Walter P. Chrysler

Walter Chrysler
Walter P. Chrysler portrait
Born	Walter Percy Chrysler (1875-04-02)April 2, 1875 Wamego, Kansas, U.S.
Died	August 18, 1940(1940-08-18) (aged 65) Kings Point, New York, U.S.
Cause of death	Cerebral hemorrhage
Resting place	Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
Residence	Forker House, Kings Point, Long Island, New York
Alma mater	International Correspondence Schools in Scranton PA (presently Penn Foster Education)
Occupation	Machinist, manager, entrepreneur
Known for	Founding Chrysler Corporation
Board member of	Chrysler Corporation
Spouse(s)	Della Viola Forker (died 1938 at age 58)
Children	1) Thelma Irene (1902-1957) 2) Bernice Chrysler (1906-1979) 3) Walter Percy Jr. (1909-1988) 4) Jack Forker Chrysler (1912-1958)
Parent(s)	Henry (Hank) Chrysler Anna Maria Chrysler

Walter Percy Chrysler (April 2, 1875 – August 18, 1940) was an American automotive industry executive and founder of Chrysler Corporation, now a part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.

Chrysler was born in Wamego, Kansas, the son of Anna Maria (née Breymann) and Henry Chrysler. He grew up in Ellis, Kansas, where today his boyhood home is a museum. His father was born in Chatham, Ontario in 1850 and immigrated to the United States after 1858. A Freemason, Chrysler began his career as a machinist and railroad mechanic in Ellis. He took correspondence courses from International Correspondence Schools in Scranton, Pennsylvania, earning a mechanical degree from the correspondence program.

Walter Chrysler's father, Henry (Hank) Chrysler, was a Canadian-American of German and Dutch ancestry. He was an American Civil War veteran who was a locomotive engineer for the Kansas Pacific Railway and its successor, the Union Pacific Railroad. Walter's mother was born in Rocheport, Missouri, and was also of German ancestry. Walter Chrysler was not especially interested in his remote ancestors; his collaborative author Boyden Sparkes says that one genealogical researcher reported "that he had a sea-going Dutchman among his forebears; one Captain Jan Gerritsen Van Dalsen", but that "as to that, Walter Chrysler made it plain to me he was in accord with Jimmy Durante: 'Ancestors? I got millions of 'em!'." However, he thought enough of genealogy to include in his autobiography that his father, Hank Chrysler, "Canadian born, had been brought from Chatham, Ontario, to Kansas City when he was only five or six. His forebears had founded Chatham; the family stock was German; eight generations back of me there had come to America one who spelled his name Greisler, a German Palatine. He was one of a group of Protestants who had left their German homeland in the Rhine Valley, gone to the Netherlands, thence to England and embarked, finally, from Plymouth for New York."