Frederick Howard Chapin (1875–1958) combined hard work with a love of life and community. Born on an Iowa farm, he began work at age 11. He studied chemistry, physics, engineering and metallurgy at the University of Minnesota, then worked as a troubleshooter for a ceramics company in St. Louis, learning to diagnose industrial ills. He would put this talent to use at Cleveland’s National Acme Company, a major maker of machine tools, becoming president in 1926 and increasing business by 300 percent. That number soared to 1,100 percent after the outbreak of WWII. He continued as president until age 82, also serving on the boards of other companies and as president of the A. M. McGregor Home and Holden Arboretum.

A 1944 profile of Chapin in the Plain Dealer labeled him a “hopeless romanticist,” a lover of all things French—including Helen LaRue, the Minnesota-born woman of French heritage whom he married in 1899. In 1915, he designed a Normandy-style weekend chalet on the Chagrin River in Kirtland Hills, building much of its furniture in his own woodworking shop (and losing a left finger in the process). Thirty-four years later, Chapin donated 390 nearby wooded acres with ancient rocky outcroppings to the State of Ohio. Today, Lake Metroparks manages the Chapin Forest Reservation. Chapin died in 1958, two months after the death of his wife. He left substantially all of his $2 million-plus estate to the Cleveland Foundation to be used for the general good of the community without restriction.