His parents were Kurt Vonnegut Sr. and Edith Leiber. He graduated from Shortridge High School in Indianapolis where he was editor of the school newspaper. After graduation in 1940, he moved on to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York where he took classes for biochemistry. In 1942, he enlisted in the army as an Infantry Battalion Scout. Later he was trained by Carnegie Institute and University of Tennessee to become a mechanical engineer.
After graduating from Yale with a law degree in 1941, Gerald R. Ford returned to his home town of Grand Rapids Michigan to start a law firm with his friend Phillip Buchen. He also became active in local politics. However, less than a year passed before he joined the Navy in 1942 to assist in the United States’ World War II efforts. For two years he served in Ann Arbor, Michigan; and Annapolis, Maryland as a physical trainer for the soldiers preparing to leave for battle. In 1944 he was sent onto the seas aboard the USS Monterey, where he served as both an athletic and gunnery officer.
Theodore also served during World War II. He first served as a cadet-AB seaman on a gasoline tanker, first of four merchant ships. He then became a naval officer in the Pacific Theater. A few months after the Korean War began; he was called to active duty. Theodore began writing at the age of thirteen.
He joined The Illustrated Weekly of India as an assistant editor in 1953 and stayed there for two years. Soon after his return from London, he published his second book of verse Sixty Poems. For the next 10 years, he also worked as a broadcaster on arts and literature for All India Radio. Career He published his book The Unfinished Man in 1960. After working as an advertising copywriter and general manager of a picture frame company (1954-59), he co-founded the literary monthly Imprint, in 1961.
Ernest Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 to Clarence and Grace Hemingway in Oak Park, Illinois. He had five siblings; Marcelline, Ursula, Madelaine, Carol, and Leicester. During his lifetime, Hemingway wrote over four-hundred articles for various newspaper companies, as well as completing ten novels, four nonfiction books, over one-hundred short stories, a play, and ninety poems. While attending high school, Hemingway began writing for his school newspaper, The Trapeze. He published his first article, a review of a concert by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, on January 20, 1916.
When Thomas became thirteen he asked his parents if he could get a job, they let him. He took the job of becoming a newsboy and “candy butcher” on the trains of the Grand Trunk Railway, running between Port Huron and Detroit. While having a job was fun for Thomas, he spent much of his free time reading scientific and technical books, he also spent some of this time learning how to operate a telegraph. In 1862, when he was fifteen, he printed and published the first ever newspaper to be typeset and printed on a moving train, The Weekly Herald. The London Times featured him and his paper in one of their stories, giving him his first exposure to international notoriety.
James Arlington Wright is widely recognized as one of America's finest contemporary poets. He was born in December 13, 1927 in Martins Ferry, Ohio. He was the second of three sons; Ted, James and Jack. His Father, Dudley, was a die-cutter at Hazel-Atlas Glass in Wheeling a neighboring town in Virginia where his mother, Jessie, worked at the White Swan Laundry. Both had to quit school in early teens to work.
Clayton Jerome, future wartime Director of Marine Corps Aviation. In 1934, Joe began his college education in Sioux Falls, but he had to drop out to help his mother run the family farm. However he scraped up $65 for private flying lessons. Five years later he entered the University of South Dakota again and supported himself by waiting on tables. In his senior year he also completed a civilian pilot training program before he graduated with a Business degree in 1940.
Attended Oregon State University 1946 – 1950 and received a BS. Degree. Taught High School Science for eight months at Benson High School before being recalled to active duty for the Korean War on 1 April 1951. Assigned 816th TCS and flew C-119s out of Ashiya, Japan in support of the Korean War. Promoted to Captain 1 June 1952.
As a Prisoner of War, he lived through the firebombing of Dresden, an event which inspired his acclaimed novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. After he returned from Europe in April of 1945, he married Jane Marie Cox and spent several years studying at the University of Chicago and working as a reporter for the Chicago City News Bureau. In 1947, he went to work at General Electric Corporation as a research laboratory publicist. He worked there for 3 years until he left to become a full time writer in 1950. In the past 47 years, he has become one of the most acclaimed writers of our time.