John Dabney Murchison, Sr.

on the right in profile photo

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John D. Murchison Sr., the eldest son of Clint Sr., attended Hotchkiss and then Yale, leaving school the day after Pearl Harbor to enlist. He became a fighter pilot, flying more than 50 missions over the skies of China, North Africa and Italy.

After World War II, John Sr. followed in his father’s footsteps and began his career as a banker. John Sr. spent the early 1950s under the guidance of his father buying insurance companies and banks. For John Sr., Texas was no longer big enough. Adding to Atlantic Life, a $71 million insurer Clint Sr. had acquired in 1941, John acquired Lamar Life of Mississippi, then Life and Casualty Insurance of Tennessee. John Sr. spearheaded the winning of the largest proxy fight in United States history at that time over control of Alleghany Corporation, which controlled over $5 billion in assets, including IDS, a large Minnesota based insurance company, and the New York Central Railroad, the largest railroad in the United States.

• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Apr 11 2016, 19:14:28 UTC