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Rites of Passage
In 1928, Florence made her debut at a dinner-dance at the family mansion in Chicago, and Cornelius, an avid yachtsman, financed, organized, and led an expedition to the South Pacific with a team of scientists from Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History. The custom-built, 148-foot yacht, Illyria, was loaded with scientific equipment, twelve trunks of medicine, six cases of dynamite, two motorcycles and a side-car. Owing to a shortage of space, a folding-wing airplane and a dog were left behind.
“A Man Who Had Endeared Himself to All”
Richard Crane died unexpectedly in 1931 at the age of 58. He was valued not only as a resident of prominence and wealth, but as a man who endeared himself to Ipswich. There, he had helped fund Cable Memorial Hospital, established a trust for schoolchildren to enjoy an annual outing to Crane Beach in celebration of Cornelius’s birthday, supported the Ipswich Historical Society, and helped preserve important local monuments such as the Whipple House. The North Shore Breeze noted: “Some faces speak for themselves, and one had only to look at Mr. Crane to feel confidence in him and to trust him.”
For 18 years after his death, Mrs. Crane continued to summer, and, increasingly, winter in Ipswich. She had grown to love Castle Hill, and, in her last years there, she was visited often by family and friends.
In 1945, the Crane Family gave 1,000 acres to The Trustees. When Mrs. Crane died in 1949, she left 350 more acres, the Great House, and most of Castle Hill. The contents of the Great House, some 1,032 items, were sold at auction. In 1957, Miné Crane, Cornelius’s wife, donated what is now the Crane Wildlife Refuge, where she and Cornelius are buried.
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