Born: December 27, 1896Died: March 18, 1956 Ohio connection: Birth Mansfield Louis Bromfield (birth name Lewis Brumfield), the son of Annette Maria Coulter Brumfield and Charles Brumfield, was a Pulitzer-Prize-winning novelist and a screenwriter, essayist, and conservationist. Bromfield, the author of thirty-three books of fiction and nonfiction may best be remembered for his early advocacy of land …
Read More Louis BromfieldBorn: 1960 Ohio connection: Former Resident Perrysburg Historian Douglas Brinkley was born in Atlanta, Georgia, but raised in Perrysburg, Ohio. He completed his bachelor’s degree at The Ohio State University and received his doctorate in U.S. Diplomatic History from Georgetown University in 1989. Brinkley then spent a year at both the U.S. Naval Academy and Princeton University …
Read More Douglas BrinkleyBorn: 1940 Ohio connection: Birth Newark Geoffrey Champion Ward, son of Frederick Champion and Duira Rachel (Baldinger) Ward, was born in 1940 in Newark, Ohio. He received a B.A. from Oberlin College in 1962. That same year, he was married to Diane Raines Keim, and they had two children, Nathan and Kelly. They were later divorced. …
Read More Ward, GeoffreyBorn: July 11, 1930 Died: December 20, 2020 Ohio connection: Birth Delaware Ezra F. Vogel, born in Delaware, Ohio, was the son of Joseph H. and Edith (Nachman) Vogel. He received his B.A. at Ohio Wesleyan University in 1950 and his Ph.D. in sociology at Harvard in 1958. He was the Henry Ford II Professor of …
Read More Vogel, EzraBorn: 1961 Ohio connection: Resident Cleveland “Bracingly honest…a perceptive and often piercing writer” is how The New York Times describes Thrity Umrigar, an Indian émigré who now calls Ohio home. Born in Bombay, Thrity left India for Ohio at the age of 21 in part because she felt she “would never be totally independent and would never discover …
Read More Umrigar, ThrityOhio connection: Resident Vermillion Marilou Suszko is a food writer whose work appears in newspapers and magazines. She is a regular contributor to the Cleveland Plain Dealer Food Section, the Sunday Magazine and Feast. Farms and Foods of Ohio: From Garden Gate to Dinner Plate is her first book. Suszko is a Level III graduate from Western Reserve School of Cooking. She is …
Read More Suszko, Marilou K.Born: 1934 Ohio connection: Birth Toledo Gloria Steinem, writer and feminist icon, was born in Toledo, Ohio. After a difficult childhood that included her parent’s divorce and her mother’s mental illness, Steinem won a scholarship to Smith College, where she studied government and politics, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1956. She soon broke off …
Read More Steinem, GloriaBorn: November 30, 1904Died: March 11, 1967 Ohio connection: Birth Cleveland Charles Allen Smart, son of George and Lucy (Allen) Smart, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1904. He received an A.B. degree from Harvard University in 1926. He worked for Doubleday, Page & Co. and Doubleday Doran (publishers) as an editorial assistant from 1927 until 1930. …
Read More Charles Allen SmartBorn: July 30, 1929 Died: May 9, 2011 Ohio connection: Birth Belden Robert Elwayne Skimin, son of Ellwyn W. and Mildred L. (Summerton) Skimin, was born in 1929 in Belden, Ohio. He attended Monmouth Junior College, 1948-49; University of Georgia, 1957-58; South Dakota School of Technology, 1959-60; and Cornish School of Allied Arts, 1967-68. He served with …
Read More Skimin, Robert ElwayneBorn: 1975 Ohio connection: Birth Cincinnati Curtis Sittenfeld was born in Cincinnati. The second child of four, she is the daughter of Paul G. Sittenfeld (an investment banker) and Elizabeth Curtis (an art history teacher). She attended Seven Hills School in Cincinnati through 8th Grade and then moved to the Groton School, a boarding school in Massachusetts …
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