Matilda Dodge Wilson

Matilda Dodge Wilson (née Rausch; October 19, 1883 – September 19, 1967), was born Matilda Rausch in Walkerton, Ontario, Canada. Ranked as one of the wealthiest women in the world, Dodge-Wilson was the widow of John Francis Dodge, who co-founded the Dodge motor car company in Detroit with his brother Horace Elgin Dodge. She co-founded the Oakland campus of Michigan State University, now Oakland University, with her husband Alfred Wilson, and John A. Hannah. The new university was built on her estate, Meadow Brook Farms. Biography Matilda Rausch was born to German immigrants George and Margaret Rausch, in Walkerton, Ontario, Canada. Her family moved to Detroit in 1884. She attended public school in Detroit and then attended and graduated from the Gorsline Business College in the same city. In 1902, she began working for the Dodge Motor Company and five years later, she married founder John Dodge. After Dodge's death in 1920, Matilda inherited his share of the Dodge Brothers Company and became one of the wealthiest women in the United States. Soon thereafter, she met lumber baron Alfred G. Wilson at the First Presbyterian Church in Detroit and they married June 29, 1925. Upon Alfred Wilson's death on April 6, 1962, Matilda again received the bulk of her husband's estate. Matilda and John Dodge had three children, Frances (1914–1971), Daniel (1917–1938) and Anna Margaret (1919–1924). In addition, she was stepmother to John's three children from his first marriage (one of whom was Isabel Dodge Sloane). Matilda and Alfred Wilson adopted two children, Richard and Barbara.