Henry Leland (1843 - 1932)

Henry Leland was born to Leander and Zilpha, the youngest of 8, in Vermont in 1843. Sources differ on the town of his birth (Danville versus Barton); he grew up in Barton. He learned engineering and precision machining in the Brown & Sharpe plant at Providence, Rhode Island. He subsequently worked in the firearms industry, […]

Herman Lay (1909 - 1982)

Herman Lay was born in Charlotte, North Carolina on March 6, 1909. His father, Jesse N. Lay, worked for International Harvester, first as a bookkeeper in Charlotte and later as a commercial salesman in Columbia, South Carolina, where the family moved. By 1920, they moved to Greenville, South Carolina. In 1922 his mother died of […]

Joan Kroc (1928 - 2003)

Joan Kroc was born on August 27, 1928, in West St. Paul, Minnesota. Her father, Charles Smart Mansfield, was a store keeper, later a railroad telegraph operator and salesman. Her mother, Gladys Bonnebelle Mansfield was born April 5, 1906 in Luck, Wisconsin to Herman Conrad Peterson and his wife Emma Bonnebelle. Joan’s mother was an […]

Fred Turner (1933 - 2013)

Fred Turner grew up in Des Moines and Chicago, and graduated from Drake University in 1954. Fred Turner began his career at McDonald’s in 1956 as a grill operator, and quickly rose through the ranks. He was named Operations Vice President in 1958, when the firm had only 34 employees. In that role, he established strict […]

John Kluge (1914 - 2010)

John Kluge was born to a Presbyterian family in Chemnitz, Germany and emigrated to the United States in 1922. He earned his B.A. degree in economics from Columbia University in 1937. Prior to attending Columbia University, Kluge went to Wayne State University for two years. He was of Scots Irish, English and German heritage. During World […]

Solomon Juneau (1793 - 1856)

After landing at Fort Michilimackinac in 1816, Solomon Juneau worked as a clerk in the fur trade before becoming an agent for the American Fur Company in Milwaukee. Juneau settled an area east of the Milwaukee River called Juneautown (present day East Town) in 1818, which later joined with George H. Walker’s Walker’s Point and […]

Miss Elizabeth (1960 - 2003)

Miss Elizabeth Professional wrestling has been littered with many female valets and managers in its history. From Baby Doll to Missy Hyatt to Dark Journey to Sunshine…there have been many women who redefined the role of women in the business. It wasn’t just burly, unattractive women in front of the cameras anymore. In the WWF, […]

Dean Martin (1917 - 1995)

Dean Martin Born in Steubenville, Ohio, on June 7, 1917, to Italian immigrants, Dean Martin entered the nightclub circuit and landed a contract with MCA to sing in New York City. There he met Jerry Lewis and they started a long-running comedy partnership on radio, television and film. The team split in 1956, and Martin […]

Robert Vaughn (1932 - 2016)

Robert Vaughn Robert Vaughn, whose Napoleon Solo on NBC’s spy yarn The Man From U.N.C.L.E. set TV’s 1960s standard for suavity and crimebusting cool, died this morning after a brief battle with acute leukemia. He was 83. His manager Matthew Sullivan confirmed the news to Deadline. Vaughn’s lengthy list of credits includes everything from an uncredited role […]

Whitelaw Reid (1837 - 1912)

Whitelaw Reid was the longtime editor of the New York Tribune and a close friend of Horace Greeley. He was a leader of the Liberal Republican movement in 1872. During the war he wrote under the by-line “Agate”. A Republican, he had an illustrious career as a diplomat, serving as United States Ambassador to France from 1889 […]

Darius Mills (1825 - 1910)

Darius Mills was born in North Salem, New York, and his early career was as a bank clerk and retailer. He joined the California Gold Rush in December 1848, and founded a bank in Sacramento. He never invested in gold mining or silver mining directly, as he considered mining to be too speculative. He rather […]

James Iredell (1751 - 1799)

James Iredell was born in Lewes, England, the oldest of five surviving children of Francis Iredell, a Bristol merchant and his wife, the former Margaret MucCulloh of Ireland. The failure of his father’s business (and health) impelled James to immigrate to the Colonies in 1767 at the age of 17. Relatives assisted him in obtaining […]

William Paca (1740 - 1799)

William Paca was born in Abingdon, in what was then Baltimore County (Abingdon was later included in Harford County when that county was formed from Baltimore County in 1773), in the British colony of Maryland. He was the child of John Paca (c. 1712 – 1785), a wealthy planter in the area, and his wife […]

Thomas Johnson (1732 - 1819)

Thomas Johnson was born in Calvert County, Maryland, on November 4, 1732 to Thomas and Dorcas Sedgwick Johnson. His grandfather, also named Thomas, was a lawyer in London who had emigrated to Maryland sometime before 1700. He was the fourth of ten children, some of whom also had large families. His niece (daughter of his […]

John Fitzgerald (1863 - 1950)

John Fitzgerald was born in Boston to Irish businessman/politician Thomas Fitzgerald (1830–1913) of Bruff, County Limerick, and Rosanna Cox (1833–1923) of County Cavan. He was the fourth of twelve children. Both of his sisters, Ellen and Mary, and his eldest brother, Michael, died in infancy. Fitzgerald’s brother Joseph had severe brain damage from malaria and […]

Patricia Lawford (1924 - 2006)

Patricia Lawford was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, the sixth of nine children born to Rose (née Fitzgerald) and Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.. She was considered the most sophisticated, yet also the most introverted, of her parents’ five daughters. Since childhood she had a fascination with travel and Hollywood. In time she would become a world […]

Eunice Shriver (1921 - 2009)

Born Eunice Mary Kennedy in Brookline, Massachusetts, she was the fifth of nine children of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., and Rose Fitzgerald. She was educated at the Convent of The Sacred Heart, Roehampton, London and at Manhattanville College in Upper Manhattan (the school later moved further North to Purchase, New York). After graduating from Stanford University […]

Rose Kennedy (1890 - 1995)

Rose Kennedy was born at 4 Garden Court in the North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. She was the eldest of six children born to Boston Mayor John Francis “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald (1863–1950) and Mary Josephine “Josie” Hannon (1865–1964). Her siblings were Mary, Thomas, John Jr., Eunice, and Frederick. As a young child, she lived in […]

Charles Hamlin (1861 - 1938)

Charles Sumner Hamlin (August 30, 1861 – April 24, 1938) was an American lawyer. He was the first Chairman of the Federal Reserve, serving from 1914 to 1916. Charles Hamlin was born in Boston, Massachusetts on August 30, 1861, and graduated from Harvard University in 1886. From 1893 to 1897 and again from 1913 to 1914 […]

Bobby Jones (1902 - 1971)

Bobby Jones Hall of Fame Golfer. Though his career was brief, and while he competed as an amateur, he is considered by many to have been the greatest practitioner of his game that ever lived. Born to a distinguished family of wealth and position, he was a child prodigy in golf and was instructed by […]

Bobby Vee (1943 - 2016)

Bobby Vee If you’ve never experienced a funeral where the priest spoke of “jam sessions” and the Eucharist was followed by rock ‘n roll, then you’ve likely never been to a funeral quite like Bobby Vee’s. Hundreds of mourners gathered at the St. John’s Abbey church at midday Wednesday for the funeral of the pop […]

Kay Starr (1922 - 2016)

Kay Starr In a career spanning seven decades, Kay Starr was primarily a solo act, but she also accompanied hard-swinging jazzmen such as Coleman Hawkins, Nat “King” Cole and Count Basie, the folksy country and western entertainer Tennessee Ernie Ford and the clean-cut pop crooner Pat Boone, among many others. Kay Starr made her professional […]

Eddie Carnett (1916 - 2016)

Eddie Carnett Major League Baseball’s oldest living former player tag has shifted, with the passing Monday night of a Connecticut man who had been carrying that honor. Mike Sandlock, an Old Greenwich native and resident of Cos Cob, died late Monday night, nearly six months past his 100th birthday. His son, also named Mike, stated […]

Anthony St Laurent (1970 - 2016)

Anthony St Laurent Anthony St Laurent was born of Italian parents, his father died when he was young and his mother remarried and both of them took her new husbands last name, St. Laurent. In July 1993, Robert DeLuca and Anthony St Laurent along with 24 others were indicted for running a bookmaking operation out […]

Janet Reno (1938 - 2016)

Janet Reno Janet Reno, the first woman to serve as U.S. attorney general, died Monday from complications related to Parkinson’s disease. She was 78 years old, and her remarkable life ― including a career that continued for years after her initial diagnosis ― reveals just how productive and purposeful life can be with the neurological condition. The […]

Nora Kaye (1920 - 1987)

Nora Kaye was born Nora Koreff in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrant parents, Louise (1895-1973) and Gregory Joseph Koreff (1893-1976). She later changed her surname to Kaye. In 1936, she joined the American Ballet, directed by George Balanchine. She later became a member of the Radio City Music Hall corps de ballet […]

Ima Hogg (1882 - 1975)

Ima Hogg (July 10, 1882 – August 19, 1975), known as “The First Lady of Texas”, was an American philanthropist, patron and collector of the arts, and one of the most respected women in Texas during the 20th century. Hogg was an avid art collector, and owned works by Picasso, Klee, and Matisse, among others. […]

Ella Hall (1896 - 1981)

Ella Hall (March 17, 1896 – September 3, 1981) was an American actress of the silent era. She appeared in 94 films between 1912 and 1933. She was the mother of B-movie actress Ellen Hall. She was born Ella Hall in New York, New York, and moved to Hollywood in the early days of silent films, […]

Calvin Griffith (1911 - 1999)

The son of a minor league baseball player, Calvin Griffith was the nephew of Clark Griffith, the Hall of Fame former pitcher and manager who became president of the Senators in 1920. He raised Calvin from the age of 11, but did not adopt him when Calvin’s father died a year later. Calvin’s widowed mother […]

Julia Howe (1819 - 1910)

Julia Howe was born in New York City. She was the fourth of seven children born to an upper middle class couple. Her father, Samuel Ward III, was a Wall Street stockbroker, well-to-do banker, and strict Calvinist. Her mother, the occasional poet Julia Rush Cutler, was related to Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox” of the […]