Mr. Painter followed in his father’s footsteps as a banker, and became the head of the Union Trust Company, the largest bank in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1907, he went on his first safari in Arusha, German East Africa (now Tanzania), and subsequently returned to the region 30 times to explore its natural habitats (including a safari with U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt), and to invest in the region. Notably, he developed an 11,000-acre coffee plantation, a coffee research institute, a post office, hotels, hospital, church, and other infrastructure around Arusha. His keen interest in the natural world was reflected on the grounds of his Cleveland mansion, which housed mementos from his time in Africa, as well as a zoo, two aviaries, a deer park, and stables. Two years after he died, the widowed Mrs. Painter sold the home and grounds to the Ursuline nuns for use as a girls’ school, a function it continues to serve to this day as the Beaumont School, which fulfilled a wish of her own and her late mother-in-law’s to support women’s education.
