Named in 1907 after Clara Agnes Cudahy (1871-1938), the third of meatpacking magnate Michael Cudahy‘s seven children. The youngest three were all boys, none of whom got namesake streets in Cudahy, but Clara’s sisters Elizabeth, Cecelia, and Mary all did. Mary Street was later absorbed by Live Oak Street, but you can’t talk about Mary Teresa Cudahy (1869-1957) without talking about Clara, as the two were lifelong companions: neither ever married and they lived and traveled together until Clara’s death. Both were born in Milwaukee and came of age in Chicago. Through the years, they would have additional homes in Lake Forest, IL, New York City, Santa Barbara, and finally Montecito, where in 1937 – with their older sister Elizabeth – they bankrolled Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church, which still stands. Black sheep postscript: Youngest brother John “Handsome Jack” Cudahy (1876-1921) lived a spectacularly troubled life, which included slashing the face of his wife’s suspected lover in 1910, divorcing and then remarrying said wife, and finally killing himself in Hollywood when Clara wouldn’t endorse a $10,000 loan he was desperate to obtain.
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