Rising from a blacksmith’s apprentice to become king of the roller bearing, Henry Timken was one of the 19th century’s greatest inventors.
His early engineering of axles, springs, and ball bearings for horse-drawn carriages made him rich. But his 1898 patent of a tapered roller bearing revolutionized transportation and made the German immigrant and his family uber rich.
In 1887, with his greatest invention still ahead of him, Timken retired to San Diego with his wife, Fredericka, and four of their five children. All would become wealthy from his patents and lead lives that often cast them in the nation’s headlines.
The three daughters made their niche in the art world.
Amelia founded the San Diego Museum of Art and resuscitated the symphony. Georgia studied art in Paris and St. Louis and married her art teacher. Eight of her paintings hang in the National Gallery of Art.
Cora became an ardent painter and a major collector of art from Persia, China, and India. The Metropolitan Museum of Art lists 133 objects from her. At age 47 she married an osteopathic doctor-scientist 15 years younger who was obsessed with the idea of curing illnesses through electromagnetism.
The sons, H.H. and W.R., took turns running the Timken empire and expanding it globally. H.H. became one of the wealthiest men in America.
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