Edelweiss

May, 2025

If They Were So Wonderful, Why Haven’t We Heard of Them Before?!

As I pondered this topic, mysteries, I wondered how many people make significant

contributions to our lives and yet are summarily forgotten upon their deaths. It is true for

friends when their closest friends of family members leave us… sad but true. Some make

broader contributions or impact, for example a teacher who taught us 50 years ago and yet is

remembered at reunions or better yet, as able to attend and whose presence is requested.

(Doubtless there are some who are still living who are not invited but again that is another

story for another day.)

In a broader sense, inventors, scholars and persons who changed practices, technology, and

laws have made great contributions. Some of their contributions continue to affect our lives

generations later, and yet in many cases we have never know who they were and what their

daily impact is for us.

My paper today focuses on many, but certainly not all of those persons. All are deceased but

even in death, they deserve recognition. I will certainly not identify all such individuals… too

many words, too much time, still, this might start us on a quest to discover others who have

made our lives better and, in many cases, easier.

One lesson gleaned from the obituaries that I read (yes, that is the basis for the paper), is that

neither mysterious nor do contributions have a guaranteed basis in educational level or

intentional research. Suffice it to say that many of their contributions did not appeal to a broad

audience for some time. It may be because they were not political or because the benefitted a

narrow audience or because the public became so taken with the product, that the inventor

had no real required link. The invention was all that fell into the purview of the public.

One more observation as we pursue this topic, mysteries do not have to be classics nor do they

have to have grand historical impact, but they may impact daily lives. They do not have to

involved violence or reputation or even legal consequences or experiences, they do have to

unclear and to impact lives in a way that makes a difference. As a teacher, former academic

and former school administrator (that role involves solving some mysteries), and life long

reader or mysteries (beginning with Nancy Drew), the mysteries I prefer are reality based.

So much for the lengthy introduction. (Remember the former academic role…)

What we will look at today are some of the bet and most interesting obituaries published in the

New York Times, all written by the “legendary” writer Robert McG. Thomas, Jr. The obituaries

that he wrote were noted, in the Columbia Journalism Review, as generating “a brightly burning

spark”. As an aside, if all academics received that king of accolade, that would be a novel

experience!

For years, no matter where we lived, my mother and Dad had the New York Times sent to us.

Even though it might arrive in Germany in the 1950’s about two weeks late, it was the book

reviews, and the society page and the obituaries that were the most interesting to them. The

news we could follow through on station broadcast to the various bases in Germany and other

parts of Europe where U.S. troops were stationed.

McG’s obits as they came to be called, told us of unsung heroes and heroines. Among them

was the inventor or “kitty litter”. (Does any of you have a cat or have you had one?), the

creator of the “soap opera”, the inventor of “trading stamps”, Spain’s first U.S. matador, and so

on, During his time as a writer at the New York times, McG. Wrote 657 obituaries. Now for a

bad pun, ”people were dying to be featured.”

The deeper mystery (aside from the people of whom we had never heard), was that it is

probably none of us even heard of McG.! I have chosen but a sample of the multiple obituaries

written by him. All are fascinating. Many a revelation not so much in regard to the inventor as

in reference to the invention itself!

The follow list of inventors (innovators) represents but a few. Still, I would be willing to bet that

they have impacted us all.

Daisy Anderson was the widow of a former slave and union soldier. She was of the last three

surviving Civil War widows. Daisy Anderson died at age 97, In Denver. She was the oldest of the

last 3 surviving Civil War widows and she herself may have been a former slave. Daisy, how

married her husband when he was 79 and she was 21, in Forest City, Arkansas. At the time, she

was earning a living teaching poor children the alphabet. He grew up on a plantation in

Kentucky, but ironically served in the Union army. After his death, she wrote a book about his

childhood experiences and service, entitled “From Slavery To Affluence: Memoirs of Robert

Anderson, Ex-Slave which was published in 1927.After his death, she lost their farm in the

Depression and she eventually moved to Colorado where she raised chickens and geese on a

farm and ran a restaurant. She also lectured widely about her experiences and became a

celebrity and in 1993 was introduce to Pope John Paul II in Denver, presented President Bill

Clinton with a copy of her book and made it her mission to keep her husband’s memory alive.

Anne Hummert, died at age 91, having learned from a brief and bitter marriage that a women

can find professional success and keep a nation enthralled with her work. What did she do?

She invented the soap opera. Her invention kept (and keeps) people enthralled and glued to

radios (now Televisions, I suspect) for multiple decades with the heart -wrenching regimen of

producing on going heart wrenching controversial episode. In addition to her inventions, she

became a multi-millionaire. Among the programs were “Helen Trent”, “Ma Perkins”, and

“Lorenzo Jones”. These plus a dozen other were in some way related to the

“soap opera” life she lived. She was a reporter for the International Herald Tribune, married

and divorced a fellow reported, married a former St. Louis news paper man, and became aware

that women who stayed at home while their husbands worked, would provide a larger

audience than made of the audience of those who worked and only listened to the radio at

hone at night and then largely for the news. Programs like “Just Plain Bill” concerning a

smalltown barber who married above himself garnered a huge female audience. It gained

support from sponsors, hence the millions that she realized from the soap opera. She had a

photographic memory which aided in the process which included as many as 18 separate 15

minute serials running on the radio at one time each ending with an unresolved crisis that

encouraged the listeners to tune in to the next episode. Such was the success of these

programs that she and her husband realized about 5 million dollars a year and their programs

accounted for more that 50% of the commercial advertising revenues generated by daytime

radio. They also produced several musical programs such as “Waltz Time” and mysteries like

“Mr. Keen Tracer of Lost Persons.” She retired, as did her spouse when television began to

replace radio, but the soap opera continues today,

J.K Stout (Juanita) was a music teacher In Oklahoma became a lawyer, moved to Philadelphia

and became the first black woman to serve as a judge in Pennsylvania. She spent almost 40

years as the scourge of those who committed murder, caused mayhem or were guilty of using

bad grammar. She was born in Oklahoma, earned a BA at the University of Iowa, studied law

degree at Indiana University. In 1959, she was appointed an interim judge but ran for election

at the end of that appointment and won handily. She became the first black woman in the

country to win election to a court of record. Although she dealt with crime, her greatest anger

was with those who lived in willful ignorance, and was particularly reserved for those who

dropped out of school without learning to read and write. One of her most famous cases was

one in which (1965) a white sailor was beaten while trying to defend a girl from rape by eight

black gang members. She convicted and sentenced sever, placing the eighth on probation. In

her decision, she stated in part, “rape today, jail tomorrow”. This and several long sentences

made her a hero in Philadelphia. She frequently gave lectures on the importance of education

and often made first offenders write essays. In fact, she also as known for correcting lawyers

and fellow judges when they mispronounced words or misused grammar, She died in 1998.

Curtis Coulson, the son of a Swedish immigrant, became a neighborhood grocer. As a child he

had operated a newsstand, been a golf caddy, and worked his way through college driving a

soft-drink truck. As a summertime bank messenger, he would lend tellers who were short of

money $5 on Friday and collect $6 on payday, generally the following Monday. That is an

annual parentage rate of about 2,400 percent. He studied economics at the University of

Minnesota and worked as a soap salesman fir Procter & Gamble earning $110 per month. After

a short time in that line of work, he began to work with department stores to find a device to

assure them that customers would return. The practice that he developed was giving those

customers Security Red trading stamps which they could trade for premiums. He soon realized

that the stamps would be ideal for grocery stores and so he created “Gold Bond” stamps.

Grocery stores would pay for the stamps as they were issued. As many of us probably know, it

took months before customers accumulated enough stamps to redeem them if a all. This left

grocers and Curtis time to use the money for other investments. He and his wife advertised

these stamps by marching through grocery stores dressed as drum majors. While I never

witnesses that, I did know of the stamps and also know that we never traded them all in. By

1941, he had 200 groceries signed up for these. After WWII, Gold Bond did so well that he was

able to make major investments including the acquisition of the downtown Radisson Hotel in

Minneapolis, which became the starting point for a 350 hotel chain. His company, the Carlson

Company, continued to thrive even after the demise of the stamp business. His company which

was worth $1 million in 1952, was worth $10 billion by 1976. He did not attempt to sell stock in

the company but kept it private and within his family. After his death in 1999, his two daughters

ran the company that by the time of his death generated 11 billion in revenue and included 100

companies.

Frances Katzenbogen as born in Brooklyn. During her life, she always loved cats. She worked

tirelessly for animal adoption agencies, adopted strays and housed them in her Los Angeles

home. She was 51 when she died. In 1988, she had won a $7 million dollar lottery in New York.

Sadly, she had a chronic asthma condition with strong reactions to the very cats that she loved

and adopted. They were most likely the reason for her demise. Her neighbors were not happy

with their decision to use her wealth to house 20 cats in her home. She needed a two-car

garage with climbing towers, window ledges, scratching posts, skylights and other luxuries for

these animals. Her neighbors riddled her with complaints (she had not checked with them). She

was also the major supported for several animal care agencies as a volunteer and as a

philanthropist. She also indulged herself with the arts, social life and many friends Her

philosophical position was that it as no one else’ business as to how she spent her money!

When she died, without relatives aside from her father and an aunt, her friends vowed that the

cats would be placed in loving homes, although their life style would be considerably less

luxurious once they moved from the “cat House.”

Marshall Berger was a “latter day Henry Higgins” whose life mission it was to teach “Noo

Yawkahs” to speak English. She was from New York, taught speech for 36 years at the City

College in New York ands ethnic was fixated on proper speech, most likely a decision impacted

by his daughter’s stroke which impacted her speech. Marshall was a specialist in dialect

geography, or dialectology. He had an amazing capacity to work with different accents and was

able to identify a person’s ethnic background; level of education and even the neighborhood in

which the person grew up by listening to him or her speak. Berger grew up wanting to be a

radio announcer and he had learned in a visit to a radio station that announcers needed to

overcome regional accents to be successful. In addition to his expertise in American English, he

was adept at foreign languages. During WWII, he worked as a German translator with the Army

Signal Corps. He published a book entitled “Russian in a Nutshell” as well as multiple papers for

journals like “World”, published by the International Linguistic Association. He held a doctorate

from Columbia University and while he could have written more and published more, his real

calling was teaching. One evidence of his love of teaching was his commitment to tutoring his

daughter. Another was his time spent teaching navigation to the Coast Guard Auxiliary, as

interesting activity since he did not even own a boat. His real life goal was to now everything

about everything… a somewhat common ailment among teachers – So knowledgeable was he

that his daughters and their husbands created a game called “stump Marshall” in a generally

vain effort to ask him a question that he would not answer. Among his publications was a table

of words that would help determine the place of origin of an American. He died in 1997

survived by his wife, a daughter and five grandchildren.

W, participated in the Normandy invasion and ended up in the Philippines. After the war, he

remained in the Philippines as a missionary, met his wife who was a Presbyterian missionary

there. They both studied theology in New York where he received a masters degree from

Columbia University and Theological Seminary. He moved to Baywater, Texas and later became

the executive director of the Fort Worth Council of Churches in 1957. Six years later when he

learned that Jack Ruby had killed Oswald, when Rev. Saunders was preparing for an

interdenominational service for the President, he tried to be sure a minister was present when

Oswald was buried. Two ministers had agreed to do this at the request of Oswald’s mother but

when they saw the openness of the cemetery, they became concerned for their own safety...

Rev. Saunders stepped in and, upon the request of Oswald’s mother, recited Psalm 23 at the

gravesite. This led to support for Oswald’s family. We later became the executive director of

the Council of Churches in Dallas, creased a ministry at the county jail and at Parkland Memorial

Hospital. After his retirement, he was interim minster at no less than five churches. He died in

April 1998.

Douglas Corrigan, died at age 88. An aviator, it was he who became known as wrong way

Corrigan. In 1938 he took off from Brooklyn to fly solo to Los Angeles and landed a day later in

Dublin, Ireland where he famously said: “ I’m Douglas Corrigan. Just got here from New York.

Where am I? I intended to fly to California>“ Although his story was that his compass didn’t

work, it did not convince many as he had consistently requested permission to make such a

flight and had modified his plane – it had been judged unworthy of such a flight. His pilot’s

license was suspended. He returned to the U.S. on a ship. He had his license reinstated upon his

arrival in New York. The next day he was honored with a parade at which about one million

lined the streets… more than Chares Lindbergh had at his parade after his solo flight to Paris in

1927. Interestingly, although many pilots, including Amelia Earhart and Wylie Post made solo

flights across the Atlantic, none had the Go intriguing, impish and engaging. Although his flights

was ostensibly an error, the reality was that he had purchased the plane without up to date

instruments, patched it together, ripped out its engine and replaced it with a much larger

engine (nearly doubling the horse power), installed five extra fuel tanks and help everything

together with baling wire.

Where is he come from? Galveston, Texas. He grew up in Los Angeles and had wanted to fly

the Atlantic for years. Prior to his “wrong way flight”, he flew his plane to New York in 1938

setting a solo nonstop record. When he took off one week later (for Los Angeles) going the

wrong way, he had some chocolate, two boxes of crackers and a quart of water. After his

return to the U.S., he was able to obtain lucrative contracts of an autobiography, and a movie

called “the flying Irishman” in which he played himself. He went on to service a test pilot in

WWII and later ran an airfreight service, owned an orange grove, married. He lost his wife in

1966. His son was killed in a plane crash in 1988. Corrigan himself died in 1995.

J. Edward Day, Post master general for the Kennedy administration, gave us the ZIP code. He

was 82 at the time (zip code 20815). He was from Illinois, had been quite active in Democratic

politics, and had been an executive at Prudential Life Insurance Company. He had worked with

Adlai Stevenson when he was Governor of Illinois, but he was a supporter of JFK after Governor

Par Brown of California dropped out of the 1960 Presidential race. He was so unknown that

even while serving in the Kennedy cabinet, he was often mistaken for a security guard. He

became known for his wit and ability as a raconteur. Infact, he was capable administrator and

was able to address complex issue thoroughly and insightfully. Once he was asked why JFK

thought he met the unifications for a cabinet position. His response was “I went to Harvard. I

served in the Navy and my wife went to Vassar.” At one point, he was asked to

Publish a stamp with a hamburger on it. He responded “we chewed their suggestion over and

decided to it on the back burner.” His goals as postmaster general as given to him by the

President were to reduce the billion-dollar deficit, improve service and improve morale. He

accomplished one. The Zip code did streamline mail delivery. He resigned after beginning the

ZIP code and went into private law practice where he was highly successful representing,

among others, the Advertising Mail Marketing Association. He also wrote several enjoyable and

funny books including “My Appointed Round”. He was survived by his wife and two daughters

when he died in 1996.

Mary Bancroft died at age 93. She had been an American spy during the Second World War.

Her work as a spy was largely done in Switzerland. She as the daughter of a Harvard trained

lawyer and an Irish girl who died in childbirth. Her father’s parents did no approve of the

marriage so when his wife died, he left his daughter to be raised/ reared by her paternal

grandparents. Nolan, his parents’ chauffeur became her primary caregiver and constant

companion. Her father’s second wife was the stepdaughter of Clarence Barron, the owner of

the Wall Street Journal. Clarence encouraged his step-grand daughter to meet and to study

people from “all walks of life”. So much did she do this, including studying crooks and gamblers

that her life credo became “Facts are not the truth but may only indicated where the truth may

be.” She attended Smith College but found it to be a total bore. She escaped that family and

college by marrying a teenage friend only to divorce him and to marry a Swiss businessman in a

similar loveless marriage. She did make a turn in her life becoming an accomplished woman.

Carl Jung became one of her confidents during her time in Switzerland. In his scheme of things,

she was and extroverted intuitive personality. She also had emotional conquests with Woody

Allen and Henry R. Luce. To Jung, her family conflicts and several marriages gave her an

instinctive knack for wielding her power such that men valued her advise and let her influence

them. Although her relationships were primarily platonic, she still had many encounters with

famous men.

She, herself, wrote a book entitled “Autobiography of a Spy” which did reveal that she did have

a relationship with Allen Dulles, the so-called American spymaster who laid the groundwork for

the CIA. As her second marriage dissolved, Allen Dulles was looking for spies who came into

“neutral” Switzerland from every corner of Europe. He was impressed by the analyses of

German articles and speeches that she had done for a friend of his. He sough her out to work

with him as an operative He is famous for telling her “It should work very well. We can let the

work cover the romance- and the romance can cover the work.” She helped him prepare his

nightly reports to Washington and then they would engage in a “bit of dalliance.” As a spy, she

interviewed visitors from Germany and German occupied areas. One person with whom she

had contact was a man known as Joseph Broz who was known in Yugoslavia as Tito. Her astute

ability to analyze situations and interpret meanings in comments had an impact on German war

efforts. For example, her German maid’s brother-in-law wrote from Russia and asked for an

aluminum spoon noting that none were available in Germany, she picked up on the impact of

war efforts on German production. Her most important work was with Hans Gisevius, who was

a top figure in German military intel who was a key figure in the plot to kill Hitler.

After the war, she settled in New York, wrote a few novels, provided lectures in regard to Jung,

became active in democratic politics and became friends with Woody Allen and Henry Luce.

When her daughter married Horace Taft, the son of William Howard Taft, the wedding pictures

were published in Life magazine She was survived y 8 grandchildren and 12 great grandchildren

upon her death in 1997.

Who knew? These characters were largely a mystery to me. Even those of whom I had heard

about were largely unknown in terms of the details of their lives, relationships and what they

contributed to our history.