Anton Otto Fischer (1882 - 1962)

Acclaimed Illustrator for the Saturday Evening Post. During World War II, was given the rank of “artist laureate” for the United States Coast Guard. The resulting pictures are now in the Coast Guard Academy at New London, Connecticut. In 1947, Fischer wrote and illustrated a book about his sailing years entitled, Fo’c’sle Days. His paintings […]

John Bassett Moore (1860 - 1947)

Jurist. First American Judge to serve on the Permanent Court of International Justice. An 1880 graduate of the University of Virginia, he was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1883. In 1885 he clerked at the Department of State. He served as Assistant Secretary of State during the Spanish-American War in 1898, and after the […]

Elio Fiorucci (1935 - 2015)

Fashion Designer. Fiorucci was a fashion designer and retail visionary whose designs and ideas encapsulated the flamboyance of the disco era and helped launch the careers of other designers and artists. At age 17, he went to work in his father’s shoe boutique before opening his own store in Milan in 1967. In 1970, he […]

Howard Finster (1916 - 2001)

Artist. Born in Valley Hood, Alabama. A former traveling Baptist preacher and bicycle repairman, he was known for making over 47,000 works of art using various components. He also painted album covers for R.E.M. and Talking Heads, as well as special olympic-themed Coke bottle art for Coca-Cola. The largest collection of his works can be […]

John Paul “Jay” Monahan (1956 - 1998)

Television Personality. He was known as a fine lawyer and legal commentator for TV, who was married to Katie Couric, the host of NBC’s “Today” program. As legal analysis for NBC News, MSNBC and CNBC, during his career he covered many major cases to include the O.J. Simpson criminal trial, Timothy McVeigh civil trial and […]

Robert Finkelhor (1899 - 1957)

American Architect. Finkelhor, who was primarily known for designing large residences and celebrity estates, studied architecture at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburg and was a member of the Architects Institute of America from 1920 to 1923. He spent the early portion of his career in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. and Washington, D.C. and designed Air […]

Marvin Mitchelson (1928 - 2004)

Celebrity divorce attorney based in Los Angeles, California. He died at the Rehabilitation Center of Beverly Hills after a long battle with cancer. He was a successful divorce pioneer who is known as the father of palimony. His first major case was the million dollar settlement for James Mason’s former wife, Pamela. He represented Bianca […]

Samuel Luke Fildes (1844 - 1927)

Sir Fildes was an artist and illustrator of magazines and books, including Dickens’ last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. His first great public success was the painting Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward (1874), based on an earlier drawing that was published in the first edition of The Graphic. In addition to his […]

Jefferson Davis “Jeff” Milton (1861 - 1947)

Frontier Lawman. Jefferson Davis Milton was the youngest child of fourteen children of Florida Governor John Milton. He had a sad childhood being four-years-old when his father committed suicide after the Confederacy had lost the war. The governor left his wife Caroline Howze with several young children to face the hardships of living on their […]

Anselm Feuerbach (1829 - 1880)

German painter. He was one of the leading German artists of the mid-19th century school. Born in Speyer, Bavaria, the son of a well-known archaeologist, he was educated at Düsseldorf and München. In 1857 he moved to Rome where he met model Nanna Risi, who became his lover. In later years he worked in Vienna […]

Herbert John “Jack” Miller, Jr (1924 - 2009)

Attorney, Watergate Figure. After pioneering the field of “white collar law”, he served as counsel to President Nixon for over 20 years, and was responsible for negotiating his pardon. Raised in Minnesota by a family active in Republican politics, he enrolled at the University of Minnesota, but dropped out in his sophomore year to join […]

Bernardo Ferrándiz Badenes (1835 - 1885)

Artist. He was born in El Canyamelar, Valencia. He studied in Academia de San Carlos de Valencia and later, he moved to Madrid and Paris. He was friend of the painter Mariano Fortuny with who traveled to Morocco and Rome. He is remebered for his paintings, includes in realistic style, “El Viático a un Mendigo […]

Sidney Miles (1970 - 1952)

Murder Victim. He was the Police Constable who was shot by Christopher Craig, in the case which led to the execution of Derek Bentley. He was born at Eastry, near Sandwich in Kent, and had worked as a gardener before serving with the Royal Army Medical Corps between 1926 and 1929, when he joined the […]

Anton Dominik Fernkorn (1813 - 1878)

Sculptor. Born in Erfurt near Leipzig,  Anton studied sculpture under the sculptors Johann Baptist Stiglmaier and Ludwig Michael Schwanthaler in Munich, in 1836 to 1840. His first sculptural project, “Saint George and the Dragon” for the courtyard of the Montenuovo palace, attracted attention, and the Austrian government appointed him director of the imperial bronze foundry […]

Pierre-Basile Mignault (1854 - 1945)

Canadian jurist. Member of the Supreme Court of Canada. Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, on September 30, 1854. While attending McGill University, he did the required legal clerkship in the law office of Mousseau, Chapleau et Archambault. He graduated with a B.C.L. degree in 1878 and was called to the bar the same year. In 1906 […]

Lyonel Feininger (1871 - 1956)

An American painter, he was born in the United States but active in Germany until persecution by the Nazis drove him back to the U.S. His gentle geometric style often featured sailboats and skyscrapers. He work can be seen at the Museum of Modern Art and the Met. (bio by: Rick Watson)  Family links:  Children: […]

Robert Reynold Merhige, Jr (1919 - 2005)

United States District Court Judge, he is mostly known for his rulings on desegregation. After receiving his law degree, he served in the Army Air Forces in World War II. In 1967 he was appointed as a Federal Judge by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Judge Merhige ordered dozens of school systems to desegregate. His rulings […]

Dan Farrell (1930 - 2015)

Photojournalist. During a storied career that spanned five decades at the New York Daily News, he will perhaps be best remembered for capturing John F. Kennedy, Jr., (“John-John”) saluting his father’s casket following President John F. Kennedy’s funeral mass on November 25, 1963. His iconic photograph was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize but lost to […]

David Henry Mercer (1857 - 1919)

US Congressman. Born in Benton County, Iowa, he admitted to the bar in 1882 and commenced law practice in Brownville, Nebraska. He served terms as city clerk, police judge and secretary of the Republican State central committee in 1896. In 1897, he was elected as a Republican to the Fifty-third Congress and to the four […]

Sarah Welles “Sally” James Farnham (1869 - 1943)

American sculptor. Best known for her equestrian statue of Simon Bolivar in New York City’s Central Park, and Will Rogers on his horse. (bio by: Laurie)  Family links:  Parents:  Edward Christopher James (1841 – 1901)  Sarah W. Perkins James (1841 – 1879)  Spouse:  George Paulding Farnham (1859 – 1927)*  Children:  James Paulding Farnham (1898 – […]

Theresa E. “Tessie” McNamara (1892 - 1971)

American Folk Figure. Acclaimed as the heroine of the Meadowlands Explosion, Tessie McNamara saved the lives of more than a thousand workers on January 11, 1917. During World War I she was employed as a telephone operator by the Canadian Car & Foundry Company, an arms manufacturer in the New Jersey Meadowlands near Lyndhurst. The […]

John Farleigh (1900 - 1965)

Artist. He was a painter of subject pictures as well as landscape and architectural scenes, particularly images of post-blitz London. Although often remembered for his engravings which appear in works by D.H. Lawrence and George Bernard Shaw, Farleigh also wrote on artistic technique and published an autobiography, “Graven Image” in 1940. He also painted the […]

William Jesse McDonald (1852 - 1918)

William Jesse Carter was the son of Enoch McDonald  (Killed in Civil War) and Eunice R Durham. Rhoda Isabel Carter and William Jesse McDonald were married January 1876 in Quitman,Texas.They had no children. In 1867 he moved to East Texas. In Mineola, Texas, he served as deputy sheriff, deputy US Marshall and Special Texas Ranger.This […]

Léon-Paul Fargue (1876 - 1947)

Poet.  Born in Paris, France on rue Coquilliére. Before reaching 20 years of age, Leon had already published his important poem Tancrède in the magazine Pan (1895; published in book form in 1911) and had become a member of the Symbolist circle connected with Le Mercure de France. His first collection of verse, Poèmes, was […]

Maurice Neal “Nick” McDonald (1928 - 2005)

Police Officer, Kennedy Assassintation Figure. He was the Dallas Police Officer who arrested Lee Harvey Oswald at the Texas Theatre on November 22, 1963. While working crowd control outside the Texas School Book Depository immediately after the shooting of President John F. Kennedy, a radio call came in that patrol officer J.D. Tippit had been […]

Henri Fantin-Latour (1836 - 1904)

Painter. Born at Grenoble on the 14th of January 1836. He studied first with his father, a pastel painter, and then at the drawing school of [Horace] Lecoq de Boisbaudran, and later under Couture. He was the friend of Ingres, Delacroix, Corot, Courbet and others. He exhibited in the Salon of 1861, and many of […]

Lee Falk (1911 - 1999)

Cartoonist. Creator of the popular comic strips “The Phantom” and “Mandrake the Magician.” (bio by: Kenneth McNeil)

Wade Hampton McCree, Jr (1920 - 1987)

Alexandre Falguière (1831 - 1900)

Sculptor.  Born in Toulouse. A pupil of the École des Beaux-Arts,  he won the Prix de Rome in 1859; he was awarded the medal of honor at the Salon in 1868 and was appointed officer of the Legion of Honour in 1878. His first bronze statue of importance was the Victor of the Cock-Fight (1864), […]

William Mathewson (1829 - 1916)

American Frontiersman. Born in Triangle, New York, he was a daring explorer, hunter, Indian scout and fighter, and the first to be given the sobriquet, “Buffalo Bill”. In 1849, he was employed by the Northwestern Fur Company, traveling through the Dakotas, Nebraska, Wyoming, trading with the Indians and acquired his knowledge of Indian warfare. He […]