Newell G. BringhurstUtah History Encyclopedia, 1994 George H. Dern was a Utah mining man, businessman, and politician. He was born in 1872 in Dodge County, Nebraska, the son of John Dern, a farmer-businessman. Dern attended the University of Nebraska for three years. In 1894, before graduating, he migrated to Utah following his father’s lead in the wake of the elder …

Stanford J. Layton Utah History Encyclopedia, 1994 Charles Rendell Mabey was elected Utah’s fifth state governor in 1920. His earlier political experience included service as the mayor of Bountiful and two terms in the state legislature. Born into a large family in Bountiful, Utah, in 1877, Mabey was raised in an austere but secure environment. He received his education in …

Miriam B. Murphy Utah History Encyclopedia, 1994 Simon Bamberger was the fourth governor of the state of Utah. Born in 1846 at Eberstadt, Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, to Emanuel Bamberger and Helen Fleish, he emigrated to the United States at the age of fourteen. He manufactured clothing in St. Louis before coming to Utah, where he arrived sometime in the 1870s or …

Miriam B. Murphy Utah History Encyclopedia, 1994 William Spry was born in 1864 in Windsor, England, to tailor Philip Spry and seamstress Sarah Townsend. Spry was educated in common schools and emigrated in 1875 with his family, converts to Mormonism. The family immigrated to Utah in 1875 and Spry served a church mission to the Southern States Mission from 1885 …

Miriam B. Murphy Utah History Encyclopedia, 1994 John Christopher Cutler was a businessman and the second governor of the State of Utah. The son of merchant John Cutler and Elizabeth Robinson, he was born in 1846 in Sheffield, England, and completed his formal education at age twelve when he became a clerk for a wholesale house in Manchester. Converts to …

Miriam B. Murphy Utah History Encyclopedia, 1994 Heber Manning Wells was born in Salt Lake City to Martha G. Harris and Daniel H. Wells, a prominent civic and Mormon leader. He was educated in public schools and at the University of Deseret (Utah). In 1880 he married Mary Elizabeth Beatie, who died in 1888; in 1892 he married Theresa Clawson …

Larry K. Shepherd Utah History Encyclopedia, 1994 Robert F. Bennett was born 18 September 1933 in Salt Lake City, Utah, the youngest of five children of Wallace F. Bennett, the former four-term United States senator from Utah, and Frances Grant Bennett. He attended Salt Lake City’s East High School and graduated from the University of Utah in 1957 with a …

Laurie Snow Turner Utah History Encyclopedia, 1994 Jake Garn was born in Richfield, Utah, on 12 October 1932. He graduated from the University of Utah in 1955 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business and Finance. In 1957 he married the late Hazel Thompson, and they had four children–Jake, Jr.; Susan; Ellen; and Jeffrey–before her death. In 1977 he …

David C. Gessel Utah History Encyclopedia, 1994 Wallace F. Bennett represented Utah in the United States Senate for twenty-four years, from 1951 to 1975. He was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on 13 November 1898 to John F. and Rose Wallace Bennett. He attended local public schools and the University of Utah. In 1918, during World War I, he …

Paul Jennens Utah History Encyclopedia, 1994 Elbert Duncan Thomas was a professor, politician, and statesman, most noted for his tenure as a United States Senator from Utah during the Great Depression and World War II. He was born on 17 June 1883 in Salt Lake City, the son of Richard Kendall and Carrie Stockdale Thomas, who had converted to Mormonism …