Today is my father’s birthday. He was born on October 10, 1914 above a saloon owned by his grandfather.
He did not have a happy childhood and his own father died when my father was just 13 years old. When his grandfather died less than a year later, he became de facto head of the family.
He was an excellent student and was the first person in his family to graduate from high school. He went on to college and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. He went on to law school and graduated from that with a Juris Doctor, something of a rarity in those days. It being the heart of the Depression, jobs were hard to come by so he spent the next year in Europe. We have journals of his experiences there in Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, Egypt, and North Africa.
When he returned to the United States he worked as a newspaper editor, writing editorials for the St. Louis Star, then as an insurance claims adjuster. He finally got a job as an associate with a prominent St. Louis law firm and taught law school at night at St. Louis University. He went on to establish his own law practice and was successful at that until his death.
Those attending his wake and funeral included his grade school, high school, and college friends and colleagues.
He was the bravest, kindest, smartest man I’ve ever known.
These are some of my previous posts about him:
Blogging, c. 1940
My Dad’s Birthday, 2007
My Dad, 60 Years Ago
My Dad’s Birthday, 2009
My Dad’s Birthday, 2011
My Dad
My Dad 2
1940s St. Louis
My Father’s Stories
