Born: July 3, 1898Died: January 1935 Ohio connection: Birth Defiance Writer, novelist, and journalist Thomas Alexander Boyd was born in Defiance, Ohio, the only child of Alice (nee Dunbar) Boyd and James Alexander Boyd. Due to his father’s death three months before he was born and his mother’s move to Chicago, Illinois, to pursue a nursing …
Read More Thomas BoydBorn: June 8, 1928Died: March 8, 2018 Ohio connection: Birth Toledo Kate Wilhelm was born Katie Gertrude Meredith, daughter of Jesse and Ann Meredith, in Toledo, Ohio, in 1928. After graduating from high school in Louisville, Kentucky, she worked as a model, telephone operator, sales clerk, switchboard operator, and underwriter for an insurance company. She …
Read More Kate WilhelmBorn: May 3, 1907Died: January 16, 1987 Ohio connection: Birth Rockford, Mercer County Harvey Earl Wilson, son of Arthur Earl and Cloe (Huffman) Wilson, was born in 1907 in Rockford, Ohio, in Mercer County. A budding career as a news reporter began while he was in high school when he worked as a sportswriter for …
Read More Earl WilsonBorn: 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: 1943 Ohio connection: Resident Toledo Mildred Delois Taylor was born in 1943 in Jackson, Mississippi, to Wilbert Lee and Deletha M. Taylor. Although born in the South, her family moved to the North, settled in Toledo, Ohio, three weeks after she was born. The Taylors’ migration to the North was because her father did …
Read More Taylor, Mildred D.Ohio 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: June 14, 1811Died: July 1, 1896 Ohio connection: Resident Cincinnati Author and social reformer Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose Uncle Tom’s Cabin helped galvanize anti-slavery efforts across the nation, was a Connecticut native who spent the years 1832–1850 in Cincinnati, Ohio, settling in the Walnut Hills area. During those eighteen years, she would become a wife, …
Read More Harriet Beecher StoweBorn: 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: January 2, 1900Died: May 10, 1980 Ohio connection: Birth Delphos Leslie Copus Peltier, son of Stanley William and Resa (Copus) Peltier, was born in 1900 in Delphos, Ohio. Growing up on a farm in the country, he quickly developed a great love for nature. His mother introduced him to the wonders of the night sky by …
Read More Leslie Copus PeltierBorn: November 14, 1947Died: February 15, 2022 Ohio connection: Birth Toledo Born and raised in Toledo, Ohio, journalist and satirist Patrick Jake “P.J.” O’Rourke was the son of Clifford and Delphine (née Loy) O’Rourke. After receiving his undergraduate degree in 1969 from Miami University of Ohio, O’Rourke earned an M.A. in English in 1970 from Johns …
Read More P. J. O’Rourke (Patrick Jake)