Sophie Opel

Sophie Opel (1840 to 1913), born Sophie Marie Scheller in Dornholzhausen in Hesse and known as Mother Opel, was a German industrialist whose capital and management helped turn the Opel firm from a maker of sewing machines and bicycles into an automobile manufacturer. She married Adam Opel in 1868, and in 1869 she invested her share of a lottery win by her father in her husband's works at Rüsselsheim, which paid for a new steam engine. After Adam Opel died in 1895 she became the largest shareholder and, with two of her sons, developed the company into a leading European car maker, by which time it already employed more than a thousand people. She and Adam had five sons, and she died in 1913 and was buried in Rüsselsheim am Main.