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Ernestine Raclin and the Murphy Family: The Fortune in Its Third Generation
The fortune: Morris's daughter Ernestine Morris Raclin (d. 13 July 2023, aged ninety-five) carried the banking fortune into its philanthropic generation: chairman, then chair emerita, of 1st Source Corporation and 1st Source Bank; one of the first women elected to Notre Dame's Board of Trustees, in 1976. No total for her estate has been published in the obituary and university notices consulted, and none is stated here. What is published is the giving, and it is sized: in 2011 Ernestine Raclin, the Carmichael Foundation, and her family gave $15,000,000 to fund the renovation and expansion of her parents' Morris Inn (Notre Dame, 2011) — the renovation itself cost more than $30,000,000, a project cost, not a gift; in 2017 she joined her daughter Carmen and son-in-law Christopher Murphy as lead donors to the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art at Notre Dame, a $66,000,000 building whose lead-gift amount the university has not published; and her estate's documented largest single bequest is $10,300,000 to Converse University in South Carolina — the largest legacy gift in that university's history (Converse University, 2023) — a South Bend fortune's estate reaching, in the end, well beyond South Bend.
The living generation: Christopher J. Murphy III, her son-in-law, is chairman of 1st Source Corporation and 1st Source Bank, and his published record is a record of roles and gifts, which is all that is printed here: with his wife Carmi he was co-lead donor of the Raclin Murphy Museum (amount unpublished, above), and the Indiana Bankers Association's 2025 award citation sizes the bank he and his father-in-law's investors bought back and built — from $220,000,000 in total assets and nine banking centers to $9,000,000,000 and seventy-eight locations across his fifty-two years in its leadership. Those are the bank's figures, not a personal fortune; a business-magazine profile gives a different starting point ("a little over $100,000,000" when bought back, grown to $8,000,000,000), and both are carried as what they are — published accounts of an institution's growth at different dates. No publication consulted prints an estimate of Murphy's personal net worth, and none appears here.
Sources:
- NDWorks / University of Notre Dame, "In memoriam: Ernestine Raclin," 14 July 2023 — her death, roles, trusteeship of 1976; Palmer Funeral Homes obituary.
- University of Notre Dame, 26 October 2011 — the $15,000,000 Raclin / Carmichael Foundation / family gift for the Morris Inn; Notre Dame News, 5 September 2013 — the renovation's cost above $30,000,000.
- Notre Dame News, 8 December 2017 — the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art lead gift (amount unpublished); the $66,000,000 project.
- Converse University release, 29 November 2023 — the $10,300,000 estate gift, the largest legacy in Converse's history.
- Indiana Bankers Association, 8 September 2025 — Murphy's chairmanship, the bank's growth from $220,000,000 to $9,000,000,000 of assets in his tenure; The CEO Magazine, 4 June 2023 — the "a little over $100,000,000" starting point.