Lucien Bonaparte Price

One of five sons of a Welsh immigrant, Lucien worked on his father's farm in Iowa until the age of 26, when he started working in Des Moines for a mercantile owner. In 1889, he moved to Topeka, Kansas and started his own mercantile business. The L.B. Price Mercantile Company, incorporated 1898, became a major midwestern retail firm, uniquely selling household goods on payment plans through traveling salesmen. Lucien became a millionaire and a philanthropist, deeply involved in the Rotary Club and co-founding the Boys' Club of America. He was a Methodist and loved flowers, which were abundant on his Greenwich Estate. His personal life was less illustrious. After his first wife died, he gave their only child to his sister and provided no support through her childhood. He divorced his second wife after starting an affair with Katherine Fallis, who became his third wife. After his death at age 70, Katherine gave most of his money to the Catholic Church.