Kickham Scanlan (1864 - 1955)

Lifelong Republican Judge Scanlan, a lifelong Republican, had been a judge of the Circuit court since his first election in 1909. He had been reelected in 1915, 1921, 1927, 1933, 1939, and 1945. By appointment of the Illinois Supreme court he had sat in the Appellate court for many years. Mr. Scanlan was born in […]

Ernesto Furió Navarro (1902 - 1995)

Painter and Engraver. He was born in El Canyamelar (Valencia) and died in Valencia. He studied in Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Carlos with teachers as Josep Renau and Rafael Rubio. In 1921, he moved to Madrid and later, to Paris, where he extended his knowledgements about engravement. In 1934, he obtained the First […]

Samuel Locke Sawyer (1813 - 1890)

Graduated Dartmouth College in 1833; admitted to the Bar in Amherst, NH in 1836; moved to Lexington, MO in 1838; elected circuit attorney of the sixth judicial circuit of Missouri in 1848; reelected in 1882; delegate to the MO Constitutional Convention in 1861; delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1868; elected judge of the […]

Robert Fulton (1765 - 1815)

Inventor, Artist. While not the inventor of the steamboat, he was very instrumental in constructing a steamboat named the “Clermont”,and parlaying it into a commercial success with the first permanent commercial route in history on the Hudson River. Chancellor Robert R. Livingston backed the venture with his financial and political influence.  He was born near […]

Sam Morris Russell (1889 - 1971)

U.S. Representative, Judge. Born on a farm near Stephenville, Texas. A graduate of John Tarleton College. He taught school in Erath County, Texas from 1913 to 1918. During World War I he served as a private in the Forty-sixth Machine Gun Company, United States Army, in 1918 and 1919. Once he returned he began to […]

R. Buckminster Fuller (1895 - 1983)

R. Buckminster Fuller Inventor, architect, engineer, mathematician, poet and cosmologist. He was awarded 25 U.S. patents, authored 28 books, received 47 honorary doctorates in the arts, science, engineering and the humanities. He received dozens of major architectural and design awards including, among many others, the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects and the […]

George Lewis Ruffin (1834 - 1886)

Pioneer Jurist. He was the first African-American to graduate from Harvard Law School in 1869, to serve on the Massachusetts state legislature as a Republican (1869-71), to serve on the Boston City Council (1876-78), and as Boston’s first black municipal judge. He was of African descent, but of free parentage, and was educated in the […]

Loïe Fuller (1862 - 1928)

Dance Innovator. Born Marie Louise Fuller in Fullersburg, Illinois, she made her stage debut in Chicago at the age of four. For more than twenty years she then toured with stock companies, burlesque shows, vaudeville, and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Legend has it that while rehearsing the play ‘Quack, M.D.’ in 1891, she was […]

Roman Andrejewich Rudenko (1907 - 1981)

Rudenko was one of main chargers (together with one American, French and English judge) at the international military court against the Nazis in Nuremberg (Germany) in the years 1945-1946, after the World War II . He was also in the years 1953-1974 General State Lawyer of U. S. S. R.  Family links:  Spouse:  Maria Fedorovna […]

Heihachiro Fukuda (1970 - 1970)

Painter. He was a member of the Rikucho-kai artists’ group and a professor at what is now the Kyoto City University of Arts. For his achievements, he was awarded the Order of Culture recognition. His paintings, which depicted almost exclusively flowers, bamboo, birds, fish and inanimate objects, are described to show an independent style based […]

Dr Earl Rose (1926 - 2012)

JFK Assassination Figure. A forensic pathologist, he is remembered for his unsuccessful attempt to retain the President’s body in Dallas for autopsy. Raised on the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation in western South Dakota he attended one room Indian schools then during World War II joined the US Navy and served aboard the submarine “USS […]

Bernie Fuchs (1932 - 2009)

American Artist and Illustrator. He is probably best known for painting portraits of several U.S. Presidents, including John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan. Born Bernard Fuchs (pronounced fewks) his ambition when growing up was to become a trumpet player. However, an industrial accident in the summer after he graduated […]

Samuel Romilly (1757 - 1818)

Samuel Romilly was born in Frith Street, Soho, London, of Huguenot parents. His sister, Catherine, went on to become the mother of Peter Mark Roget (q.v.). He learned very little at school and was almost entirely self-educated. After some years in which he worked in his father’s watchmaking and jewellery shop, and as a lawyer’s […]

Othon Friesz (1879 - 1949)

Artist. An early Impressionist style French painter, he was later converted to Fauvism, a painterly (visible brushstrokes) style of strong color, a movement led by artists Henri Matisse and Andre Derain, that lasted only briefly in the early 1900s. Born Achille-Emile Othon Friesz in Le Havre, France, he came from a family of shipbuilders and […]

James Frank “Pete” Rogers (1922 - 1978)

Rogers commanded the Texas Rangers who confronted Fred Carrasco, Ignacio Cuevas and Rudolfo Dominguez at Huntsville, TX, on August 4, 1974, and killed Carrasco and Dominguez to end an 11-day escape attempt at the prison. Two women hostages were killed by the convicts. During WWII, he was a fighter pilot in Europe, winning 3 Distinguished […]

Caspar David Friedrich (1774 - 1840)

German Romantic Painter. He is considered by many art historians as one of the greatest landscape painter of all time. He was born in Griefswald, a small town in northeastern Germany along the Baltic coast. He studied art at the Academy in Copenhagen from 1794-98 and later settled in Dresden for the remainder of his […]

Earl Rogers (1869 - 1922)

Attorney.  One of the most famous criminal defense lawyers of his day.  His flamboyant courtroom antics and memory for detail won over jurors despite overwhelming evidence against his clients.  A popular saying of the time went,  “If you are guilty,  hire Earl Rogers”.  Born near Buffalo,  New York,  he was the son of a Methodist […]

Betty Friedan (1921 - 2006)

Author/Feminist.   Wrote “The Feminine Mystique” which became a best seller in the 1960s and laid the groundwork for the start of the modern feminist movement.  She died at her home of congestive heart failure on her 85th birthday. (bio by: The Perplexed Historian)  Family links:  Parents:  Harry M. Goldstein (1881 – 1943)  Miriam Goldstein […]

Arnold Friberg (1913 - 2010)

Painter. A realist who specialized in historical and religious subjects, he is probably best remembered for his 1975 portrait of George Washington, “The Prayer at Valley Forge”. Raised in Arizona from age three, he was employed as a sign painter in his teens and then trained at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts.  Moving to […]

Orrin Porter Rockwell (1813 - 1878)

Bodyguard to Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. On Christmas, 1843, he was given a blessing by Joseph Smith. Smith said that as long as he never cut his hair ‘…no bullet or blade can harm thee..’  Family links:  Spouses:  Mary Ann Neff Rockwell (1829 – 1866)*  Christina Olsen Rockwell (1837 – 1911)*  Luana Hart Beebe […]

William “Bill” Freyse (1898 - 1969)

Cartoonist. Major Hoople’s chronicler in “Our Boarding House”.  Family links:  Spouse:  Evelyn S. Freyse (1908 – 2003)* *Calculated relationship

Sir William Buell Richards (1815 - 1889)

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. He was a son of Stephen Richards, Sr. and Phoebe (Buell) Richards, both of whom were among the pioneer families of Upper Canada following the American Revolution. His formal education began at the Johnstown District Grammar School in Brockville, Ontario. In 1837, after earning his degree from […]

Albert Frey (1903 - 1998)

Architect. A pioneer of the “Mid-Century Moderne” style. He was born in Switzerland and showed an interest in mechanics early in life, but his father wanted him to be an architect. Frey didn’t think designing chalets and other ordinary buildings he saw in his homeland would be interesting work, but after seeing the exciting modern […]

Bass Reeves (1970 - 1910)

Western Lawman. Born as a slave, after the Civil War he went west to engage in farming. In 1875 he began a new career, receiving his commission as a U.S. Deputy Marshal, under the direction of Judge Isaac C. Parker in Ft. Smith. He was the first African American to receive a commission as a […]

Gisele Freund (1908 - 2000)

Photographer. She was born in Berlin, Germany. She became a political activist protesting the rise of Hitler’s National Socialism. In 1933 she fled Germany and moved to Paris with her camera. Later, she moved to Argentina and Mexico until the end of Second World War. She is remembered for her portraits of famous writers such […]

Tapping Reeve (1744 - 1823)

Educator, Lawyer. He founded the first formal law school in America. In 1772, he set up a law practice in Litchfield, Connecticut, and the following year he commenced teaching law to his first student Aaron Burr, who also was his brother-in-law. Demand for his expertise increased to the point Reeve needed to construct a one […]

Lucian Freud (1922 - 2011)

Artist. Best known for his impasto portraits and nudes, he was considered by many as one of the greatest figurative painters of his era. The son of Austrian architect Ernest Freud and the grandson of famed psychotherapist Sigmund Freud, he fled his homeland of Germany with his family after the Nazis came into power and […]

James Alexander Reed (1861 - 1944)

Admitted to the bar in 1885; moved to Kansas City, Missouri and became prosecuting attorney from 1898-1900, Mayor of Kansas City from 1900-1904; elected as a Democrat to the US Senate in 1910; reelected in 1916 and again in 1922 and served until march 3, 1929; US Senator from Missouri 1909-1928; political ally of Jim […]

Daniel Chester French (1850 - 1931)

Sculptor. His two most famous statues are the bronze “The Minuteman” (1875) in Concord, MA, and the marble statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC (1922).  Family links:  Parents:  Henry Flagg French (1813 – 1885)  Anne Richardson French (1811 – 1856)  Spouse:  Mary Adams French French (1859 – 1939)*  Children:  Margaret […]

Tom Reddin (1916 - 2004)

Former Los Angeles Police Chief. He began his LAPD career in 1941 and was chief from February 1967 to May 1969. He was at the helm in 1967, when police clashed violently with thousands of anti-war protesters who gathered outside the Century Plaza Hotel, where President Lyndon Johnson was being honored. On June 5, 1968, […]