This American icon truly transcended the Presidency. Known as “The Great Emancipator” Lincoln basically preserved and restored our Union and finally put an end to this nation’s greatest shame: slavery. Magnetic and powerful, Lincoln was either loved or hated – yet “Honest Abe” stood fast to his ideals and rose to the occasion. He was ambitious, decisive, humorous, and even vain. A man obsessed with military strategy and in love with the game of politics, he was a brilliant public speaker. Even after the South was defeated in the Civil War, Lincoln showed no malice or signs of vindictiveness. His second term would have focused on a nation that needed to heal itself, but his life was cut short on April 14, 1865 when Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth assassinated the greatest President who ever lived. Apropos, Abraham is a Hebrew name meaning “Father of a multitude (of nations)”. Lincoln, which is also a widely used male name in America in homage to this great man, is a surname of Celtic origin meaning “lake settlement”. A woman of history in her own right, the very vivacious and impulsive Mary Todd Lincoln was Abe’s First Lady.

This American icon truly transcended the Presidency. Known as “The Great Emancipator” Lincoln basically preserved and restored our Union and finally put an end to this nation’s greatest shame: slavery. Magnetic and powerful, Lincoln was either loved or hated – yet “Honest Abe” stood fast to his ideals and rose to the occasion. He was ambitious, decisive, humorous, and even vain. A man obsessed with military strategy and in love with the game of politics, he was a brilliant public speaker. Even after the South was defeated in the Civil War, Lincoln showed no malice or signs of vindictiveness. His second term would have focused on a nation that needed to heal itself, but his life was cut short on April 14, 1865 when Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth assassinated the greatest President who ever lived. Apropos, Abraham is a Hebrew name meaning “Father of a multitude (of nations)”. Lincoln, which is also a widely used male name in America in homage to this great man, is a surname of Celtic origin meaning “lake settlement”. A woman of history in her own right, the very vivacious and impulsive Mary Todd Lincoln was Abe’s First Lady.

Eleanor Roosevelt is one of the most beloved women of modern times, both as First Lady during her husband’s four terms in office, and as a public figure in her own right. In her long and varied life, she was a humanitarian, a civil rights activist, a teacher, a diplomat, a columnist, a radio spokeswoman, a speechmaker, an advocate for women’s rights and, incidentally, a wife and mother. Coming from a privileged but lonely background, wherein she suffered the deaths of both parents and siblings at an early age, she was subject to lifelong bouts of depression. She married her cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, when she was twenty-one, and was immediately swept into the press of public life that surrounded and supported him. She was also swept into a world that was fraught with personal harm for her. Her formidable mother-in-law opposed her and her gregarious husband was unfaithful to her. A turning point came in 1921, when Franklin contracted polio, and Eleanor supported his decision to stay in politics against the wishes of his mother. She began making public appearances on his behalf, and by the time he was president, she was a seasoned politico. It is highly likely that she had a romantic relationship with the journalist, Lorena Hickok. She and Franklin, who sustained several long term extramarital relationships himself, seem to have agreed to go their separate ways together, in a very modern and civilized solution to the problems of their public personae. After Franklin’s death, Eleanor continued with her far reaching humanitarian work, and died a revered figure at the age of seventy-eight. She set a high standard for all women, one that is eminently worthy of pursuing.

Eleanor of Aquitaine was the powerful queen of France, wife of Louis VII, and of England, as wife of Henry II; she was also the mother of ten, including three future kings of England. High-spirited, willful and well educated, Eleanor became the wealthy Duchess of Aquitaine while still a child, making her a highly prized candidate as potential Queen Consort. Entrusted to the guardianship of Louis VI, she was almost immediately married off by him to his son and heir, Louis VII. She and her husband took part in the Second Crusade, with less than stellar results, and eventually their marriage was annulled, on the basis of consanguinity, but actually because she had only produced two daughters in fifteen years. On to Part II for our Eleanor – richer than ever, she now marries the man who becomes Henry II of England (to whom she was even more closely related by blood than to Louis). In the parentage department, she fares quite a bit better – providing Henry with five sons and three daughters. This marriage proves to be a fractious one, and Henry II even has Eleanor put under house (castle?) arrest for sixteen years when she supports one of her sons in his rebellion against the king. The indomitable Eleanor, twice a queen, thrice a mother of kings, outlived everyone, except two of her ten children, and died at the age of eighty-two, still considered an “admirable beauty”. The scope of this amazing woman’s fortitude was amply portrayed by Katharine Hepburn in the 1968 movie, The Lion in Winter (for which she received an Academy Award).

We cannot find any historically significant people with the first name Schuyler.

John Wayne was the iconic and hugely successful American movie star born in Iowa with the unfortunate moniker of Marion Morrison. Called “Duke” (happily) from a young age, the man whom the studios dubbed John Wayne came to movies by way of odd jobs and bit parts. It took the genius of director John Ford to insist on his being cast in 1939’s Stagecoach to send John Wayne to superstardom via almost 150 movies, most of them Westerns. Among his most popular movies were Rio Bravo, The Quiet Man, The Searchers, and True Grit, for which he won an Academy Award. John Wayne was known in later years as much for his conservative politics as for his movies, as he boosted Republican causes, championed the war in Vietnam and bemoaned the state of contemporary American youth. As much as he stood for a militant aggressiveness, he never joined the armed services, although he tried. Deferred because of his age and family status, he was also the object his studio’s efforts to keep him on the lot cranking out pictures. Nonetheless, he epitomized the fighting patriotic American to the day of his death. Married three times, John Wayne fathered seven children and died of stomach cancer, after having beaten lung cancer some years earlier. He remains one of the best known and most popular figures of American culture to this day, and even has an airport named after him. Not bad for a boy named Sue, er, Marion.

We cannot find any historically significant people with the first name Nanna.

We cannot find any historically significant people with the first name Bertha.

We cannot find any historically significant people with the first name Laurie.

Frida Kahlo (de Rivera) was the famous Mexican artist who is known as much for her association with Diego Rivera as for her own paintings, most notably her self-portraits. Born of a German Jewish father and a Mexican mother, Frida was early on moved to study medicine. The victim of a devastating bus accident when she was a teenager, Frida took to painting during her long convalescence. The resulting injuries would plague her all her life, leaving her wounded, in pain and in need of multiple surgeries, all of which conditions seeped into her paintings. Her volatile relationship with Rivera, whom she married, divorced, remarried and lived within an uncomfortable form of “open marriage”, was another overwhelming inspiration for her suffering-infused artwork. She died at the young age of forty-seven, and in spite of some significant recognition of her work during her lifetime, it was not until the 1980’s that she achieved the cult status she enjoys today. Embraced by feminists and art lovers alike, perhaps the best assessment of her legacy was uttered in 1938 by fellow artist Andre Breton, who called her work “a ribbon around a bomb”.