Red Lane (1939 - 2015)

Red Lane Nashville’s Tennessean newspaper reports that Lane died on Wednesday night (July 1) near Music City. Born Hollis Rudolph DeLaughter on Feb. 9, 1939, in Louisiana, Lane was the son of sharecroppers who moved around frequently. He began to play music as a child, learning on a guitar his father got by trading a […]

Dean Jones (1931 - 2015)

Dean Jones  Dean Jones, whose boyish good looks and all-American manner made him Disney’s favorite young actor for such lighthearted films as “That Darn Cat!” and “The Love Bug,” has died of Parkinson’s disease. He was 84. He died Monday in Los Angeles, Jones’ publicist Richard Hoffman said Wednesday. Jones’ long association with The Walt […]

Gene Tierney (1920 - 1991)

Tierney was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Howard Sherwood Tierney and Belle Lavina Taylor. She was named after a beloved uncle, who died young. She had an elder brother, Howard Sherwood “Butch” Tierney, Jr., and a younger sister, Patricia “Pat” Tierney. Their father was a successful insurance broker of Irish descent, their […]

Adam Ward (1988 - 2015)

Adam Ward was tragically taken from this world on Wednesday, August 26, 2015. He was a bright light in our lives for 27 wonderful years.Adam was born on May 10, 1988, to Charles “Buddy” and Mary Lou Speas Ward of Daleville. Although he grew up in Botetourt with his sister and brother, Sarah and Jay, […]

Alison Parker (1991 - 2015)

Alison Parker, loved by everyone who knew her, was taken from us at the age of 24 on August 26, 2015. Born in Annapolis, MD, Alison grew up in Collinsville, Virginia and graduated from Martinsville High School in 2009. Her many accomplishments included Piedmont District Swimmer of the Year award, Big M Trophy recipient, and […]

Marvin Mandel (1920 - 2015)

Marvin Mandel Mandel was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and attended the Baltimore City Public Schools, graduating from the The Baltimore City College, which was a city-wide, all-male institution that served as an early model of a college prep, specialized “magnet” school that developed and became popular in American public education forty years later. Mandel received […]

Ozzie Brooks (1931 - 1996)

Mr. Brooks was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio and entered the U.S. Air Force in 1949. After his marriage, Ozzie was stationed at Air bases in New York, Germany, England and, finally, Otis Air Force Base in Bourne, Massachusetts. He retired from the Air Force in 1969. He then served as a civilian employee […]

Arthur Robert Ashe, Jr (1943 - 1993)

American Tennis Player and Social Activist. Widely recognized as the first outstanding African-American men’s tennis champion, Arthur Ashe was the first African-American to represent his country in Davis Cup play (1963), the first African-American man to win the U.S. Open singles title (1968), the first African-American man to win the Wimbledon singles title (1975), and […]

James Baldwin (1924 - 1987)

One of the 20th century’s greatest writers, Baldwin broke new literary ground with the exploration of racial and social issues in his many works. He was especially well known for his essays on the black experience in America. Baldwin was born to a young single mother, Emma Jones, at Harlem Hospital. She reportedly never told […]

John Blewett III (1973 - 2007)

Blewett started racing go karts at the age of 10. In 1996, at age 22, he won the coveted NASCAR’s Northeast Regional Championship, falling only a few points shy of the National Title. During his career he recorded 96 wins between 1993 and 2007, including track championships at Flemington Speedway, Wall Township Speedway, New Egypt, […]

Tony Bettenhausen (1916 - 1961)

Melvin Eugene “Tony” Bettenhausen (September 12, 1916 Tinley Park, Illinois – May 12, 1961 Indianapolis, Indiana) was an American racing driver, who won the National Championship in 1951 and 1958.  Bettenhausen was nicknamed the “Tinley Park Express” in honor of his hometown. He was nicknamed “Tunney” after heavyweight boxing champion Gene Tunney. “Tunney” later became […]

Wes Craven (1939 - 2015)

Craven was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Caroline (née Miller) and Paul Eugene Craven. He was raised in a strict Baptist family. Craven earned an undergraduate degree in English and Psychology from Wheaton College in Illinois and a master’s degree in Philosophy and Writing from Johns Hopkins University. Craven briefly taught English at Westminster […]

Louis XVIII of France (1755 - 1824)

Louis Stanislas Xavier, styled Count of Provence from birth, was born on 17 November 1755 in the Palace of Versailles, the son of Louis, Dauphin of France, and his wife Maria Josepha of Saxony. He was the grandson of the reigning King Louis XV. As a son of the Dauphin he was a Fils de […]

Charles X of France (1757 - 1836)

Charles Philippe of France was born in 1757, the youngest son of the Dauphin Louis and his wife, the Dauphine Marie Josèphe, at the Palace of Versailles. Charles was created Count of Artois at birth by his grandfather, the reigning King Louis XV. As the youngest male in the family, Charles seemed unlikely ever to […]

Ove Andersson (1938 - 2008)

Andersson was born in Uppsala and grew up on a remote farm. His father bought a 98cc motorbike, and Andersson said this was where he first fell in love with speed and machinery. He went on to begin studying engineering in Uppsala, and also began marshalling ice races. He dropped his engineering course and began […]

Bob Anderson (1922 - 2012)

Anderson was educated at The Royal Hospital School, in Raleigh House. It was here that he began to fence.[citation needed] Anderson joined the Royal Marines and won several combined services titles in the sport of fencing. He served in the Mediterranean during World War II.  As a competitive fencer, he represented Great Britain at the […]

Bob Sweikert (1926 - 1956)

Bob Sweikert grew up in pre-war Los Angeles. His mother had married his stepfather, an electrician for the state of California, when Bob was an infant. Bob was raised through his early teen years with his older stepbrother, Ed, who enlisted in the US Navy, and then soon died in 1942, at the onset of […]

Rich Vogler (1950 - 1990)

Vogler was the National Alliance of Midget Auto Racing (NAMAR) midget champion in 1973. He won the midget car track championships at the Indianapolis Speedrome in 1984 and 1985. He won the Fireman Nationals midget car race at Angell Park Speedway in 1985. Vogler became the first driver to win the USAC Sprint Car and […]

Bill Vukovich (1918 - 1955)

Before he began Indy racing, Vukovich drove midget cars for the Edelbrock dirt track racing team. He raced on the West Coast of the United States in the URA, and won the series’ 1945 and 1946 midget car championships. Vukovich won the 1948 Turkey Night Grand Prix at Gilmore Stadium, and six of the last […]

Blaise Alexander (1976 - 2001)

Alexander was born on March 26, 1976 in Montoursville, Pennsylvania. He began his stock car career at age 12 in the World Karting Association and was the champion of the East Series in 1992. From that point, Alexander moved onto the Micro-Sprint racing series at tracks in different states including Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York, […]

Bob Akin (1936 - 2002)

Bob Akin was born March 6, 1936, in North Tarrytown, N.Y., and was raised in Sleepy Hollow Manor. He was educated at Hackley School in Tarrytown and later served on its board for 30 years and as president from 1980 to 1990. At Columbia University, he earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering and a master’s […]

Louis I of Spain (1707 - 1724)

Born at Palacio del Buen Retiro, in Madrid as the eldest son of the reigning King Philip V of Spain and his wife Maria Luisa of Savoy.  At birth he was the heir apparent but was not given the traditional title of “Prince of Asturias” until April 1709. In 1714, when Louis was seven, his […]

Philip V of Spain (1683 - 1746)

Philip was born at the Palace of Versailles in France the second son of Louis, Grand Dauphin, the heir apparent to the throne of France, and his wife Maria Anna Victoria of Bavaria, Dauphine Victoire. He was a younger brother of Louis, Duke of Burgundy, the father of Louis XV of France. At birth, Philip […]

James Horner (1953 - 2015)

Horner was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1953 to Jewish immigrants. His father, Harry Horner, was born in Holíč, then a part of Austria-Hungary; he emigrated to the United States in 1935 and worked as a set designer and occasional art director. James’s mother, Joan Ruth (Frankel), was born into a prominent Canadian family. […]

E.L. Doctorow (1931 - 2015)

Doctorow was born in The Bronx, the son of Rose (Levine) and David Richard Doctorow, second-generation Americans of Russian Jewish extraction who named him after Edgar Allan Poe. His father ran a small music shop. He attended city public grade schools and The Bronx High School of Science where, surrounded by mathematically gifted children, he […]

Ann Rule (1931 - 2015)

Ann Rae Stackhouse was born on October 22, 1931, in Lowell, Michigan. One of two children of Chester R. Stackhouse and Sophie Marie Hansen, her mother was a teacher, specializing in developmentally disabled children; her father was a sports coach. As Rule did during young adulthood, her family members had careers in law enforcement. Rule’s […]

Robert Conquest (1917 - 2015)

Conquest was born on 15 July 1917 in Great Malvern, Worcestershire, to an American father (Robert Folger Wescott Conquest) and an English mother (Rosamund Alys Acworth Conquest). His father served in an American Ambulance Service unit with the French Army in World War I, and was awarded the Croix de Guerre, with Silver Star in […]

Uggie (2002 - 2015)

Uggie was rejected by at least his first two owners as being too wild. He was about to be sent to a dog pound, but was adopted by animal trainer Omar Von Muller after his friends alerted him to the dog. Von Muller intended only to foster the dog while he found him a new […]

Julian Bond (1940 - 2015)

Bond was born at Hubbard Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, to parents Julia Agnes (Washington) and Horace Mann Bond. His father was an educator who went on to serve as the president of Lincoln University. His mother, Julia, was a former librarian at Clark Atlanta University. At the time, the family resided on campus at Fort […]

Yvonne Craig (1937 - 2015)

Yvonne Craig was born in Taylorville, Illinois, and was raised in Columbus, Ohio.[citation needed] In 1951, her family moved the Oak Cliff neighborhood in Dallas, Texas, where she attended WH Adamson High School and then Sunset High School, from which she did not technically graduate due to the lack of “a single PE credit”.  After […]