Morbid Fact Du Jour For April 26, 2009
Today’s Litigious Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Will Keith Kellogg built a corporate empire with Kellogg’s cereals. When none of his children turned out to be worthy successors, he focused on John L. Kellogg, Jr., his grandson. Will Keith adored his grandson, followed his Cub Scout career, and from as early as the age of 14, groomed him to take over the company. John Jr. worked in the company lab on a project to puff corn, just as Kellogg’s had already puffed rice to create the popular Rice Krispies. When the research work started to show promise, John Jr. tried to sell the corn puffing process to his grandfather, who deeply resented the young man trying to hawk something to him that was developed in a company lab on company time. John Jr. quit in a rage and started his own company, Nu-Korn, to try to market cheese-covered corn puffs. His business faltered the following year and then he tried to sell the puffing process to archrival General Mills in 1937. In yet another legal round for the Kelloggs, grandpa sued grandson, who was then 26 years old and newly married, with his wife expecting their first child. During the litigation, John Jr. – squeezed by mounting bills – committed suicide by “swallowing a shot gun,” as a former company exec put it. Whatever his motive or his guilt, Will Keith Kellogg at his death in 1951 left almost all his money to the nonprofit Kellogg Foundation, which helps children worldwide. Soon after Will Keith’s death, the company finally introduced Kellogg’s Corn Pops.
Culled from: An Underground Education
Incidentally, do you remember when they were called Sugar Corn Pops, in a more honest time? I do…
Yes! In fact, I lost my first baby tooth biting into a Sugar Pop.
@ bun.
I am glad to hear about your baby tooth. As for myself, I almost chocked on one… I became blueish and my Mother smacked me to dislodge the offending ‘Pop’. Since that happened, I deplore the cereal.