eisenhower’s brothers would come up here,” said Solberg.

Young died in 1972 and left his entire estate to build what we know now as the Howard Young Medical Center. It was dedicated on June 18, 1977. The rest of the money was put into a trust. “He realized up here it would take money during the winter, the slow times and it’s going to need extra money. Solberg said, “It still isn’t enough to keep the hospital going but it’s sure a great help.”

Today, the facility serves not just the area’s residents, but the thousands who make their way to the area, especially in the summer. “Without this hospital in the area, we wouldn’t have the area we have. It’s extremely important that we have a strong hospital,” Solberg said.

https://www.howardyoungfoundation.org/History-of-Howard-Young-Foundation/howard-young-s-legacy.html

It wasn’t until the will of S. Howard Young was made public on Aug. 15, 1972, that residents of the Lakeland area began to understand how deeply this man loved the Northwoods of Wisconsin and the people who reside within its boundaries.

On that day in 1972 they learned that Howard Young had bequeathed approximately $20 Million dollars for a health center so that the area would have the finest facilities and continue to attract outstanding doctors of the caliber that had joined the staff of the first hospital–Lakeland Memorial Hospital.

The will further stated that the “net income is to be paid in perpetuity to the hospital to be used for its own general purposes and that $7 Million dollars be used only for the purpose of constructing, equipping, furnishing and opening a new main hospital.”

Indeed, Howard Young had a love affair with the Lakeland area that spanned some 65 years, and the impact of the love was reaffirmed on Saturday, June 18, 1977, with the dedication of the Howard Young Medical Center. It will continue to be reaffirmed, ad infinitum, through its operation.

Stephen Howard Young was born in Belle Center, Ohio, on May 22, 1878, the eldest of five children who would eventually comprise the family of Philip and Mary Funk Young. His father was a highway construction supervisor.

It seemed as if Howard Young was born with great ambition. His mother soon realized that his ambitions far surpassed anything that Belle Center had to offer, and so it was with her blessing that he left his home at age 10 to make his way in the world.

His business career began simply, delivering for both a laundry and a paper route. When he was 15 years of age he turned to chromolithography (the process of lithographing in colors), a relatively new innovation in 1893. His first operation was in Anderson, Ind., and as his business flourished he opened offices in Cincinnati and Lima, Ohio, plus Peoria, Ill.

By 1896, at the age of 18, Howard Young had amassed a fortune of $400,000. This was also the year of the panic and he lost it all.

He began again…

By now he had decided his future lay in oil paintings. He contracted for the services of several prominent portrait artists in the area. Then, following an obituary notice, he would contact the family and sell them oil paintings from the snapshots they provided of the deceased. They sold at $2,000 each.

One of his clients then asked him to select and buy paintings for her home, paying a commission of $300 for each one. This moved Howard Young into a career as an art dealer.

In 1900, Young married Mabel Rosemund of Springfield, Ill., and moved to St. Louis where he established his headquarters. His wife preceded him in death in 1955. There were no children of the marriage.

His business continued to flourish. Then one day he learned of a man in Bartlesville, Okla., who was looking for a Remington to purchase.

Young had one and he was immediately off to Oklahoma. While there he played poker with Harry Sinclair, Frank Phillips and Bill Skelly, and a new chapter in his career opened–investments. It opened with investments in oil.

In St. Louis, Young became friendly with the Busch and Lambert families. He bought shares of Anheuser-Busch stock that he never sold. He was a wise investor and unloaded a great deal of stock just before the crash in 1929. His one regret was that he sold his IBM stock too soon, for although he made a fine profit, it was nothing compared to what it would have been if he had held it.

He was as wise in his art dealings as he was investing. His greatest achievement was his discovery of the “Lost El Greco”–“Christ Healing The Blind.” This painting now hangs in the Metropolitan Art Museum.

In his art dealings, Young had one regret. He bought a Van Gogh for $5,000, sold it for $10,000, and shortly before his death it sold for $850,000.

In 1907, Howard Young developed a nervous ailment. His doctors recommended a summer vacation in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, and thus began his love affair with Lakeland area.

Howard Young was an art dealer for 75 years. His only partner was his nephew, Francis Taylor–Elizabeth Taylor’s father, who died in 1968.

He did have a multitude of friends and he considered Dwight D. Eisenhower one of his closest. He played an instrumental part in Eisenhower’s entering the 1952 presidential race. He arranged a reception for Eisenhowers with Scripps Howard newspaper executives and it was at this reception that Ike obtained their support. Without this, he probably never would have entered politics.

Howard Young revealed a little of his true feelings for the Lakeland area when, on election night, after learning of his victory, Eisenhower turned to him and asked him where he would like to be ambassador. Young’s reply–“in Minocqua, Woodruff and Boulder Junction.”

In later years, after Eisenhower had suffered his heart attack. Young built a special track down the hill from his home to the lake. Its car carried Eisenhower for his daily swims that he loved so well. Without it, Ike could not have negotiated the steep hill.

During their years of friendship, Eisenhower presented Howard Young with three of his signed paintings. These, along with their correspondence, were donated to the Eisenhower Museum in Abilene, Kansas.

Young was an avid sportsman. He loved golf and founded the Minocqua Country Club, and he was an excellent skeet shooter; but hunting and fishing were probably his favorite spots. He kept homes in Florida and Connecticut, but Minocqua was his favorite retreat, for here he could indulge in all his favorite sports.

Howard Young died at the age of 94 on June 23, 1972. He died among his favorite art treasures in his galleries in the Hotel Pierre in New York City. His remains lie in Detroit…but his heart and memories are alive in the Lakeland area.

Dame Elizabeth’s Art Collection

Dame Elizabeth’s “love affair with jewelry” has often overshadowed her equally magnificent collection of Impressionist art. Incredibly rare paintings by Picasso, Utrillo, Degas, Rouault, Monet, Pissaro, Renoir, Mary Cassatt, Modigliani, Vlaminck, van Gogh, Frans Hals, Matisse, Cézanne, Cassatt, Rembrandt, Erté and Frans Hals have all hung on the walls of Dame Elizabeth’s grand homes, on land or at sea.

Elizabeth grew up with an understanding and appreciation for fine art. Her father, Francis Taylor, was an art dealer with a gallery located at 35 Old Bond Street in London. He learned the business under the tutelage of his uncle, Howard Young. After relocating with his family to sunny California during the war, Francis opened an art gallery at the Château Elysée, but quickly relocated it to the more impressive Beverly Hills Hotel. It was at that location that such celebrities as Howard Duff, Vincent Price, James Mason, Alan Ladd, Hedda Hopper, and Greta Garbo could be found selecting art for their own collections. Francis Taylor was also a trendsetter; responsible for the popularity of Augustus John in the United States. Francis, who had a keen eye, asked John if he could buy some of the paintings John had discarded. John felt they weren’t good enough to sell, and gave them to Francis free of charge. They were sold back at the art gallery in the States, where Augustus John paintings would be sold exclusively for many years. Francis would soon find an art connoisseur in his daughter, Elizabeth, who would amass one of the great private collections of Impressionist art in America.

One of her first big pieces was one by Frans Hals, given to by Francis on the occasion of her marriage to Nicky Hilton. Elizabeth owns several other Hals, including “Portrait of a Man”.

Elizabeth’s collection of art, like her collection of jewelry, grew during her brief but passionate marriage to the great Mike Todd. During this time, Todd, who was also an art connoisseur, purchased painting by Degas, Utrillo, and Vuillar from the collection of Aly Khan for a reported cost of $71,428. “They’ll think I’m crazy when they hear about this in Hollywood,” Todd joked. “Paying that much for pictures that don’t even move.” Once, while Elizabeth was hospitalized, Todd decorated the walls of her sterile hospital room with paintings by Renoir, Pissarro, and Monet (Todd even unintentionally punctured the Van Gogh with a pencil, but Elizabeth’s uncle, Howard Young, was able to mend it). “He knew how much I loved paintings. He loved paintings, too, but instead of buying himself the paintings, he’d buy them for me,” Elizabeth remembered. The Todds were generous with their collection; even loaning pieces to the Los Angeles County Art Museum.

Elizabeth continued to collect valuable art during her marriage to Richard Burton, and they together acquired many fabulous paintings. Bidding on behalf of his daughter, Francis Taylor purchased Vincent van Gogh’s “Lunatic Asylum, St. Remy” at Sotheby’s (and as a belated birthday present, Francis Taylor purchased for Elizabeth a Utrillo at the same auction). The painting, which was being sold from the collection of Alfred Woolf, was auctioned for £92,000. She would later try (unsuccessfully) to part with the painting for $20 million.

Elizabeth once described her home as “such a cozy, sweet place with bits and pieces around—bits and pieces of Renoir—and, you know, things that make it homey.” All joking aside, like the joy her famous collection of jewelry has brought her, Elizabeth’s paintings serve as memories of incredible times from a bygone era, and the loved ones she shared them with.

The Opera Box