By Scott L. Greenwell “The chief glory of every people arises from its authors”[*] ~Samuel Johnson Ask anyone in Ogden about Bernard DeVoto and chances are you’ll meet with a polite shrug and a blank stare. Hardly anyone seems to know who DeVoto is or was. How could his hometown have forgotten the one whom Wallace Stegner considered “Utah’s …
Maurice Abravanel
Cherie WillisUtah History Encyclopedia, 1994 The development of the arts and the enhancement of the cultural quality of life in Utah owe much to Maurice Abravanel, Music Director of the Utah Symphony for more than three decades. A true internationalist, Abravanel was born in Greece of Spanish and Portuguese parents in 1903. His early life was spent in Switzerland and …
Florence Ellinwood Allen
Florence Ellinwood Allen was the first woman appointed to a federal appellate court. She was born March 23, 1884, to Clarence Emil and Corinne Marie Tuckerman Allen in Salt Lake City where her family had moved in 1881, in an attempt to cure her father’s tuberculosis. He taught at Hammond Hall, a school run by the Congregational church as part …
Fortunato Anselmo
Fortunato Anselmo was Italian vice consul in Utah and Wyoming for forty-one years. Born October 1, 1883, in Grimaldi, Province of Cosenza, Calabria, Italy, Fortunato Anselmo immigrated to the United States at the turn of the 20th century. He first settled in Pueblo, Colorado, and worked as a reporter for the Italian-American newspaper Il Vindice and engaged in mercantile interests. …
Leonard J. Arrington
Davis Bitton Utah History Encyclopedia, 1994 Leonard James Arrington was born in 1917 on a farm near Twin Falls, Idaho, and spent his childhood and youth in an agricultural environment. After graduating from high school and the University of Idaho, he began graduate study in economics at the University of North Carolina. After military service in North Africa and Italy …
Simon Bamberger
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 …
Norman H. Bangerter
Michael Christensen Utah History Encyclopedia, 1994 Norman Bangerter was born in Granger, Utah, on 4 January 1933 to William H. Bangerter, a building contractor and farmer, and Isabelle Bawden Bangerter. He was the tenth of eleven children. In 1953 he married Colleen Monson of Magna, and the couple had six children of their own while also raising a foster son. …
Edwina Booth
This mysterious Hollywood actress was a native of Provo. Josephine Constance Woodruff was born in Provo, Utah, September 13, 1904, to James Lloyd and Josephine (Booth) Woodruff, the oldest of five children. According to an article in the Salt Lake Tribune by Harold Schindler, she suffered from hypoglycemia, which often left her with little energy for normal childhood activities. She …
Reva Beck Bosone
K. L. MacKayUtah History Encyclopedia, 1994 Reva Beck Bosone was born on 2 April 1895 to Christian Mateus Beck and Zilpha Chipman Beck, who managed the Grant Hotel and the Pioneer Opera House in American Fork, Utah. The tall redhead early manifested oratorical abilities and considered a career in the theater but instead turned to teaching. After receiving her education …