Parallel Dynasty Endings

[BobPalma]

Those of you who are also members of Packard Automobile Classics will want to take note of the October 2010 passing of Warren Packard III chronicled inside the front cover of the new (just received this week) Issue #141 of the club's Packard Cormorant quarterly magazine.

Upon reading of Warren Packard III's passing, I couldn't help but reflect on an identical situation that exists for the five South Bend Studebaker brothers responsible for the vehicles we know and love.

You see, Warren Packard III was the sole surviving member of the esteemed auto-making family to bear that name. Born in 1926, Warren III was the only grandson of W. D. Packard, co-founder of The Packard Motor Car Company. Warren III's great Uncle, James Ward Packard, was the other founding Packard.

With Warren III's passing, there are no living, direct male descendants of The Packard Motor Car Company's founding brothers.

The same has long been true of the five Studebaker Brothers of South Bend. I just confirmed with Dick Quinn, and it is our understanding that there are no direct, living male descendants of any of the five Studebaker brothers that founded what would become The Studebaker Corporation, whose products we enjoy.

Hmmm....'much as we admire and treasure the products of the companies they founded, maybe some of these guys spent a little too much time at the office! <GGG> BP

[barnlark]

They just didn't have test tubes to fix that problem like they do now, Bob! You can spend time away from the office all day long and still only make girls by the dozen. <G> Just not good for carrying on the family name. Yours are on TV, Bob, carrying on the Palma name just fine! Doesn't have to say Packard or Studebaker in our name to carry on history. The SDC has done more for the Studebaker name in the last 50 years than any family member.

[BobPalma]

They just didn't have test tubes to fix that problem like they do now, Bob! You can spend time away from the office all day long and still only make girls by the dozen. <G> Just not good for carrying on the family name. Yours are on TV, Bob, carrying on the Palma name just fine! Doesn't have to say Packard or Studebaker in our name to carry on history. The SDC has done more for the Studebaker name in the last 50 years than any family member.

I'm not much of a geneology buff, Dave, but the parallel struck me when I read of Warren III's passing.

It just seems so unusual; here you had seven men between the Packard and Studebaker brothers, yet not one issue to carry either name forward 100 years later; not even one. 'Just an oddity I found curious. BP

[barnlark]

I thought the same thing as I read the local article of his death in the Warren Tribune a while back. I always thought he was named after the city, but it was a family name. The likelihood of all of those family members not having direct male descendants now is very strange, indeed. Do we know how far removed, perhaps as cousins, any males with the Studebaker name may be?

[studegary]

I am in a similar situation. My paternal grandfather had five children that survived to adulthood. Four of them had one to four children. I am the only male Lindstrom of the next generation, therefore the remaining Lindstrom of this family.

[dictator27]

Similar situation with me. My dad had seven siblings, four brothers and three sisters. I'm it, no siblings myself, and no cousins at all on my dad's side. I have one son. Hopefully he will carry on the name. There is a fellow in Australia who has researched the family name. His best guess is there are between 1000 and 1500 people with the Godkin name worldwide. Not a lot.

Terry