Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

“This marriage, consummated under false pretenses, fused the lives of two highly dissimilar personalities, setting the stage for all the future heartache, marital discord, and chronic instability that would so powerfully mold the contradictory personality of John D. Rockefeller.”

The 1837 marriage of William Avery Rockefeller to Eliza Davison “fused […] two highly dissimilar personalities,” and the fusion, according to Chernow, is most evident in their son, John D. Rockefeller. From his father, Rockefeller inherited a love of money and a capacity for deception in pursuit of his selfish interests. From his mother, Rockefeller learned Christian piety, generosity, and patience.

“Two words leap from the story—widowed mother. It seems of some psychological significance that the first recorded instance of Rockefeller’s capacity to lie came in an effort to hush up his father’s existence—in fact, to bury him alive.”

In 1854, Rockefeller enlisted the help of his school principal, Dr. White, in securing a home for his “widowed mother” and two sisters. Bill, of course, was still alive, but by this point he was at best a transient figure in 14-year-old John’s life. Unbeknownst to the teenager or his neglected mother Eliza, Bill already had met Margaret Allen of Ontario, Canada, the woman he would shortly marry and thereby commence his half-century-long career as a bigamist. Psychologically, it appears the young Rockefeller was already committing his father to memory.

“This last sentence hinted gingerly at what must have been the main reason behind his failure to serve: his father’s desertion of the family and his own need to sustain it.”

The US Civil War began when Rockefeller was 21 years old, but he did not join the Union Army. Despite his, his family’s, and his future in-laws’ strong anti-slavery convictions, Rockefeller hired a substitute to serve in his place. The “last sentence” to which Chernow refers is Rockefeller’s own explanation for why he did not serve: “We were in a new business, and if I had not stayed it must have stopped—and with so many dependent on it” (69).