Indiana University would be a very different place without the generosity of donors like Jesse and Beulah Cox. Today they remain responsible for the largest gift IU has ever received by an individual: $92 million.
Their legacy rests on a foundation of unshakable values: hard work, perseverance, and generosity. It lives on thanks to continued support from generous Cox alumni and friends.
The story of Jesse and Beulah Cox begins in high school, where the two met and became sweethearts. The Great Depression was in full swing by the time they graduated. Work was hard to find. They couldn’t afford to marry.
But Jesse was familiar with hard times long before the economy crashed. He was only four when his family returned home to Indiana after a failed expedition to the West. His mother passed away soon after. He grew up living and working on his grandparents’ farm.
I look back at those days on the farm without electricity, as being introduced to hard work.
Jesse Cox
After high school graduation, Jesse worked hard and saved in order to attend night school. He knew if he continued to invest in his own success, and he approached people with confidence and sincerity, it would pay off.
Eventually he moved to Bloomington, and this is where his entrepreneurial spirit took flight. He started his first business.
Though he faced multiple failures in those earlier days, he achieved even greater successes. By 1939, not only had he earned enough money from his own business to enroll at IU, but he was also able to marry his love, Beulah.
Over the years his business holdings continued to expand and he turned his eye toward philanthropy. His generosity allowed for the creation of the Jesse H. and Beulah Chanley Cox Arboretum and Pavilion in the heart of the Indiana University Bloomington campus. In addition, he and Beulah gave the largest single gift ever received at IU, which established the Jesse H. and Beulah Chanley Cox Scholarship endowment for Indiana's hardest working students.
Jesse Cox’s experiences in life, especially working his way through college, led him to believe that it takes special determination, special drive, and special ambition, to realize the dream of a college education.
Indiana University Foundation President Emeritus Curt Simic
Description of the following video:
[Video: Curt Simic stands in front of the camera with a dark screen behind him.] Curt Simic: Hello. I'm Curt Simic, president of the Indiana University Foundation. Over the years many students have benefited from the kindness of people like Jesse Cox. Indeed, this university would be a very different place without the generosity of its alumni. While people such as Jesse do not seek the spotlight for themselves, we feel that it's important for students to know something about their benefactors. To that end we produced this video to give a brief glimpse into the life of one very special man, Jesse Cox [Video: Historical, black and white photos of Jesse Cox appear on the screen and then fade away.] [Video: A photo of Jesse in his mid 50s appears on the screen.] Narrator Voice Over: This is a man who has made remarkable achievements by setting high expectations, working hard, and having confidence in his ability to reach his goals. His name is Jesse Cox. [Video: A historical photo of Jesse as a toddler appears on the screen.] Narrator Voice Over: Jesse cox was born in 1918 on a hardscrabble homestead in Utah near the Colorado/Utah line. His family was originally from Indiana and had gone west because of the promise of cheap land. But they found that though the land was cheap, opportunities were limited and they soon returned to Indiana. [Video: A historical photo of Jesse as a young boy appears on the screen.] Narrator Voice Over: Soon after the family returned, Jesse's mother died and young Jesse often lived with his grandparents, working on their farm. [Video: Jesse Cox, in his eighties, sits on a bench on the IU Campus, and speaks to an interviewer, who’s not seen on camera.] Jesse Cox speaks: I look back at those days on the farm without electricity as being introduced to hard work and the fact that you had to do everything right. Now everybody says, well, if there's one special characteristic—it’s confidence. And after years of looking back on all of the things I've done in the successes I've enjoyed, I believe confidence is something that you maybe aren't born with. If there's a lesson to be learned here today for any future student or any future young man, it would be the way to build confidence is to do everything you can the very best you can do it and pretty soon you're going to expect success. Just everything that you do. I don't care if it's just you have to go out and shell three bushels of corn. You pick up every kernel off the ground and you do a good job and you have success. And those build until you build your own confidence. You just feel sure that once you made the decision to do something, you’ve got confidence in its outcome. [Video: A historical image and Jesse in his twenties and another young man appear on the screen.] Narrator Voice Over: Eventually Jesse's family moved to Indianapolis and he began to attend the schools there. Yet, according to his own account, he didn't place a great deal of value on his early schooling. In high school he met Beulah Chanley. [Video: A framed image of a young, teenage Beulah appears on the screen.] Narrator Voice Over: Together they set their sights on marriage but first had to find a way to support themselves. [Video: Jesse Cox, in his eighties, sits on a bench on the IU Campus, and speaks to his interviewer, not seen.] Jesse Cox speaks: So, oh, one thing led to another. We were frustrated of course. We had the same drives of every teenager, of every 19- and 20-year-old couple has. And so I thought well, look, I've got to do something. And I went to Butler night school. I had a job as a—I'd gone to business college part-time and learned how to type and do a few things that qualified me for office work so I went to Butler night school saved every penny I could save and I think I maybe I had three hundred dollars saved and decided I'd come to Bloomington. [Video: A black and white image of an old Ford Model A appears on the screen.] Narrator Voice Over: While at IU he began to engage his entrepreneurial spirit. He purchased a couple of old Model A Fords and set up, at least temporarily, his own bus line. That’s where this confidence comes in. [Video: Jesse Cox, in his eighties, sits on a bench on the IU Campus, and continues being interviewed.] Jesse Cox Speaks: I was a good mechanic of course, especially on old cars [chuckles] because that's all we ever owned—was a Model A Ford, but I started a bus line and put signs all over the campus. A little round trip: leave Friday night, come back Sunday afternoon from the circle in Naptown—a dollar and a half. And I had one student that lived in the house with me and he says, I'll Drive one of your buses if you just let me use it over the weekend. So he drove it up over the weekend, I drove the other one, and we’d leave there Friday afternoon—and it was fine, until I got a call [chuckles] from I guess the dean of men, and he says, Are you the young guy with the signs all over the campus for the roundtrip ticket? And he says well we've got a complaint. And so he called me in and he said you know these are public conveyances, and he went through a whole list of inspections and licenses and tests. Well one of my Model A’s didn’t even have a front bumper on it! [Chuckles.] So I listened to his list a while, he says, You got to have so much liability insurance. Well I didn't even hardly know what it meant so I went around that afternoon, took down all my signs, sold my extra Model A Ford and kept the best one! [chuckles] And that was the end of that! [Video: An old advertisement for a mimeograph machine appear on the screen.] Narrator Voice Over: But it wasn't the end of his college enterprises. He purchased a mimeograph machine and was soon cranking out newsletters and handbills. [Video: Cuts to a close up shot of Jesse talking on the bench.] Jesse Cox Speaks: I sold handbills and things to all the stores on the square at Greencastle. Got a, got a little contract to print what they call the Coridoor. That was a publication put out by the men's dorms and they would circulate that to all of the dorms, the women's and men's… But I know working hard and doing everything the very best you can do it, from the age of six on, and you're going to find out that things just turn out for you. Well you take a stream of that kind of success… it's just like when I came to Bloomington. I never hesitated to take my last thirty dollars and buy a second [inaudible] machine because I just didn't have any doubts that I would get work for that machine. And just…reams of paper [inaudible] and I became a regular business man. I'd pick up 4 and 5 reams of this kind of paper and so forth and I was in business actually. So, but you get that, you get that, and you get it from building it in yourself. [Video: A framed portrait of Jesse and Beulah in their early days of marriage appears on the screen.] Narrator Voice Over: In 1939, Jesse and Beulah married. After graduating from IU, Jesse Cox continued to put trust in himself and worked at several jobs while in the service during the war years and then following the war made a decision to invest in a business of his own. [Video: An old image of Jesse and Beulah sitting in front of a house on a porch appears. Jesse had his arms around Beulah.] [Video: Jesse Cox, in his eighties, sits on a bench on the IU Campus, and continues being interviewed.] Jesse Cox Speaks: There was a guy running an ad in the Indianapolis Star, Patterson Shade Company, and he, primarily, his business was manufacturing venetian blinds. But he was the only one in town that I knew of, especially the only one that advertised. And he always ran ads that said, “Patterson blinds are worth waiting for.” I go, well, now I can stop the waiting [laughs]. And I looked into the product, and saw how I would make it, and investigated the machinery that was available for manufacturing: a metal slat blind in the head rail and punch machines and so forth and well, we went to Chicago on an exploratory trip and I called on a few people and look, even then, at the age of 28, people believed me, and I think that comes from this… I know, just, you exude confidence and people are willing to do, or help you do, what you say you're going to do. Now that's sincerity. But you got it—when you do when you exude sincerity—you gotta be sincere. And if you can’t, in fact, your conscious will kill you if you if you don’t do it. [Video: Walter L. Koon Jr, CFA, CFP, appears on screen with a red curtain behind him. He’s talking about Jesse.] Walter Speaks: Mr. Cox’s work ethic was developed I think from his earliest age and his earliest years on the farm. Coming from a farming background. He never lost that farming ethic. He always has an interest in what's going on around the farm and I think that developed his business commitment and his desire to persist and continue to strive to make the best and do the best he could possibly do in anything he did. [Video: A black and white photo of Jesse in his thirties appears on the screen.] Narrator Voice Over: Over the years Jesse Cox's business holdings continue to expand and he turned his eye toward philanthropy, making donations to numerous organizations including Indiana University. His generosity created the Pavilion on the Arboretum as well as the Jesse and Beulah Cox Scholarship endowment for students working their way through college. [Video: An image of the Indiana University Pavilion appears on the screen. This fades and then an image of Jesse, in his 50s, appears. He’s standing in front of his estate.] Narrator Voice Over: In addition, Jesse and Beulah bequeathed their 125-acre estate to Carmel Clay Parks and Recreation to become Cox Hall Parks and Garden. The estate includes a historic Indiana farmhouse and a replica of the Williamsburg Virginia governor's mansion. [Video: Al Patterson, from Carmel Clay Parks & Recreation, appears on the screen.] Al Speaks: At the press conference we announced the acquisition of the property he said several times since: You're not known for what you do when you're here, you're known for what you leave behind when you're gone. [Video: Jesse Cox, in his eighties, sits on a bench on the IU Campus, and continues being interviewed.] Jesse Cox Speaks: There's great happiness by being able to share it. And I can't, I can't emphasize that too much. But that’s what it’s for. [Video: The black and white image of Jesse in his thirties reappaears on the screen.] Narrator Voice Over: Through his career, Jesse Cox has remained convinced of the value of education. It is one constant that has helped guide his course through the years along with a belief in the positive spirit of people. [Video: Jesse Cox, in his eighties, sits on a bench on the IU Campus, and continues being interviewed.] Jesse Cox Speaks: Change is absolutely inexhaustible. That you will live with new things every month every year of your life and I don't expect it to stop when I die. I'm positive it's going on. There's one thing though that everybody should know and that is the one thing it doesn't change, or if it does change it changes with glacial speed, human nature. Human nature… But nevertheless, getting back to the question, there's a great happiness… A happiness level, a level that most people hardly ever reach probably, and I've been that happy ever since damn near I graduated from college. It’s just, it's just one of those rare things—and I think it adds to your success—you expect success and it happens. –But, but I found out later that you had to have a backup [chuckles]. You didn't go, you didn't go without the training. So accumulated knowledge is the greatest power on earth. And when you have all those students and all they're doing is studying, that wisdom has been distilled and brought down to a textbook, and if they don't believe, well I guarantee you that their success—their understanding of life—it'll be one of their greatest treasures. [Video: Historical, back and white photos that show different parts of Jesse and Beulah’s life flash across the screen.] Narrator Voice Over: All in all Jesse, Cox has found that the value of hard work and diligence bring about confidence in oneself, a confidence that is nurtured and strengthened through the pursuit of knowledge. Jesse Cox Voice Over: accumulated knowledge is the greatest key to a future of happiness. [Video: Ends.]