The Not-So-Secret Life of J.D. Oliver, Jr.

Thanks to the discovery of J.D. Jr.'s briefcase, we know his life was far happier than the old story tells it to be

BY AARON HELMAN // POSTED AUGUST 16, 2025

There's a story well-known and oft-repeated in South Bend history circles about the tragic life of J.D. Oliver, Jr.

Born in 1892, J.D. Jr. seemed destined for greatness. As the heir to the Oliver Chilled Plow Works, he represented the third generation of a family that helped shape South Bend and transform agriculture. Along with the family fortune and the family business, there was the house — Copshaholm — and a name that carried serious weight around these parts.

He was something like local royalty, at least as much as that's possible in a place like South Bend, and he walked the privileged path that had been laid before him since before he was even born. He learned manners and mastered Latin, graduated first from Central High and then from the University of Chicago. Before his 21st birthday, he was elected treasurer of the family company. He became his father's favorite son, groomed to be both a Titan of Industry and a Prince of South Bend.

Things, it would seem, were going exactly according to plan.

In 1917, at the age of 25, he married Ellinor McMillin, a bright and well-connected 19-year-old whose father had served as both a U.S. Congressman and the Governor of Tennessee. It was a marriage that blended wealth with political pedigree — seemingly a perfect match.

But just a year into their marriage, the first wrinkle appeared.

J.D. Jr. was drafted into military service in the final year of World War I. He reported to Camp Meade in September 1918. There, he trained as a private and graduated as a sergeant, preparing to ship out. But luck — or fate — intervened. The war ended with armistice on November 11, before he could be deployed. He was honorably discharged on December 10 after just three months in uniform and made plans to return to South Bend and the life he'd left behind.

Then came the real blow.

Five days before J.D. returned home, Ellinor suffered a devastating injury after being thrown from her horse. He arrived to find his young bride gravely hurt. She would hang on for nearly a year, but the injuries proved too much. She died in September 1919, just 21 years old.

If you believe the legend, that's when the light went out in J.D. Oliver Jr.'s life — and it never truly came back on. In the years that followed, he buried himself in his work. But after the Oliver company eventually dissolved, he had nothing left to distract him.

And so, the story goes, J.D. retreated to the third floor of Copshaholm, living as a recluse for the next five decades until his death on July 6, 1972.

But here's the thing:

That part of the story — the one about the heartbroken hermit — it's not quite true. And that's where things start to get interesting.

I'm sitting at a quiet table at the Francis Branch Library waiting for my friend, Carolyn. She's the one who told me she found J.D. Jr.'s old briefcase. We had agreed to meet at 4:00. It's 3:28, and I'm already here.

I guess I'm excited.

As far as I'm concerned, the briefcase might as well be a treasure chest.

Carolyn is right on time, and she might be more excited than I am. She's excited to show off the contents of the briefcase and she's excited to tell her memories of the man she only knew as "Joe". But most of all she wants to tell me about her great-aunt Laurine.

See, at some point before 1933 — fourteen years after the death of his first wife — J.D. Oliver Jr. struck up a relationship with Laurine Millea of South Bend. They traveled together, enjoyed quiet nights at home in South Bend, and even attended each other's family reunions.

What they didn't do was get married.

At the time of Oliver's death, the Tribune noted that the man's will provided a $2,500 quarterly stipend for Laurine M. Millea — a person the newspaper called “a friend of Oliver's”.

But she was so much more than that, and fortunately, for us, we've got the briefcase to prove it.

The time has come to open the treasure chest. The unremarkable tan leather briefcase is scuffed at the corners, and the brass latches are dulled with age, but when Carolyn clicks them open, the sound is sharp, almost ceremonial.

At first glance, the bounty looks like the sort of family archive you've seen a hundred times before. There are photographs of J.D. standing proudly beside his horses, photographs of J.D. riding his horses, photographs of J.D. simply looking at his horses. They're fine as far as family relics go — but they're not the reason I'm here.

Then Carolyn lifts the photographs aside, and the briefcase gives up its secret.

Stacked beneath the snapshots are letters. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. Each one addressed to Laurine Millea, each one signed by J.D. Oliver Jr. The envelopes alone are enough to spark the imagination: postmarks from New York, Paris, Berlin, Stockholm. Return addresses from hotels that dripped with chandeliers and white-gloved waiters.

I pick one at random. The ink has faded to a soft brown, but the handwriting is steady and sure. Inside, J.D. cannot wait to tell Laurine everything — what he saw, what he felt, where he would be tomorrow, and how soon he could get back to her.

On June 25, 1935, writing from the Hotel Astoria in Brussels, he recounts the sights and the rigors of the journey from Paris. It's an inventory of happenings, a list of events, and hardly poetry, at least until he begins to write of Laurine:

I would be much happier if I could see you and have you again in my arms. Don't forget me and please take care of your dear self. I couldn't have anything happen to my darlingest.

There are so many more envelopes and so many more letters, and the pattern is the same in all of them. An unbelievably prestigious destination. A guest list of foreign dignitaries, major World War II figures before they got famous, titans of industry, a pope. Gorgeous scenery. Luxurious dinners in luxurious hotels.

And then before he signs off, a reminder that what he wishes for most of all is to be back with Laurine.

The briefcase, as it turns out, is not a coffin of memories. It's a love story.

For a supposed hermit, J.D. Jr. was quite the world traveler, bouncing back and forth between the United States and Europe right up until the eve of World War II. Oliver was in Germany in June 1936, and he was in Berlin the day that Hitler appointed Heinrich Himmler Chief of the German Police. A month later, Himmler established the first German concentration camp.

In his letter back home, J.D. Jr. is concerned — but not for the reasons you might expect. Instead, it's because his foot's been bothering him and he's been forced to walk with a cane.

I sometimes wonder if we will ever dance again.

They did dance again. The outbreak of war brought Oliver's travel plans to a halt for the better part of a decade, and it was good for him to take the time to rest and recover and to get healthy again.

After the war ended, there was time for one more global adventure in 1948: New York, Paris, Switzerland, Rome, Monaco, London.

And then, J.D. Oliver Jr. returned to South Bend, more or less for good, the way that all of his letters said that he always wanted to do.

It was some time after that when he just became “Joe”, at least to Carolyn and the bounty of cousins who had occasion to be near Aunt Laurine.

Why didn't they ever get married?

It's hard to say. Maybe there was a problem of religion. Joe was a Protestant. Laurine was so Catholic that when the couple took a weekend in Chicago, she took the train back to South Bend early in order to attend her regular Mass.

Maybe Laurine thought there were too many pressures involved with officially becoming an Oliver and moving into that giant mansion on West Washington Street.

Or maybe they were just happy the way things were.

Laurine wasn't a world traveler the way that Joe was. She didn't go on his monthslong European tours, didn't inadvertently rub shoulders with early Nazis, never spent a night 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

But she wasn't exactly a stick in the mud either.

Laurine and Joe made pilgrimages to New York and Mexico, spent plenty of weekends in Chicago, and could be spotted around South Bend on those rare occasions when they stayed in town, but didn't feel like staying at home.

Carolyn remembers Joe attending family reunions with Laurine on his arm. Her brother Bob remembers it too, although he recalls that Joe was dressed just a little bit nicer than everyone else.

Toward the end of Joe's life, when the traveling and the jet-setting had wound down, the couple preferred evenings and weekends at home — usually at Laurine's house. Maybe the weight of Copshaholm had just become too much for both of them.

Carolyn remembers Joe sitting in a recliner at Aunt Laurine's house. The TV was on. Joe was watching the Bears game. Joe was happy.

Toward the end of Joe's life, the Oliver heir would send a car for Laurine so that she could sit with him. There was no more dancing by then, just the memory of a life lived with love and of a companionship that cast off loneliness.

It was 1972 when Joe died. He'd had a stroke a few years earlier and never really recovered. The obituaries did not mention Laurine, and if his wealth hadn't been so outrageous that the newspaper felt compelled to do a forensic study of his estate plan, the newspaper would have never mentioned his name in connection with Laurine's.

I won't guess why the historical record forgot Laurine or why the history books remember Joe as a lonely and sad man who never recovered from his broken heart.

Laurine Millea passed away in 1990 and her obituary didn't remember Joe either. For a while it might have seemed a love story lost forever. A faraway memory. A rumor. Laurine's younger relatives were left with a story they couldn't prove and that sounded unbelievable.

Your aunt was with J.D. Oliver? Yeah, right.

And then Carolyn's cousins — John and Joe Millea — found the briefcase. The rest, as they say, is history.