Jimmy Ruffin

Posted in Palm Memorial Park Northwest with tags , , on April 28, 2025 by Cade

May 07, 1936 – November 17, 2014

Jimmy Ruffin was an R&B and soul singer who performed from a young age alongside his little brother, David. By the time he was 25, Jimmy found himself in Detroit and was a session singer in the Motown hit machine. He recorded his own stuff, too, though he was unable to find a hit. After a stint in the U.S. Army, Jimmy returned to Motown and was briefly considered as a replacement for the vacant lead singer role for the Temptations. That job eventually went to his brother, but Jimmy forged ahead as a solo artist.

In 1966, he recorded what would become his biggest hit. “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” became a Top 10 hit on both the R&B and Billboard Hot 100 charts. It would remain his enduring signature song for decades.

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William Wilberforce

Posted in Westminster Abbey with tags on January 27, 2025 by Cade

August 24, 1759 – July 29, 1833

The OG social justice warrior, William Wilberforce was a British politician and social reformer whose religious conversion directed him toward causes to right injustice. He was most notably a staunch advocate and very public face for the campaign to abolish slavery in Britain.

Wilberforce was raised and educated in Yorkshire. He attended St. John’s College at Cambridge where he devoted more time to the typical extracurricular activities of the average college boy than to his studies. Despite his general lack of desire to be in school (he had inherited money from his family and didn’t necessarily need to go to university), he received a degree and embarked on a career in politics.

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Milton Hershey

Posted in Hershey Cemetery with tags on December 2, 2024 by Cade

September 13, 1857 – October 13, 1945

At the age of 14, Milton Snavely Hershey began an apprenticeship with a confectioner in his native Pennsylvania. To say that this experience stuck with him would be the understatement of the century. Hershey founded a number of small confectionary companies – focusing primarily on caramels – and traveled the country learning new processes and ingredients. By the time he was in his mid 20s, he returned to Lancaster, Pennsylvania and founded the Lancaster Caramel Company.

In less than two decades, the Lancaster Caramel Company had 2 factories and over a thousand employees. It was a wild success. In 1900, Hershey sold the company and used the money to start another business…this time focusing on a new chocolate recipe he was tinkering with.

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Porter Wagoner

Posted in Woodlawn Memorial Park (TN) with tags , , on November 11, 2024 by Cade

August 12, 1927 – October 28, 2007

Porter Wagoner was an American country music star and television presenter who was known as much for his music as for his dazzling Nudie suits and his blonde pompadour hair cut. His eponymous syndicated television show ran from 1960 to 1981 and gave the world country and western hits, classic gospel performances, comedy…and Dolly Parton.

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Marcel Proust

Posted in Père Lachaise Cemetery with tags , on October 28, 2024 by Cade

July 10, 1871 – November 18, 1922

If you have one shot at a novel that vaults you into the discussion of “most influential authors of the century”…you had better make it good. You had better make it epic. You had better make it monumental.

Marcel Proust did just that.

Published over the course of more than a dozen years and seven volumes, Proust’s monumental novel, À la Recherche du Temps Perdu (In Search of Lost Time), became one of the first and lasting great works of the 20th Century. The themes he explored over the novel’s 4000+ pages ranged from memory and homosexuality to vanity and despair and changed the trajectory of the modern novel.
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Gordon Cooper

Posted in Cremated with tags , , on October 21, 2024 by Cade

March 6, 1927 – October 4, 2004

One common denominator amongst pilots – test pilots, in particular – is a love for speed. The need to go faster. To push limits. This desire is ideal when you are piloting prototype jets that have never been piloted before. It’s essential if you want to be crazy enough to strap yourself to a 260,000 pound rocket and launch into the unknown vastness of space.

Leroy Gordon Cooper Jr. loved speed. Thanks to his parents’ love for planes and his father’s service as a military pilot, Gordon learned to fly at a young age. He earned his first certification at the age of just 16. He enlisted in the United States Marines after high school, but World War II ended before he could be deployed. He was eventually discharged from the Marines and joined the Army ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corp) in college. He entered flight school for the U.S. Air Force and earned a degree in Aerospace Engineering. He naturally became a test pilot alongside friend and classmate, Gus Grissom, and logged more than 2,000 hours as an experimental pilot. 

In 1959, Cooper received orders to report to Washington D.C. It was there he found out he was on the short list for a new manned space program called Project Mercury.
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Charles Darwin

Posted in Westminster Abbey with tags , , on October 7, 2024 by Cade

February 12, 1809 – April 19, 1882

Geologist, naturalist and biologist, Charles Darwin’s life is extremely well documented. From his early interest in insects and exploring theology in nature to his famed journeys aboard HMS Beagle, Darwin’s contributions to human study, thought and progress are virtually unrivaled.

His five-year voyage on the Beagle from 1831-1836 was arguably his most consequential endeavor. His geological study and collection of natural history specimens from the coasts of South America, Africa, Australia and islands along the way – including Mauritius and, famously, the Galapagos islands – became the bedrock upon which he would change the way humans view the world. Darwin journaled extensively during the journey and his discoveries. He originally set out to write a book about the geological history of these coastlines, but altered his focus after several encounters with fossilized animals and observations in related species of what he would go on to deem “natural selection.”

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K. T. Oslin

Posted in Woodlawn Memorial Park (TN) with tags , , , on September 30, 2024 by Cade

May 15, 1942 – December 21, 2020

As the old adage goes: “Good things come to those who wait.” For Kay Toinette “K. T.” Oslin, this doesn’t EXACTLY fit…but it’s not a bad start.

K. T. Oslin grew up in the American south (Arkansas>Alabama>Texas, to be precise). As a theatre major in college, she discovered a love for folk music. She would form a folk trio alongside a young Guy Clark, and enjoyed performing in clubs and anywhere there was an audience. At the age of 24, Oslin joined the touring production of Hello Dolly! that eventually led to her moving to New York to pursue acting. While in New York, she appeared in a number of musicals, found work in commercials and – most importantly – began to explore songwriting. At this same time, she began to have an affinity for country music and the possibilities her songwriting might have in that genre.

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Walt Whitman

Posted in Harleigh Cemetery with tags , , on September 23, 2024 by Cade

May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892

Attempting to list out the most influential American poets will consistently return a handful of regular contenders. This number can often pale in comparison to other countries with longer histories, but any list you produce will include monumental names like Dickinson, Frost, Emerson, Poe, etc. And EVERY list will feature one name at the top: Walt Whitman

Whitman grew up in New York and dropped out of school to work as a young man to help his family. One of his early jobs was in a print shop. He continued this work and pursued a career in newspapers and eventually began writing his own copy. Opinions, reviews of operas, essays, he dabbled in anything that interested him. He became a successful editor and was able to publish his own serialized novel in 1852. By the mid-1850s, Whitman had decided he wanted to try poetry. He set out to create the great American epic poem and in 1855, published Leaves of Grass, his defining masterwork.

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Posted in The Pantheon with tags on September 16, 2024 by Cade

June 28, 1712 – July 02, 1778

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born in the early 1700s in what is now Switzerland. Losing his mother (died) as a newborn and his father (just…sort of left) somewhat later on, young J-J spent his early years surrounded by upper class artists and working class artisans. The lower his class surroundings became, the more interested he became in the inner workings of the society he lived in. He loved to watch the local militias drill in the square and sympathized with them over the the ruling class armies. He loved music and thought about becoming a priest.

His teens and 20s found him bopping around Europe and taking on…more mature…relationships. He eventually landed in Paris, fathered a bunch of children, started writing, and went on to change the continent of Europe forever.

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