Edward Reilly Stettinius, Sr.

Edward Reilly Stettinius (February 15, 1865 – September 3, 1925) was an American executive. He was president of Diamond Match Company in Barberton, Ohio, for a time. After the start of World War I, he worked at J. P. Morgan and Company coordinating the purchase of war supplies for the Allies. When the United States entered the war, he went to work in its War Department.

Biography Stettinius was born in St. Louis, Missouri. His father was a wholesale grocer.

He was educated at St. Louis University. The needs of his family obligated him to drop out of school at age 16, and he went to work for a grocery firm and then a hat and cap firm. He then tried several lines of business on his own account, but was not very successful, and went to work in a banking firm.

By 1891, both his mother and father had died, and he went to the commodity exchange at the Chicago Board of Trade, but did not find that he could satisfactorily predict the price of wheat and left to become treasurer in the Stirling Boiler Company.

After the war, he went back to work for Morgan and Company, devoting his attention to restructuring large companies. Edward is buried in Locust Valley Cemetery, Locust Valley, New York.

Family He married Judith Carrington of Richmond, Virginia. They had four children, among them Stettinius's namesake, Edward Stettinius Jr., who also worked as a business executive, and was Secretary of State for a time. In 1928, Edward's daughter Elizabeth "Betty" married Juan Trippe, founder of Pan Am Airlines.