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1926 – 2006
The fortune: Jordan H. Kapson started in the car business in 1946 selling Nash Ramblers and in 1949 took the Jefferson Boulevard corner — 609 East Jefferson, first listed that year as Ben Medow's Mishawaka Dodge-Plymouth store, with Medow retained as the young firm's vice-president — that his house held for sixty-seven years. The stores' whole course stands in the Dealerships file: Jordan Motors to Jordan Ford City (by 1963), the Toyota and Volvo and Scion points added, the Jordan Automotive Group's sale to RFJ Auto Partners in 2016 under his son Craig Kapson, and the Ford point's passage to Sonic Automotive in 2021. No published figure prices Kapson's personal estate, and the 2016 sale of the group was announced without a price in the sources consulted; the fortune's documented size is, as with the Eberharts, its acts. One caution the record itself requires: the Jordan of this entry is Jordan H. Kapson of Mishawaka, whose stores carry his first name. He is not John W. "Jay" Jordan II of Chicago, the Jordan Company founder whose nine-figure giving to Notre Dame fills that university's releases; the two men's records share a surname and a beneficiary and nothing else, and they are not merged here.
The gift: In October 2000 the University of Notre Dame announced, in its own release's words, that it "has received a gift of $1 million from Jordan H. Kapson, chairman of the board of The Jordan Automotive Group of Mishawaka, Ind., to establish an endowed professorship in Jewish studies." The Jordan H. Kapson Chair in Jewish Studies was the result; the South Bend Tribune's account names its first holder, Hindy Najman, assistant professor of theology, on the faculty since 1998. It remains the largest single published gift by a Mishawaka fortune to any institution in the record reached — a dealer's million, given in his own name, in his lifetime. The trade press's memorial notice adds the second named endowment at summary strength: he "created the Jordan Kapson Chair of Jewish Studies at the University of Notre Dame, as well as the Bette Kapson Sanctuary Fund at Temple Beth-El in South Bend," the sanctuary fund carrying his wife's name. Kapson died in March 2006 — the memorial, dated 7 March 2006, says he "passed away in his sleep at his home, apparently from a heart attack." His age is printed two ways and both stand: the Dealerships file carries his dates as 1926–2006 on its sources, while the memorial calls him 82, which would put his birth in 1923 or 1924. The division is the record's and is not reconciled here.
Sources:
- University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame News, 8 October 2000 — the $1 million gift of Jordan H. Kapson, chairman of the board of The Jordan Automotive Group of Mishawaka, for an endowed professorship in Jewish studies (read first-hand).
- South Bend Tribune (2000), "N.D. gift to establish Jewish studies chair," as carried in the ProQuest newspaper record — the chair's first holder, Hindy Najman.
- Automotive Fleet, "In Memoriam: Jordan Kapson – 1926-2006," 7 March 2006 — the death in his sleep at home; the age stated as 82; the 1946 Nash start; the Kapson Chair and the Bette Kapson Sanctuary Fund at Temple Beth-El.
- Dealerships file of this build — the 1949 corner and Medow succession; the house's course to the 2016 RFJ sale under Craig Kapson and the 2021 Sonic closing; the founder's dates as 1926–2006.