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1903 – 1989
What became of it: The largest personal estate figure in Mishawaka's published record belongs to Susie Beiger, and it survives because she willed the fortune to the house it had built. The mansion's own history states it whole: "She willed $210,000 of her $1.55 million dollar estate to a fund for the maintenance of the home and its furnishings." The South Bend Tribune's account of the same will, published in 2006 when the trust was litigated, gives the figures a half-step lower — an estate of $1.5 million, of which she "designated $200,000" for the trust. Both statements are carried; the record does not reconcile the roundings, and the pair — $1.55 million and $210,000 in the house's own account, $1.5 million and $200,000 in the newspaper's — is the priced size of the Beiger fortune at its end. Susie Beiger lived in the mansion from 1909 until her death in 1927, aged sixty-seven, and filled it with what she and Martin had bought on their travels — Europe, the Holy Land, the Far East, in the mansion account's itinerary.
The bequest at work: Under her will the mansion opened on 1 February 1930 as the Beiger Home for the Elderly — a home, in the Tribune's words, "for needy women" — hosted over one hundred women in its time, and operated until 1967, when, the mansion's account says, its operation was no longer financially viable. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, burned on 20 January 1975, and was restored, in its reference account's words, "though not to its former grandeur." The trust outlasted the home's use: in 2006 the mansion's inn owner sued for the trust money, and the Tribune's account has the president of the Beiger Heritage Corporation — the preservation body that holds the fortune's institutional remnant, and which also holds protective easements on the old Carnegie library across town — warning that the suit could take away all its income. In 1989 Beiger Heritage sold the completely furnished mansion to Ron Montandon for $350,000, a published price that stands in the record beside the others: $100,000 to build, a $1.55 million estate to endow it, $350,000 to buy it furnished eighty-six years after construction began. The mansion stands today as an inn and event venue. The childless fortune's descent is thus documented at every step — mill, mansion, trust, home for the elderly, preservation corporation — and it is the only Mishawaka fortune of its era for which that can be said.
Sources:
- The Beiger Mansion, published history — Susie's residence 1909–1927 and her death aged sixty-seven; the $210,000 willed from her $1.55 million estate; the Beiger Home for the Elderly opened 1 February 1930, over 100 women hosted, operation ceasing in 1967.
- South Bend Tribune (2006), "Beiger Mansion Inn owner sues for trust money," as carried in the ProQuest newspaper record — the estate stated at $1.5 million and $200,000 designated for the trust; the home's operation 1930–1967; the 1989 sale of the furnished mansion to Ron Montandon for $350,000; the Beiger Heritage presidency's statement on the suit.
- Beiger Mansion reference account (Wikipedia / NRHP 73000042) — the 1973 listing and the fire of 20 January 1975.
- Libraries file of this build — the Beiger Heritage Corporation's protective easements on the Old Mishawaka Carnegie Library.