Catherine Eddy Beveridge

Catherine Eddy Beveridge (June 29, 1881 – May 28, 1970) was a socialite and philanthropist who came from a prominent Chicago, Illinois family. Her father, Augustus Eddy, made his fortune as a businessman and his reputation as a member of a ministerial family, while her mother, Abby Spencer Eddy, was a member of a family who ran a successful hardware business.

Like many wealthy young women at the time, Catherine received an education in the humanities and traveled extensively. In the winter of 1902 she debuted at the court of Russian Tsar Nicholas II, after which fresh asparagus was served to the 1,500 dinner guests.

In 1907 much to the chagrin of her role models and mentors, her mother Abby Eddy and her aunt Delia Caton Field, Catherine married Republican Indiana Senator (1899-1911) Albert J. Beveridge (1862-1927). The couple raised two children, Albert Jr. and Abby, in Indianapolis, Indiana and Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, and also spent substantial time in Washington, D.C. The couple had a passionate marriage, and according to their grandson, about the only thing that they ever fought about was his smoking, which she did not like. (ibid.)

After her husband's 1927 death, Beveridge became a prolific philanthropist of the arts, donating to institutions throughout the country, including the National Gallery of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Art Institute of Indianapolis. She donated her husband's papers on the life of Abraham Lincoln to Carl Sandburg, and helped establish the Albert J. Beveridge Award for American historians in 1939.

Beveridge died on May 28, 1970, and was memorialized in the 2005 book The Chronicle of Catherine Eddy Beveridge: An American Girl Travels into the Twentieth Century by her grandson Albert J. Beveridge III and Chicago writer Susan Radomsky.

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