259. The Big Four | Margaret “Peg” Carry

Done & Dunne

Hemlock Creatives

History, True Crime

4.7 • 629 Ratings

🗓️ 22 September 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In a departure from Newport this week, we are taking a detour to Lake Forest, Illinois to discover The Big Four. The Big Four was a Girl Gang unlike any other. These daughters of privilege are Margaret Carry, Courtney Letts, Edith Cummings, and Ginevra King, and each has her own special story. Today, we explore the origins of this quartet of lifelong female friendship as well as the life of Margaret “Peg” Carry, daughter of the onetime president of the Pullman Company. Peg’s life was fairly conventional, but the kidnapping of her husband (Edward A. Cudahy) as a child is the real showstopper. This case, including the manhunt and criminal trail set American precedent long before the days where child kidnapping of rich men became popular. Annual subscriptions now available on Patreon – Save 20%! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Dun & Dunn. I'm Alicia, your hostess on this podcast journey, All Things Dominic Dunn, where it all connects and the pieces are always falling into place. Thank you for joining me today in a bit of a departure this week from Newport Road Island. Newport has kidnapped your favorite podcaster here, and the more I
0:22.7	find out, the more there is to tell you. Next week here on the main feed, we are coming back with
0:29.2	Land's End and all those spider webs and more, but today I want to deliver something a little
0:36.7	amazing to you in the tale of four spiderwebs this week.
0:41.9	We're going to have some fun today and this week with girl gangs.
0:46.6	We mentioned back in an early Wallace Duchess of Windsor episode, a particular girl gang called The Big Four, a quartet of
0:56.8	Lake Forest debutants. The stories of these four ladies in the Big Four are incredible.
1:03.9	It is a whole ride of female friendship, high society, political connections, kidnapping, marriages, divorces, so much golf,
1:15.5	and F. Scott Fitzgerald too. So much F. Scott Fitzgerald. I am a raving fan of his wife, Zelda,
1:24.4	but it is F. Scott Fitzgerald's birthday this week and for my Fitzgerald folks and my
1:30.5	great Gatsby people too, y'all are really going to like this series. It is everything you like.
1:37.8	These big four episodes originally released on the highest tier of our done-and-done Patreon back in the summer,
1:45.8	and it is my delight to share them with you this week.
1:50.0	It seemed like an ideal time, as on Trashy Royals just last week,
1:55.9	we aired another follow-up from the Wallace Duchess of Windsor series.
2:04.2	Check out Trashy Royals for the life and the mysterious murder of Sir Harry Oaks. My true crimers out there might want to turn into
2:11.1	that unsolved mystery with a huge Duke of Windsor attachment. It's super shady. Y'all will like that too. Here today, though,
2:20.8	and kicking off this week here on Dun & Dun, I really think you're going to like the story of the
2:25.7	big four. We're going to begin here in this episode with the origin of the big four, a little bit
2:32.3	about their meet cute and follow through, as well as the story of our
2:37.3	first Big Four gal.
2:39.9	Margaret goes by Peg, Carrie Cudahey, the youngest of the Big Four Girl Gang, and fairly
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