Mamie Eisenhower (1896 - 1979)

Born in Boone, Iowa and named, in part, after the popular song Lovely Lake Geneva, Mamie Geneva Doud was the second child born to John Sheldon Doud, a meatpacking executive, and his wife, the former Elivera Mathilde Carlson. She grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Colorado Springs, Colorado, Denver, Colorado, and the Doud winter home […]

Grace Anna Coolidge (1879 - 1957)

Born in Burlington, Vermont, the only child of Andrew Issaclar Goodhue (1848–1923), a mechanical engineer and steamboat inspector, and Lemira Barrett Goodhue (1849–1929), Grace graduated from the University of Vermont in 1902, where she was a founding member of the Beta chapter of Pi Beta Phi sorority. She then joined the faculty of the Clarke […]

Frances Folsom Cleveland (1864 - 1947)

Frances Clara Folsom was born in Buffalo, New York, the daughter of Oscar Folsom, a lawyer and descendant of the earliest settlers of Exeter, New Hampshire, and Emma Harmon. All of Frances Cleveland’s ancestors were from England and settled in what would become Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire, eventually migrating to western New York. […]

Ellen Arthur (1837 - 1880)

Ellen Lewis Herndon, called “Nell,” was born in Culpeper Court House, Virginia, the daughter of William Lewis Herndon and Frances Elizabeth Hansborough.  Her father was a naval officer who gained national renown in 1857 when he went down with his ship, the mail steamer SS Central America, along with more than 400 passengers and crew. […]

Louisa Catherine Adams (1775 - 1852)

Born Louisa Catherine Johnson on February 12, 1775, in London, she was the daughter of Catherine Nuth Johnson, an Englishwoman and Joshua Johnson, an American merchant whose brother Thomas Johnson later served as Governor of Maryland and United States Supreme Court Justice. Joshua Johnson was originally from Maryland. She had six sisters: Ann, Caroline, Harriet, […]

Abigail Adams (1744 - 1818)

Abigail Adams was born at the North Parish Congregational Church in Weymouth, Massachusetts, to The Reverend William Smith (1707-1783) and Elizabeth (née Quincy) Smith. On her mother’s side she was descended from the Quincy family, a well-known political family in the Massachusetts colony. Through her mother she was a cousin of Dorothy Quincy, wife of […]

James Francis Byrnes (1882 - 1972)

James Francis “Jimmy” Byrnes was born at 538 King St. in Charleston, South Carolina and reared in Charleston, South Carolina. Byrnes’s father died shortly after Byrnes was born. His mother, Elizabeth McSweeney Byrnes, was an Irish-American dressmaker. At the age of fourteen, he left St. Patrick’s Catholic School to work in a law office, and […]

Pierce Butler (1866 - 1939)

Butler was born to Patrick and Mary Ann Butler, Catholic immigrants from County Wicklow, Ireland. (The pair met in Galena, Illinois, after having left the same part of Ireland because of the Irish Potato Famine.) Soon, the couple settled in Sciota, then Waterford, Dakota County, Minnesota. Their son Pierce Butler was the sixth of nine […]

Harold Hitz Burton (1888 - 1964)

Harold was born in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, the second son of Alfred E. Burton and Anna Gertrude Hitz. His younger brother was named Felix Arnold Burton.  Harold’s father was an engineer and the first Dean of Student Affairs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1902-1921), reporting to the president. He taught at MIT before being […]

Warren Earl Burger (1907 - 1995)

Burger was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1907, and one of seven children. His parents, Katharine (née Schnittger) and Charles Joseph Burger, a traveling salesman and railroad cargo inspector, were of Swiss German descent. His grandfather, Joseph Burger, had emigrated from Switzerland and joined the Union Army when he was 14. Joseph Burger fought […]

Henry Billings Brown (1836 - 1913)

Brown was born in South Lee, Massachusetts, and grew up in Massachusetts and Connecticut. His was a New England merchant family. Brown entered Yale College at 16, where he was a member of Alpha Delta Phi fraternity. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree there in 1856. Among his undergraduate classmates were Chauncey Depew, later […]

David Josiah Brewer (1837 - 1910)

Brewer was born to Emilia Field Brewer and Rev. Josiah Brewer, who at the time of his birth were running a school for Greeks in Izmir, Turkey; Mrs. Brewer’s brother Stephen Johnson Field, a future Supreme Court colleague of Brewer’s, was living with the couple at the time. His parents returned to the United States […]

Joseph P. Bradley (1813 - 1892)

The son of Philo Bradley and Mercy Gardner Bradley, Bradley was born to humble beginnings in Berne, New York, and he was the oldest of 12 children.[4] He attended local schools and began teaching at the age of 16. In 1833, the Dutch Reformed Church of Berne advanced young Joseph Bradley $250 to study for […]

Samuel Blatchford (1820 - 1893)

Blatchford was born in Auburn, New York, where his father was a well known attorney and friend of Daniel Webster. He was educated at Columbia College, graduating when he was 17 years old. In 1840, he served as the private secretary to Governor William H. Seward.  Blatchford read law while working for the governor and […]

John Blair Jr. (1731 - 1800)

Born in Williamsburg, Virginia, Blair was a member of a prominent Virginia family. His father served on the Virginia Council and was for a time acting Royal governor. His granduncle, James Blair, was founder and first president of the College of William & Mary. Blair attended William & Mary, receiving an A.B. in 1754. In […]

Harry Blackmun (1908 - 1999)

Harry Blackmun was born in Nashville, Illinois, and grew up in Dayton’s Bluff, a working-class neighborhood in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He attended the same grade school as future Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, with whom he eventually served on the Supreme Court for some sixteen years. He attended Harvard College on scholarship, earning an A.B. […]

Hugo Lafayette Black (1886 - 1971)

Hugo LaFayette Black was the youngest of the eight children of William Lafayette Black and Martha Toland Black. He was born on February 27, 1886, in a small wooden farmhouse in Ashland, Alabama, a poor, isolated rural Clay County town in the Appalachian foothills.  Because his brother Orlando had become a medical doctor, Hugo decided […]

Philip Pendleton Barbour (1783 - 1841)

Barbour was born near Gordonsville, Orange County, Virginia. He was named for his ancestor Philip Pendleton through whom he was related to politician and judge, Edmund Pendleton. He attended common and private schools and graduated from the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1799. A year later he was admitted to the bar, […]

Henry Baldwin (1780 - 1844)

Descended from an aristocratic British family dating back to the seventeenth century, Baldwin was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of Michael Baldwin and Theodora Walcott. He is the half-brother of Abraham Baldwin. He attended Hopkins School, and received a B.A at age 17 from Yale College in 1797, he attended Litchfield Law School […]

Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849)

He was born Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809, the second child of English-born actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe and actor David Poe, Jr. He had an elder brother, William Henry Leonard Poe, and a younger sister, Rosalie Poe. Their grandfather, David Poe, Sr., had emigrated from Cavan, Ireland, to America around […]

May Allison (1890 - 1989)

Allison was born in Rising Fawn, Georgia, the youngest of five children born to Dr. John Simon (Sam) Allison and Nannie Virginia (Wise) Allison.  Violet eyed, Allison made her Broadway stage debut in the 1914 production of Apartment 12-K before settling in Hollywood, California in the early days of motion pictures. Allison’s screen debut was […]

Sara Allgood (1879 - 1950)

Allgood was born in Dublin, Ireland. Her sister was actress Maire O’Neill.  Allgood began her acting career at the Abbey Theatre and was in the opening of the Irish National Theatre Society, appearing in many of their plays all over Britain. She was frequently featured in early Hitchcock films, such as Blackmail (1929), Juno and […]

Sheila Allen (1932 - 2011)

Allen was born in Chard, Somerset, to Dorothy Essex (née Potter) and William Allen.  From the 1950s, Allen appeared in plays by Shakespeare, including for the RSC in both Stratford and London. Her first leading role was that of Katherine (“the shrew”) in The Taming of the Shrew for the Arena Company in Birmingham (1954–56). […]

Shelley Winters (1920 - 2006)

Winters was born Shirley Schrift in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Rose (née Winter), a singer with The Muny, and Jonas Schrift, a designer of men’s clothing. Her parents were Jewish; her father emigrated from Austria, and her mother had been born in St. Louis to Austrian immigrants. Her parents were third cousins. Her […]

Robert Shaw (1927 - 1978)

Robert Shaw was born in Westhoughton, Lancashire, England, in 1927. His mother, Doreen (née Avery), was a former nurse born in Piggs Peak, Swaziland, and his father, Thomas Shaw, was a doctor. He had three sisters, Elizabeth, Joanna, and Wendy, and one brother, Alexander (Sandy).When he was seven, the family moved to Stromness, Orkney, Scotland. […]

Viola Allen (1867 - 1948)

Allen was born in Huntsville, Alabama in 1867 (some sources say 1869 see discussion), the daughter of actors C. Leslie Allen and Sarah Lyon. She moved to Boston at three years of age and later moved with her family to Toronto. She was educated at the Bishop Strachan School, her brothers being educated at Trinity […]

Rex Harrison (1908 - 1990)

Harrison was born at Derry House in Huyton, Merseyside, the son of Edith Mary (née Carey) and William Reginald Harrison, a cotton broker. He was educated at Liverpool College. After a bout of childhood measles, Harrison lost most of the sight in his left eye, which on one occasion caused some on-stage difficulty. He first […]

Steve Allen (1921 - 2000)

Steve Allen Steve Allen is best known as the first host of The Tonight Show, but he was also an accomplished musician, composer, author and actor, with many books, musical compositions and films to his credit. After the death of his father, Allen and his mother moved to Chicago, Illinois. In 1947, he began hosting […]

Ronald Allen (1930 - 1991)

Ronald John Allen (16 December 1930 – 18 June 1991) was an English character actor who achieved the status of a soap opera star.  Allen was born in Reading, Berkshire. He studied at Leighton Park School in Reading and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, worked in repertory theatre, had […]

Harvey Korman (1927 - 2008)

Korman, who was of Russian Jewish descent, was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Ellen (née Blecher) and Cyril Raymond Korman, a salesman. He served in the United States Navy during World War II. After being discharged, he studied at the Goodman School of Drama. He was a member of the Peninsula Players summer […]