FOUND A GRAVE

William Christy Cabanne (1888 - 1950)

Cabanne (pronounced “CAB-a-nay”) graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, and spent several years in the Navy, leaving the service in 1908. He decided on a career in the theater, and became a director as well as an actor. Although acting was his main profession, when he finally broke into the film industry it […]

William Clay Ford Sr. (1925 - 2014)

Born on March 14, 1925, in Detroit, Michigan to Edsel Ford and Eleanor Lowthian Clay, Ford served in the U.S. Navy Air Corps during World War II. Following the war, Ford married Martha Parke Firestone, the granddaughter of Harvey Firestone and Idabelle Smith Firestone, on June 21, 1947. They had four children together: Martha Parke […]

William Crookes (1832 - 1919)

Crookes made a career of being a meteorologist and lecturer at multiple places. Crookes worked in chemistry and physics. His experiments were notable for the originality of their design. He executed them skillfully. His interests, ranging over pure and applied science, economic and practical problems, and psychiatric research, made him a well-known personality. He received […]

William Cushing (1732 - 1810)

William Cushing was born in Scituate, Province of Massachusetts Bay, on March 1, 1732. The Cushing family had a long history in the area, settling Hingham in 1638. Cushing’s father John Cushing was a provincial magistrate who in 1747 became an associate justice of the Superior Court of Judicature, the province’s high court. Cushing graduated […]

William Dillard Powell (1946 - 2005)

Mary Black Gladden was an employee of The Pantry on Charles Road in Shelby, North Carolina. She was killed on October 31, 1991, while on duty at The Pantry. On that day between 3:15 a.m. and 3:30 a.m., Scott Truelove bought $5 worth of gasoline at The Pantry. Later he would state that while paying […]

William Edward Ayrton (1847 - 1908)

Ayrton was born in London, the son of Edward Nugent Ayrton, a barrister, and educated at University College School and University College, London. He later studied under Lord Kelvin at Glasgow.  Ayrton’s second wife, Hertha Marks Ayrton, whom he married in 1885, assisted him in his research, and became known for her own scientific work […]

William Edward Boeing (1881 - 1956)

Boeing was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a wealthy German mining engineer named Wilhelm Böing from Hagen-Hohenlimburg who had made a fortune and who had a sideline as a timber merchant. Anglicizing his name to “William Boeing” after returning from being educated in Switzerland in 1900 to attend Yale University, William Boeing left Yale in […]

William F. Albright (1891 - 1971)

From the early twentieth century until his death, he was the dean of biblical archaeologists and the acknowledged founder of the Biblical archaeology movement. Most notably, coming from his own background in radical German historical criticism of the historicity of the Biblical accounts, Albright, through his seminal work in archaeology (and most notably his development […]

William Farnum (1876 - 1953)

One of three brothers, William Farnum grew up in a family of actors. He made his acting debut at the age of ten in Richmond, Virginia in a production of Julius Caesar, with Edwin Booth playing the title character. His first major success was as the title character of Ben-Hur in 1900 though replacing the original […]

William Fritz “Dick the Bruiser” Afflis (1929 - 1991)

Born in Delphi, Indiana, Afflis grew up in Lafayette, Indiana, graduating from Lafayette Jefferson High School where he played football and wrestled. Afflis played varsity football at Purdue University and played for the Green Bay Packers in the early 1950s, as a lineman, before he became a pro wrestler.  In the late 1950s, Dick the […]

William Gargan (1905 - 1979)

William Gargan was born William Dennis Gargan on July 17, 1905, in Brooklyn, New York. He was the younger brother of actor Edward Gargan, whose birthday July 17 he shared. His father was a detective, and his mother was a teacher. He graduated from St. James School in Brooklyn. On leaving school, Gargan became a salesman […]

William Gibson (1914 - 2008)

William Gibson (November 13, 1914 – November 25, 2008) was an American playwright and novelist. He graduated from the City College of New York in 1938, and was of Irish, French, German, Dutch and Russian ancestry. William Gibson’s most famous play is The Miracle Worker (1959), the story of Helen Keller’s childhood education, which won him […]

William H. Abendroth (1895 - 1970)

William Henry Abendroth, Jr., nicknamed Harry, was the son of a career soldier who served in the American Indian Wars and the Spanish-American War before retiring as a First Sergeant and becoming an instructor in military studies at the University of Idaho. The younger Abendroth was born in Fort Meade, South Dakota, on December 24, […]

William Hartnell (1908 - 1975)

William Hartnell was born in St Pancras, London, England, the only child of Lucy Hartnell, an unmarried mother. He was brought up partly by a foster mother, and also spent many holidays in Devon with his mother’s family of farmers, where he learned to ride. He was the second cousin of fashion designer Norman Hartnell. Hartnell […]

William Henry Harrison (1773 - 1841)

William Henry Harrison William Henry Harrison was born February 9, 1773, the youngest of Benjamin Harrison V and Elizabeth (Bassett)’s seven children. They were a prominent political family who lived onBerkeley Plantation in Charles City County, Virginia. He was the last president born as a British subject before American Independence. His father was a planter and a delegate to the Continental Congress (1774–1777), who signed […]

William Holden (1918 - 1981)

William Holden Born William Franklin Beedle in O’Fallon, Illinois, he initially followed in his father’s footsteps by studying chemistry at Pasadena Junior College before he signed a contract with Paramount in 1937. His first role was an unaccredited appearance 1938’s “Prison Farm” but he became a star almost effortlessly by virtue of his starring role […]

William Hootkins (1948 - 2005)

Hootkins was born in Dallas, Texas. At the age of 15, Hootkins found himself caught up in the FBI’s investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy when he was interviewed about Mrs. Ruth Paine, the woman “harboring” Marina Oswald, the Russian wife of the presumed assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. He had been studying […]

William Hopper (1915 - 1970)

William DeWolf Hopper, Jr., was born January 26, 1915, in New York City. He was the only child of noted actor, singer, comedian and theatrical producer DeWolf Hopper and his fifth wife, actress Hedda Hopper. William Hopper had one older half-brother, John A. Hopper, from his father’s second marriage in the 1880s. Hopper made his […]

William Horatio Powell (1892 - 1984)

An only child, William Horatio Powell was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Nettie Manila (née Brady) and Horatio Warren Powell, on July 29, 1892. His father was born in West Middlesex, Pennsylvania (where Powell spent his boyhood summers), to William S. and Harriet Powell. Powell showed an early aptitude for performing. In 1907, […]

William IV of the United Kingdom (1765 - 1837)

William was born in the early hours of the morning on 21 August 1765 at Buckingham House, the third child and son of King George III and Queen Charlotte. He had two elder brothers, George and Frederick, and was not expected to inherit the Crown. He was baptised in the Great Council Chamber of St […]

William J Bell (1927 - 2005)

William J Bell American screenwriter and television producer, best known as the creator of the soap operas Another World, The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful. In 1972, CBS executives wanted a new daytime serial that was youth oriented. William along with his wife Lee Phillip Bell created The Young and […]

William J. Hardee (1815 - 1873)

Hardee was born to Sarah Ellis and Major John Hardee at the “Rural Felicity” plantation in Camden County, Georgia. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1838 (26th in a class of 45) and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 2nd U.S. Dragoons. During the Seminole Wars (1835–42), he […]

William Lovett (1894 - 1923)

Organized Crime Figure. He was the leader of a band of Irish gangsters (called the “White Hand”) in Brooklyn during the teens and 1920s. His gang dealt in extortion, loansharking, gambling and other criminal activities around the Brooklyn docks. During World War I Lovett earned the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions in France.

William Marshall (1924 - 2003)

Marshall was born in Gary, Indiana, the son of Thelma (née Edwards) and Vereen Marshall, who was a dentist. He attended New York University as an art student, but then trained for a theatre career at the Actors Studio, at the American Theatre Wing, and with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. He made his Broadway […]

William Raspberry (1935 - 2012)

William Raspberry (October 12, 1935 – July 17, 2012) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated American public affairs columnist. He was also the Knight Professor of the Practice of Communications and Journalism at the Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University. An African American, he frequently wrote on racial issues.  In 1999, Raspberry received the […]

William Rufus Day (1849 - 1923)

Day was born in Ravenna, Ohio, son of Luther Day of the Ohio Supreme Court. He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1870 and spent the following year in the school’s law department. He settled in Canton, Ohio in 1872, where he began practicing law in a partnership with William A. Lynch. For twenty-five […]

William Schuman (1910 - 1992)

Schuman was born into a Jewish family in Manhattan, New York City, son of Samuel and Rachel Schuman. He was named after the 27th U.S. president, William Howard Taft, though his family preferred to call him Bill. Schuman played the violin and banjo as a child, but his overwhelming passion was baseball. He attended Temple […]

William Talman (1915 - 1968)

Talman was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Ada Barber and William Whitney Talman, a vice president of an electronics company. His maternal grandparents, Catherine Gandy and James Wells Barber, were immigrants from England. Talman founded the drama club at the Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He continued to act at Dartmouth College and the University […]

William W. Averell (1832 - 1900)

Averell was born in Cameron, New York. As a boy he worked as a drugstore clerk in the nearby town of Bath, New York. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1855 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Mounted Rifles. His early assignments included garrison duty […]

William Warren Scranton (1917 - 2013)

William Scranton was born while the Scranton family was on vacation at a cottage in Madison, Connecticut. He was the son of Worthington Scranton, a wealthy Pennsylvania businessman, and Marion Margery Scranton, a member of the Republican National Committee for over two decades. Despite her own involvement in politics, his mother tried to dissuade him […]