View allAll Photos Tagged George
(Edited to add answer key)
I shot the same scene with eight different imaging devices. Which device shot George best?
Each photo was shot in full-auto mode and I made no adjustments to the image afterward. All I did was crop and scale each one to a size of 2048 pixels to facilitate your side-by-side comparison. Go ahead and click through to the full-size version if y'like.
To give you some idea of the detail in the image, I've also compiled a lightbox of thumbnails, clipped from the same region of the image at the file's full original resolution (and then scaled to common dimensions).
What to you think? Leave your comments in the comments. I'll post the "answer key" after these have been online for a bit.
Frame 2/3
George Garton of Sussex CCC bowling against Glamorgan CCC at the SSE SWALEC Stadium in Cardiff last Friday. How he didn't fall over I don't know.
French postcard by Agfa. Photo: Studio Harcourt.
Handsome and athletic Georges Marchal (1920-1997) was one of the main lead actors in the French cinema of the 1950s, together with Jean Marais. He starred in several costume dramas and Swashbucklers and later appeared in films of Luis Buñuel.
Georges Marchal was born as Georges Louis Lucot in Nancy, France, in 1920. In Paris, he followed secondary school, and then took classes in ballet and acrobatics. Many odd jobs followed, like courier, docker at the Les Halles market, and assistant at the Medrano circus. He enrolled in the course of Ms. Calvi, and was hired at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal for the play 'Permission de détente' (Permission to relax) by Yves Mirande. At 20, he joined the Comédie-Française to play in 'Iphigénie et Psyché' (Iphigenia and Psyche). He soon also played in boulevard comedies. His film career started with the comedy Fausse alerte/The French Way (Jacques de Baroncelli, Bernard Dalban, 1940) starring Josephine Baker, which was only released in 1945. During the Occupation days, he was noted in Lumière d'été/Summer Light (Jean Grémillon, 1943) opposite Madeleine Renaud, Vautrin/Vautrin The Thief (Pierre Billon, 1943) with Michel Simon, and after the war, in Au grand balcon/The Grand Terrace (Henri Decoin, 1949) with Pierre Fresnay, about the heroic pilots who struggled, suffered and often died to carry the mail. He became the typical Jeune Premier of the French post-war cinema and posed as a rival of Jean Marais although he didn’t reach the same level. In 1951, he assumed the title role in Il naufrago del Pacifico/Robinson Crusoe (Jeff Musso, 1951), and for Sacha Guitry, he played the young Louis XIV in the star-studded Si Versailles m'était conté/Affairs of Versailles (Sacha Guitry, 1953). In 1951, he married actress Dany Robin. They were both young, beautiful, adored, and preserved their privacy in a house of Montfort l'Amaury. They made six films together, including La Voyageuse Inattendue/The Unexpected Voyager (Jean Stelli, 1949), based on an old script by Billy Wilder, and the comedy Jupiter (Gilles Grangier, 1952). Georges’ talent as a stuntman did wonders for his parts in costume films and swashbucklers such as Messalina (Carmine Gallone, 1952) with Maria Félix, Teodora, imperatrice di Bisanzio/Theodora, Slave Empress (Riccardo Freda, 1954) with Gianna Maria Canale, and Les trois mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (André Hunebelle, 1953) in which he featured as D'Artagnan.
The arrival of the Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) sounded like the death knell for Georges Marchal. He moved to Italy to continue his career. With his muscular body, he was an ideal hero for the Peplum films (the Italian sword and sandal epics). He appeared in a dozen of them, including Nel Segno Di Roma/Sheba and the Gladiator (Guido Brignone - and uncredited Riccardo Freda and Michelangelo Antonioni, 1958) with Anita Ekberg, Le legioni di Cleopatra/Legions of the Nile (Vittorio Cottafavi, 1959) with Linda Cristal, and Sergio Leone's first solo directorial effort, Il colosso di Rodi/The Colossus of Rhodes (Sergio Leone, 1961) with Rory Calhoun. Marchal was a close friend of Luis Buñuel and also one of his preferred actors. Marchal starred in four of his films: Cela s'appelle l'aurore/That is the Dawn (1955) with Lucia Bosé, La mort en ce jardin/Death in the Garden (1956) with Simone Signoret, Belle de jour/Beauty of the Day (1967) with Catherine Deneuve, and La voie lactee/The Milky Way (1969) with Laurent Terzieff. Other interesting films he appeared in were the anthology film Guerre secrète/The Dirty Game (Terence Young, Christian Jaque, Carlo Lizzani, Werner Klinger, 1965) with Robert Ryan, the Romanian historical epic Dacii/The Dacians (Sergiu Nicolaescu, 1967) with Pierre Brice, Faustine et le bel été/Faustine and the Beautiful Summer (Nina Companeez, 1972) and Les Enfants du placard/The Closet Children (Benoît Jacquot, 1977) with Lou Castel. During the 1970s, he focussed on television and appeared in Quentin Durward (Gilles Grangier, 1971), as Philip IV the Fair in Les rois maudits/The Accursed Kings (Claude Barma, 1972), Gaston Phébus (Bernard Borderie, 1977), and Les grandes familles/The Great Families (Edouard Molinaro, 1988) with Michel Piccoli. He played a seductive older man in three TV-films based on the legendary Claudine novels by Colette, Claudine à Paris/Claudine in Paris (1978), Claudine en ménage/Pauline Engaged (1978) and Claudine s'en va/Claudine Goes (1978), all starring Marie-Hélène Breillat and directed by Edouard Molinaro. He also played Claude Jade's father in the fine TV Mini-series L'Île aux trente cercueils/The Island of Thirty Coffins (Marcel Cravenne, 1979). He retired in 1989. His last film appearance had been as General Keller in L'Honneur d'un capitaine/A Captain’s Honour (Pierre Schoendoerffer, 1982) about the French army's behaviour in Algeria. Georges Marchal died in 1997 in Maurens, France, following a long illness. He was married to Dany Robin from 1951 till their much-publicised divorce in 1969. He remarried in 1983 to Michele Heyberger.
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Pablo Montoya (IMDb), Ciné-Ressources, Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
George Skeris, a 36-year-old man from Redondo Beach, CA, swam in the two-mile Dwight Crum Pier-to-Pier Swim, Individual Swimsuit race. Skeris ranked 70th in the M35-39 class, 601st by gender, and 919th overall, with a finishing time of 01:34:48. His race number was 287.
Manhattan Beach's International Surf Festival hosted the event on Sunday, August 6, 2023. Swimmers traverse the ocean between Hermosa Beach Pier and Manhattan Beach Pier.
VQW_2682
Portait of George Müller (1805-1898) of Kroppenstaedt, Prussia, and Bristol, England, the founder of the once famous Orphanages in Ashley Down, Bristol, from George Müller of Bristol and his Witness to a Prayer-hearing God by Arthur T Pierson (c1899).
Countless Bristol orphans owed a great dept of gratitude to George Müller but, in his early years, he was far from virtuous. The spoilt son of a tax collector, he became – even before he was ten years old – a habitual thief and fraudster. He would even purloin government funds which were entrusted to his father. His father wanted him to enter the Church and sent him to the Cathedral School in Halberstadt. Later he attended a school at Nordhausen and finally the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg. But, during his adolescence, he became a compulsive gambler and drunkard. And his behaviour gradually worsened until the Christmas period of 1821 when, aged 16, he spent 24 days in prison. Yet, at the age of 20, not only was he a student at a Lutheran university but – still as decadent as ever – he was accepted as a candidate for holy orders with permission to preach.
However, after a pleasure-seeking visit to Switzerland, a change came over George Müller. He made a full confession to his father and attended a prayer meeting led by an unsophisticated tradesman called Johann Wagner. The debauched but educated George Müller was well accustomed to high-flown religious services – and they left him cold – but Wagner's lowly prayer meeting was life changing. Müller put his years of decadence behind him. He determined to live a life of active Godliness and, therafter, attended Wagner's weekly prayer meeting whenever he could.
For a while his principal preoccupation was to convert Jews to Christianity but, in 1827, he spent two months in free lodgings provided in the orphan houses in Halle established a century earlier by August Hermann Francke. While there he learnt about how Francke had, starting from a single small house, set up network of orphanages in Halle. Later the same year he was urged to serve as with the London Missionary Society, to convert Jews to Christianity. In 1928 he made the move to London. Subsequently he worked in Devon where he met and soon married Mary Groves. Whilst in Devon he also met the evangelist, Henry Craik, who became his life-long friend and helper.
In 1832 the Müllers came to Bristol where George became joint pastor of Bethesda Chapel which was then in Great George Street. In 1836 they adapted their home to care for 30 orphaned girls. More room was soon required so they purchased houses in Wilson Street, St Pauls (now demolished). They housed 130 children, but that was still nothing like enough to house the many hundreds of orphans in the Bristol area. The Müllers response in 1849 was to open the first of five purpose-built orphanages on the hill at Ashley Down. Although they soon became known as the Muller Orphanages or, more often, the Muller Homes, that was never a name favoured by Müller himself. By 1870, 2,000 children were housed on the site. George Müller never went into debt, and never made a public appeal for donations, working on the principle that, if he had faith, God would provide.
One of the principal benefactors was another strongly religious German who had settled in Bristol. Conrad Finzel was a farmer’s son born in about 1790 in a village near Frankfurt. While still in his teens he fled to Britain to avoid being drafted into Napoleon’s army. He made his way to Bristol and started work in a in a sugar refinery. By 1830 he had founded his own refinery in the city. It was very lucrative but, in 1846, it was destroyed by fire. Many would have merely thought 'What have I done to do deserve this'. But Finzel reflected more deeply.:
" 'I then asked myself'; he said some time afterwards, in terms eminently characteristic of the man, 'what Conrad Finzel had done to call for this chastening stroke from God; and after thinking for some time, the truth flashed upon me.The Almighty had punished me because I had not given to His uses as He had blessed me. He had greatly increased my store, and I had only helped the poor in the same proportion as when I had little. Thus I deserved punishment, and God sent me this affliction to remind me of my duty, so, instead of giving so and so, I said, I will give one-third of my gains, for the future. I have given them, and God has gone on blessing me.'
"He gave freely to all sorts of charitable institutions, but most freely of all to the remarkable Orphan House established on Ashley Hill, by his countryman, the Rev. George Müller. During some years it was reckoned, his gifts thereto amounted to £10,000 a year. When near his end, a friend once spoke to him of the misfortune that his death would prove to the institution. 'What has the life of George Miller, or Conrad F inrel, or any one else,' he answered, 'to do with the Orphan House? It is God's work, and God will take care of it when there is not one of us left.' In that temper Conrad Finzel lived and worked in Bristol for nearly forty years. He died at Wiesbaden, while on a visit to his native land, on the 21st of October, 1859." (The Christian Remembrancer, Volume 55, William Scott, Francis Garden, James Bowling Mozley, 1868). Paul Townsend has written more about Finzel's Refinery here.
The five houses of the orphanage were constructed to designs by John Foster & Son during the 25 years that followed 1845. At the time of their construction they were designated by numbers that reflected the order in which they were built. Only later were they assigned the names by which they are known today. Number one, now Allen House, was constructed between 1847 and 1849. Brunel House followed in 1857 and Muller House itself in 1862. The two remaining houses, Davy and Cabot were built in 1868. There's an artist's impression of how the site looked at the time here in which Muller House is front centre. And there's a recent plan of the site here – though it has Cabot and Davy houses the wrong way round!
The decade following 1865 saw many changes in George Müller's life. In 1866 his life-long friend, Henry Craik died and, early in 1870, his wife Mary also died. Later the same year his daughter Lydia married his assistant James Wright. Then late in 1871 George himself re-married. His bride was Susannah Grace Sangar, whom he had known for 25 years. Finally, in 1875 George Müller handed over full responsibility to Wright and started a programme of preaching first in Britain, Europe and America and later in countries such as Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, Ceylon and India.
In 1894, after 23 years of marriage, Müller's second wife, Susannah died. By then George himself was 89 and was living in House Number 3 – the building that's closest in the drawing below – now known as Muller house. He preached his last sermon on 6 March, 1898 at Alma Road Chapel in Clifton and, four days later was found by his maid dead on the floor by the side of his bed. His funeral on 14 March was Bristol's largest by far. Tens of thousands of mourners lined the streets – among them thousands of the orphans who had owed their start in life to George Müller. He was buried by the side of his two wives. He had never sought money for its own sake and died a poor man with few possessions.
In 1958 the Orphanages were relocated and the buildings became the home of a succession of colleges: Bristol Technical College, Brunel Technical College, various faculties of Bristol Polytechnic and finally the Ashley Down Centre of the City of Bristol College . Some of the buildings – including Muller House itself, were converted to flats when they were no longer required by the College.
George Bush as a Chimp chuckling while tearing up the Constitution.
The source image for the chimp in this image is a Creative Commons licensed photo from lightmatter's flickr photostream.
I was interviewed by the Daily Dot. In the interview I talked about this image. The article that came out of that abbreviated what I said about this image I first published in 2009.
Here is the some context:
...If a lot of people commented on an image I would take that to mean that I had done something right. I also had some negative feedback that was helpful. I did an image of Hillary Clinton in an asbestos pants suit. I believe Hillary had used that imagery herself in a debate in Las Vegas.
I showed Hillary in the asbestos pants suit and I had flames lapping around her. I got a lot of negative comments about that image. Women in particular compared it to burning witches and thought the image was out of bounds. There were similar reactions to an image of Diane Feinstein wearing adult dipers with logos of defense contractors. At the time I was concerned about Feinstein's participation in passing the Patriot Act.
There were other images that caused negative reactions for similar reasons. I took this criticism to heart. It lead me to conclude that certain imagery can be perceived to promote stereotypes. If I want to use them, I should have a really good reason and be prepared to defend them. If use of a stereotype blinds the viewer from my message then I am not successfully communicating. I received a lot of negative reaction in other places to an image of George Bush as a chimp.
People who want to justify posting images of Obama as a monkey like to point to that image as an example of a double standard. I would take that image down because it is not something I would create today, but I leave it up to make a point. There is no equivalence between portraying Bush as a chimp vs. Obama. If you don't understand why then you are ignorant of how those images have been used to justify slavery in America.
Also this
...I really it felt like every day there was more news revealing how the Bush team practiced crony capitalism and would sacrifice anyone or anything to achieve their ends. Some of the most galling acts were the Iraq War, the Bush Tax Cuts and the gutting of regulations. There is a great list at In These Times that chronicles the actions of the Bush Administration titled, “A Timeline of Failure.”
Saint-Merri | Place Georges-Pompidou
The Restaurant Georges is a famous restaurant and café at the top of the Centre National d’Art et de Culture Georges-Pompidou (CNAC).
Arch. Jakob+macfarlane
2000.
Photo by Gregory Peterson.
AIA New Mexico Recognizes George Pearl Hall
George Pearl Hall, home to the University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning and the Fine Arts and Design Library, received an Honor Award in the 2011 Design Awards Program sponsored biannually by the American Institute of Architects/New Mexico.
Designed by AIA Gold Medal recipient Antoine Predock, FAIA, the 108,000 square foot, five level facility occupies a gateway site on the UNM campus, flanking the primary pedestrian entrance adjacent to Central Avenue, Historic Route 66.
The school includes accredited professional degree programs in architecture, landscape architecture and community & regional planning. Executive Architect for $29 million project was Jon Anderson and Associates, also of Albuquerque.
Jury Chair for the statewide competition was John Kane, FAIA, principal of Architekton in Tempe, Ariz. The selection jury commented that the project is "a wonderful example of a subtractive process that carves the urban block into an amazing composition. It is urban, reinforcing the pedestrian experience, while at the same time, having a strong iconic presence that sophistically re-interprets its Southwest regional design heritage," and provides "a connection to the community through a wonderfully articulated façade," and in section establishes a "great weaving of spaces and interaction of internal programs."
news.unm.edu/news/aia-new-mexico-recognizes-george-pearl-...
George and I had a lovely catch-up today - The Photographer's Gallery, The National Portrait Museum, and then some tea and scones!
French postcard by Editions Cap Theojac, Toulouse. Sent by mail in 1986. Photos: Jimmy Rague.
Singer-songwriter and poet Georges Brassens (1921-1981) is an iconic figure in France. He wrote and sang, with his guitar, more than a hundred of his poems, as well as texts from many others such as Victor Hugo, Paul Verlaine, or Louis Aragon. Between 1952 and 1976, he recorded fourteen albums that include several popular French Chansons. Most of his texts are black humour-tinged and often anarchist-minded. His most famous film is Porte des Lilas/Gates of Paris (René Clair, 1957).
Georges Charles Brassens was born in 1921 in the town of Sète, a town in southern France near Montpellier. Brassens grew up in the family home in Sète with his mother, Elvira Dagrosa, father, Jean-Louis, half-sister, Simone, and paternal grandfather, Jules. His mother was a devout Roman Catholic, while his father was an easy-going, generous, openminded, anticlerical man. Brassens grew up between these two starkly contrasting personalities, who nonetheless shared a love for music. His mother, Simone and Jules, were always singing. This environment imparted to Brassens a passion for singing that would come to define his life. A poor student, Brassens performed badly in school. Alphonse Bonnafé, his literature teacher strongly encouraged the 15-years-old Braassens’s apparent gift for poetry and creativity. Bonnafé would later write the first Brassens biography in 1963. Georges listened constantly to his early idols: Charles Trenet, Tino Rossi, and Ray Ventura. At age seventeen, Georges and his gang started to steal from their families and others. Georges stole a ring and a bracelet from his sister. The police found and caught him, which caused a scandal. The young men were publicly characterized as ‘voyous’ (high school scum). Brassens was expelled from school. Following a short trial as an apprentice mason in his father's business, he moved to Paris in 1940 to live with his aunt and work at the Renault car factory. In the meantime, he learned piano and wrote some of his first original compositions. He stayed there after World War II had broken out while he felt that this was where his future lay and wrote his first collection of poems. Brassens published two short poetry collections in 1942, thanks to the money of his family and friends. In 1943, he was forced by the Germans to work in a labor camp at a BMW aircraft engine plant in Basdorf near Berlin in Germany. Here Brassens met some of his future friends, such as Pierre Onténiente, whom he called Gibraltar because he was "steady as a rock." Onténiente later became his right-hand man and his private secretary. After being given ten days' leave in France, he took refuge in a small cul-de-sac called "Impasse Florimont," in the 14th arrondissement of Paris. Without much else to occupy him, Brassens spent his days composing songs and writing music, eventually teaching himself the guitar based on his prior experience with the mandolin. There he lived for several years with its owner, Jeanne Planche and her husband Marcel in relative poverty: without gas, running water, or electricity. Brassens remained hidden there until the end of the war five months later, but ended up staying for 22 years. Planche was the inspiration for Brassens's song Jeanne.
In 1946, after the war had ended, Georges Brassens published the first of a series of virulent, black humour-tinged articles in the anarchist journal Le Libertaire. The following year, he also published his first novel, La Lune Écoute Aux Portes, and met Joha Heiman, the woman he would love -- and write about -- for the remainder of his life. His friends who heard and liked his songs urged him to go and try them out in a cabaret, café or concert hall. He was shy and had difficulty performing in front of people. At first, he wanted to sell his songs to well-known singers such as "les frères Jacques". In 1952 he met the singer Patachou, owner of a very well known cafe, Les Trois Baudets. Though Brassens had never considered himself a singer, Patachou convinced him to try his hand at performing himself. A bass player present at the audition, Pierre Nicolas, quickly joined Brassens in support, and would serve in that capacity for the remainder of the singer's career. Jacques Brel and Léo Ferré came also into the music industry with the help of Patachou. With her help, Brassens met Polydor exec Jacques Canetti, and landed a record deal. His first single, Le Gorille, was released later in 1952, and stirred up controversy with its strong anti-death penalty stance; in fact, it was banned from French radio until 1955. In these years, Brassens achieved fame with his elegant songs with their harmonically complex music for voice and guitar and articulate, diverse lyrics. He won the prestigious Grand Prix du Disque de l'Academie Charles Cros in 1954 for his EP Le Parapluie, and spent much of the year touring Europe and northern Africa. In 1957, he made his film debut in Porte des Lilas/Gates of Paris (René Clair, 1957). An old bum (Pierre Brassens) becomes infatuated with a pretty young girl (Dany Carrel) who gets entangled with a young gangster (Henri Vidal). Brassens played an important part as an the bum’s friend, L'Artiste, a taciturn, solitary bard, whose character seems to have been based on Brassens himself. Peter Beagle at IMDb: “The film turned out to be a delightful, warmhearted work, holding up remarkably well on repeated viewings, and Brassens makes an excellent deadpan foil for the great Pierre Brasseur. And the songs he wrote for the film remain among the best of his classic repertoire.” Brassens performed his songs in several other films, but his main focus was live performing. He later on made several appearances at the Paris Olympia and at the Bobino music hall theater. He toured with Pierre Louki, who wrote a book of recollections entitled Avec Brassens. During these performances he accompanied himself on acoustic guitar. Most of the time the only other accompaniment came from his friend Pierre Nicolas with a double bass, and sometimes a second guitar (Barthélémy Rosso, Joël Favreau). He released several more LPs over the remainder of the 1950s, during which time chronic kidney ailments began to affect his health, resulting in periodic hospitalizations. In the following decades he continued to tour. His songs often decry hypocrisy and self-righteousness in the conservative French society of the time, especially among the religious, the well-to-do, and those in law enforcement. The criticism is often indirect, focusing on the good deeds or innocence of others in contrast. His elegant use of florid language and dark humor, along with bouncy rhythms, often give a rather jocular feel to even the grimmest lyrics. Brassens’s lyrics are difficult to translate, though his work is translated in more than 20 languages. Georges Brassens died of cancer in 1981, in Saint-Gély-du-Fesc, having suffered health problems for many years. He was 60. Brassens rests at the Cimetière le Py in Sète.Steve Huey at AllMusic: “Along with Jacques Brel, he became one of the most unique voices on the French cabaret circuit, and exerted a tremendous influence on many other singers and songwriters of the postwar era. His poetry and lyrics are still studied as part of France's standard educational curriculum.”
Sources: Peter Beagle (IMDb), Steve Huey (AllMusic), Wikipedia and IMDb.
GEORGE ANSON
GBR
Owners: Dominion Nav Co Ltd
Port of Registry: GBR Liverpool
IDNo:5128481
Year:1948
Name:NEWFOUNDLAND
Keel:
Type:Passenger/cargo (rf)
Launch Date:22.5.47
Flag:GBR
Date of completion:2.48
Tons:7437
Link:1490
DWT:6140
Yard No:102
Length overall:134.3
Ship Design:
LPP:126.7
Country of build:GBR
Beam:18.6
Builder:Vickers-Armstrongs
Material of build:
Location of yard:High Walker
Number of
screws/Mchy/
Speed(kn):1ST-15
Naval or paramilitary marking :
A:*
End:1971
Subsequent History:
62 GEORGE ANSON
Disposal Data:
BU Kaohsiung 15.2.71 [Great China Steel Development Corp]
Details: Mirimar Index
Photo credits: Supplied by the late Don Ross Collection
French postcard. Ed. Cinémagazine. No. 268. Film Gaumont. Postcard for Le roi de la pédale (Maurice Champreux 1925).
Georges Biscot (1886-1945) was a popular French music-hall and revue singer and actor, who also knew a career in French silent and sound film.
Date of Birth: 21.5.1877
Date of Enlistment: 26.4.1918
Trade or Calling: Dairyman
Born in or near what Town: Grafton
Address prior to Enlistment: Cautts Crossing via S.Grafton, Clarence River
Rank, Number, Battalion, Distinctions: Pte 60119 Composite Battalion 5th Train. Div.
Casualities and where: RTA 9.8.1919
Name & Address of Next of Kin: Elizabeth Emily Ellis c/o R.Ellis Cambridge St S.Grafton (Wife)
Name and last address of Father: Robinson Ellis Cambridge St S.Grafton
www.acmssearch.sl.nsw.gov.au/search/itemDetailPaged.cgi?i...
Jean-Antoine Houdon, George Washington, 1788-92, marble, 6′ 2″ high (State Capitol, Richmond, Virginia)
Co. C, 15th IND. Infantry Medal of Honor Recepient.
This is a new marker placed behind his Civilian marker.
George L. Banks was born in Lake county, OH., Oct. 13, 1839. His parents, Orin and Olive (Brown) Banks, were natives of Scoharrie county, New York, and born the father January 25, 1803, and the mother March 12, 1805. They were married in 1823, and settled in Lake county, Indiana, in 1845 and stopped, first, in LaPorte county. They passed their lives as country people, were upright Christian folk and were thrifty as farmers of their time. They died in Lake county, Indiana, the father October 29, 1857, and the mother January 27, 1887. The Banks were Scotch-Irish origin and the Browns of English lineage. The parents both belonged to old families of the east and reared a large family of children, as follows: Charles, of Salina, Kansas; Elisha, of McPherson county, Kansas; Parley, of Lake county, Indiana; Mary C., wife of Simon White, of LaPorte county, Indiana; George L., of this notice; Nathaniel P., of Lake county, Indiana; Sarah L., wife of W. B. Adams of Montgomery county, Kansas.
George L. Banks spent his youth and early manhood in LaPorte county, Indiana, and had the advantage of a good country school education. The Civil war came on just after he had reached his majority, and was concerned with the serious affairs of peace, but he enlisted, June 6, 1861, in Company “C”, 15th Inf. under Col. Geo. D. Wagner. The regiment was ordered at once into the field and it took part in the battles of Greenbriar and Elk Water that same year. As the war progressed it participated in the battles of Shiloh, Perryville, Stone River and Missionary Ridge, where Mr. Banks was wounded, and rendered unfit for service for some weeks. During his later active service he was in battle at Charleston and Dandridge, Tennessee. He was discharged from the army June 25, 1864. In 1897, he received from the Secretary of War a medal of bronze, appropriately engraved and inscribed in commemoration of distinguished service while in the line of duty. Engraved on the face of the medal is:
“The Congress to Color Sergeant George L. Banks, 15th Indiana Infantry,
“For gallantry at Missionary Ridge, Tennessee, November 25, 1863.”
The letter from the Secretary of War notifying Mr. Banks of the honor accorded him and announcing the issuing of the medal states the specific acts of gallantry and is herewith made a part of this record:
MEDAL OF HONOR.
War Department, Washington, D. C. Sept. 21, 1897.
George L. Banks, Esq. – Independence, Kansas.
Sir:--You are hereby notified that by direction of the President and under the provisions of the Act of Congress approved March 3, 1963, providing for the presentation of medals of honor to such officers, non-commissioned officers and privates as have most distinguished themselves in action, a Congressional Medal of Honor has this day been presented to you for most distinguished gallantry in action, the following being a statement of the particular service: At Missionary Ridge, November 25, 1863, this soldier, then a Color Sergeant, 15th, Indiana Vols., in the assault, led his regiment, calling upon his comrades to follow, and near the summit he was wounded and left behind insensible, but having recovered consciousness rejoined the advance, again took the flag and carried it forward to the enemy’s works, where he was again wounded. In the brigade of eight regiments the flag of the 15th Indiana was the first planted on the Parapet.
The medal will be forwarded to you by registered mail as soon as it shall have been engraved.
Respectfully, R. A. Alger, Secretary of War.
From volume 4, pages 1840-1841 of A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans, written and compiled by William E. Connelley, Secretary of the Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka. Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, copyright 1918
GEORGE L. BANKS. A sterling pioneer and citizen who is now living virtually retired in the City of Independence, Mr. Banks is specially entitled to recognition in this history. He was one of the early settlers of Montgomery County and has contributed his full quota to its civic and industrial development and progress, and he was long one of the prominent and influential exponents of agricultural industry in this section of the state. High honors also are his for the valiant service which he gave as a soldier of the Union in the Civil war.
Mr. Banks was born in Lake County, Indiana, October 13, 1839. His father, Orin Banks, was born in the State of New York, in 1800, and was there reared to manhood, his marriage having been solemnized in Schoharie County, that state. His entire active career was one of close association with the basic industry of agriculture and he was one of the pioneer farmers of LaPorte County, Indiana, where he established his home in 1845. In about 1850 he removed to Lake County, Indiana, where he died in 1856. He was a supporter of the democratic party until the organization of the republican party, when he transferred his allegiance to the latter. He was influential in community affairs and was called upon to serve in various township offices. Both he and his wife were devout members of the Baptist Church, in which he served as a deacon. Mrs. Banks, whose maiden name was Olive Brown, was born in Schoharie County, New York, in 1803, and thus she was eighty-three years old at the time of her death, in 1891, she having been at the time one of the most venerable pioneer women of Lake County, Indiana. Of the children the eldest was Betsey, who became the wife of Major Atkins, and who died in Lake County, Indiana, in 1866, her husband having long survived her and having been a farmer and capitalist of influence. Charles W., a lawyer by profession, died in 1907, in Chambers County, Texas. Morgan, a farmer and merchant, died in McPherson County, Kansas, in 1890. Elisha, who likewise became a representative farmer in McPherson County, died in 1906. Parley A. is a retired farmer and resides at Crown Point, Lake County, Indiana. Mary C. first married Balsar Keith, a farmer, near Union Mills, Indiana, and after his death she became the wife of Simon White, likewise a prosperous farmer of LaPorte County, Indiana. He likewise is deceased and his widow now resides at LaPorte, that county. William A., who died at LaPorte, Indiana, in 1903, had served six years as postmaster of that city and had been a leading importer of live stock in that section of the Hoosier state. George L., of this review, was the next in order of birth. The next two children were sons, both of whom died in infancy. Nathaniel P. is president of a bank at Hobart, Lake County, Indiana. Sarah Lavina is the wife of W. B. Adams, and they reside at Dearing, Montgomery County, Kansas, where Mr. Adams is vice president of a banking institution.
George L. Banks acquired his early education in the common schools of Lake and LaPorte counties, Indiana, and he continued to be associated with his father's farming operations until he had attained to the age of seventeen years. In the autumn of the year in which he reached this age he went to Minnesota and found employment in a pioneer sawmill at St. Anthony, the nucleus of the present great City of Minneapolis. The next year, 1857, found him employed in the lumber woods in the wilds of Northern Michigan, and he then returned to the old homestead farm. In Lake County, Indiana, he did a large amount of contract work in the digging of drainage ditches and for one year there he clerked in a grocery store, and afterward was a clerk in a dry-goods store. He finally resumed farming in his native county and was thus engaged at the outbreak of the Civil war. On the 6th of June, 1861, in response to President Lincoln's first call for volunteers, Mr. Banks enlisted as a private in Company C, Fifteenth Indiana Volunteer Infantry, with which gallant command he proceeded to West Virginia and took part in the engagements at Greenbriar and Elkwater. Later he was a participant in the memorable battles of Shiloh, Perryville, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga and Chattanooga. In the battle of Chattanooga he was thrice wounded but his injuries were not serious and he was incapacitated for a few weeks only. Mr. Banks was color sergeant of his regiment in the storming of Missionary Ridge, and most gallantly did he acquit himself on this historic field. The colors were shot down six times, and Mr. Banks himself was wounded on the first and last of these occasions. He was first shot in the ribs, and after regaining consciousness he was again wounded,—this time through the top of the head. His severe injuries incapacitated him from November, 1863, until January 14, 1864, and on the 25th of June of the latter year he was mustered out. Mr. Banks received and greatly prizes the Congressional medal of honor that was presented to him and that bears date of November 25, 1863, and he also has a letter from Hon. Russell A. Alger, at the time the latter was serving as Secretary of War, many years later, congratulating him on his admirable service during the ever memorable battle of Missionary Ridge. Mr. Banks, as color bearer for his regiment, was the first regimental color sergeant to plant the colors on the enemy's works at Missionary Ridge out of a brigade of six regiments, and for this gallant deed he received a medal of honor from Washington, District of Columbia.
After the close of the war Mr. Banks returned to his native county, where he followed farming until the spring of 1871, when he came to Kansas and numbered himself among the pioneers of Montgomery County. He settled in Fawn Creek Township, where he took up a pre-emption claim of 160 acres, and there he continued his farming operations for sixteen years. He developed and improved one of the fine farms of the county and was specially influential in township and community affairs. To his efforts was due the defining of the school district and the erection of the first schoolhouse of District No. 91, and this pioneer school was named in his honor. He had the supervision of the erection of the school building and was a member of the school board until he left his farm, in the autumn of 1886, when he returned to Indiana and became the proprietor of a hotel at Angola. In the following spring he exchanged his hotel property for a farm in Hillsdale County, Michigan, where he remained six years. He then sold his Michigan farm, or exchanged the same for property in Montgomery County, Kansas, where he again was actively engaged in agricultural pursuits for the ensuing two years. He thereafter passed two years at Independence, the county seat, but in 1896 he returned to his farm, upon which he continued to reside until 1903, when he resumed his residence at Independence. Here he has been engaged in the real estate and loan business and in the supervision of his various properties, so that he is not yet fully retired from active business, idleness and apathy being entirely foreign to his nature. He is the owner of valuable residential property in Independence, including his own attractive home, at 417 North Fifth Street, and near Bolton, this county, he owns 240 acres of valuable farm land, besides having another farm, of 160 acres, south of Dearing, this county, and 300 acres in Chambers County, Texas. On the farm near Bolton Mr. Banks effected the drilling of the first large oil well in Montgomery County, in 1903, and the same is still producing extensively.
Mr. Banks has not only achieved large and worthy success in connection with the practical affairs of life but he has also been most loyal and influential in public affairs in Southeastern Kansas. He served two terms as a representative of Montgomery County in the Kansas Legislature, 1905-7, and made a characteristically excellent record in furthering the interests of his constituent district and of wise legislation in general. He is a progressive republican and is well fortified in his convictions concerning governmental policies. While a resident of Fawn Creek Township he served six years as justice of the peace and later held the office of township trustee, his retirement from the office of justice of the peace having occurred in 1882. He has long been a zealous member of the Presbyterian Church, and is affiliated with the Grand Army of the Republic, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and the Anti-Horse Thief Society. Mr. Banks is one of the most appreciative and valued members of McPherson Post No. 4, Grand Army of the Republic, at Independence, and has not only served several terms as commander of the same but also as junior vice commander of the Department of the Grand Army for Kansas. It is worthy of special record that on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his being mustered in for service in the Civil war his surviving regimental comrades presented him with a beautiful silk flag of the United States, this being a tribute that he deeply appreciated. Mr. Banks is one of the representative men of Montgomery County, has inviolable place in popular esteem and is one of the substantial citizens of Independence, and he is a director and the secretary of the Jefferson State Bank, at Jefferson, this county.
On the 8th of October, 1864, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Banks to Miss Olive W. Chandler, and she was summoned to the life eternal nearly forty years later, while their home was on the farm near Bolton, Montgomery County. She was a gracious and gentle woman who was loved by those who came within the compass of her influence, and she died in the year 1902. Of the children of this union the eldest is William N., who is a representative member of the bar of Montgomery County, and is engaged in the practice of his profession at Independence; Charles B. is engaged in the real estate business at Caldwell, Idaho; and Arthur A. is at Denver, Colorado.
In 1904 Mr. Banks contracted a second marriage, when Mrs. Helen J. (Clarkson) Shoemaker, widow of Philo Shoemaker, became his wife. They reside in an attractive home at Independence, in which city she had resided prior to her marriage to Mr. Banks. No children have been born of the second marriage.