Hutheesing family

Several temples and charitable institutions in Ahmedabad have been built or founded by members of this mercantile family.

A couple of years after the adoptions, Bai became pregnant and gave birth to a son, whom they named Umabhai.

After the death of Sheth Hutheesing, his sons carried on the family's trading business and Bai, devoted herself to prayer and charities.

The entire family continued to live together in their palatial residence, the Hutheesing-ni-Vadi, which was a massive haveli (Indian-style mansion-with-courtyards) built by Huteesing just outside the gates of the old walled city of Ahmedabad.

The mansion stood within a large compound, which contained walled gardens, an orchard, mews and small houses for servants and dependents.

Before his death, Hutheesing and Bai had performed the required religious ceremonies and jointly laid the symbolic "first stone" of the temple.

Hutheesing had finalized the layout and plan of the temple and was in the process of arranging finances and engaging craftsmen.

After the death of her husband, as a pious Indian widow, she wore only plain white cotton sarees for the rest of her life, entirely gave up all jewelry and ornamentation, and spent a large portion of her waking hours in prayer.

She constructed and endowed a Dharamshala, or free pilgrims' inn, at Samet Shikhar, a center of Jain pilgrimage located in distant Jharkhand.

She organized and funded pilgrimages for poor Jain families of Ahmedabad to travel to Samet Shikhar.

[5] Her pious charities, good works and personal austerity made her a figure of veneration among the people of Ahmedabad.

The family trade included wooden furniture in association with Lockwood de Forest,[6] which was a rage in the US then, and kundan jewellery to Tiffany's in the US.

But in 1946 Raja Gunottam Hutheesing (INC) lost his first electoral bid for the Nagpada-Kamathipura BMC election constituency to an independent Linganna Pujari (1914-1999).