Falls City, NE--Prime Choice

























     


City of Falls City

Famous Fall Cityans

 

 

 

  • David P. Abbott (1863-1934)  He was a realtor, author, and amateur magician.  He was known nationally as the inventor of the "Talking Teakettle".  He was considered the most underrated magician in the 20th century. 

  • Alice Cleaver (1878–1944)   She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, four years; the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts under William Chase and Cecelia Beaux, three years; and in Paris for one year until the outbreak of World War I ended her studies. She spent most of her career painting in her home town of Falls City, Nebraska in the manner of her Philadelphia training.


 

  • Emmett Dedmon (1918-1983)   As a journalist and author, he held various editorial positions with the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Daily News for most of his 38-year career.  He wrote seven books and was inducted into Chicago Press Club Hall of Fame in 1982.


 

  • Gilbert L. Dodds (1918-1977)    He was the dominant American amateur miler of the mid-1940's.  He held the record for the fastest indoor mile run for six years; was the recipient of the Sullivan Award in 1943, the most prestigious trophy in American amateur athletics.  He was also an educator and track coach.


 

  • Pee Wee (George F.) Erwin (1913-1981)   He was a musician, composer, bandleader, and trumpeter for well known bands of Benny Goodman, Ray Noble, and Tommy Dorsey in the 1930's.  He performed on radio and television, was a member of top Dixieland groups, and composed such jazz numbers as "Piano Man" and "Creole Rag".

  • John P. Falter (1910-1982)   Born in Plattsmouth, Nebraska, John moved with his family in 1916 to Falls City where his father opened the the Falter Clothing Store.  While at Falls City High School, he created the comic strip Down Thru the Ages, which was published in the Falls City Journal.  After graduating high school in 1928, John studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and won a scholarship to the Art Students League in New York City. He eventually opened a studio in New Rochelle, N.Y., where he met other  illustrators, including Frederic Remington and Norman Rockwell. Falter received a major break with his first commission from Liberty Magazine to do three illustrations a week in 1933. By 1938, he had acquired several advertising clients including Gulf Oil, Four Roses Whiskey, Arrow Shirts, and Pall Mall. Falter's work appeared in major national magazines. In 1943, he enlisted in the Navy and his talents were applied to the American war effort to spur the recruiting drives. Falter designed over 300 recruiting posters. Falter's first The Saturday Evening Post  cover, a portrait of the magazine's founder, Benjamin Franklin, is dated September 1, 1943. That cover began a 25-year relationship with The Saturday Evening Post, in which Falter produced 128 covers for the magazine until The Post ceased publication in 1969. Perhaps his most endearing cover was for December 1946, which depicted downtown Falls City dressed up for Christmas.  Falter also did illustrations for Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, Cosmopolitan, McCall's, Life and Look. He illustrated over forty books, one of his favorite projects was illustrating a special edition of Carl Sandburg's Abraham Lincoln - The Prairie Years. An excellent portrait painter, Falter had Clark Gable, James Cagney, Olivia de Haviland and Admiral Halsey among his sitters. Falter completed over 200 paintings in the field of western art, with emphasis on the westward migration of 1843 to 1880 from the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains. He was honored by his peers with election to the Illustrators Hall of Fame in 1976, and membership in the National Academy of Western Art in June of 1978.  John Falter died in Philadelphia in May, 1982.

  • Barbara Frost Hemphill  (1948 -    ) She is CEO of Hemphill Productivity Institute (HPI), whose mission is to help individuals and organizations create and sustain a productive environment so they can accomplish their work and enjoy their lives. HPI helps clients organize time, space, and information so they can maximize productivity and reduce stress. Barbara is the author of Kiplinger’s Taming the Paper Tiger at Home, Kiplinger’s Taming the Paper Tiger at Work, and Simplify Your Workday. Her most recent book, Love It or Lose It: Living Clutter-Free Forever! was launched on Home Shopping Network. She is currently writing a new book entitled Taming the Paper Tiger in the Digital Age: There’s an Easy Switch.

    Her business grew out of the lessons learned growing up on a farm in Nebraska. Her formal training was in music and education. Barbara sees organizing as an art form, and invites her clients to: “paint a picture of the kind of life you want to live, and we will help you create and sustain a productive environment that will enable you to get there.” She has lived in the West Indies, India, New York City, and Washington, DC. While living in India, she adopted three children. In addition, she has two stepchildren and one grandchild. She now lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with her husband Alfred Taylor. Their home sits on 70 acres of woods overlooking a 30-acre lake. People love coming to Barbara’s home see whether she practices what she preaches!

  • Dave Heineman  Current and 39th Governor of Nebraska.  He was born in Falls City and lived in Fairbury, McCook, Benkelman and Wahoo, where he graduated from high school.  In 1970, he graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and served five years in the U.S. Army, rising to the rank of captain.  He is also a graduate of the Army's Airborne and Ranger Schools.  He was first elected to state office in 1994 as the State Treasurer.  He was elected as Lt. Governor in 2002 and was sworn in as Governor in January 2005 when the previous governor was appointed to a federal position.

  • Patricia K. McGerr (1917-1985)  She was an author, editor, and publicist, known as the freelance writer  who created the mystery form "whodunit?" in which the victim of the crime, not the culprit, is the unknown person to the reader.  Over 40 years she wrote 17 novels and 46 short stories and received three awards, including first prize in the 1967 short story contest of the Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.

  • Kenneth L. Sailors (1921 -     )   He was a professional and college basketball player, educator, and coach.  He was considered among the pioneers in basketball for inventing the one-handed jump shot in 1934.  He played on the University of Wyoming's NCAA national championship basketball team in 1943, the same year he won the Chuck Taylor Medal as the outstanding college player of the year; played five seasons from 1946 to 1951 in the Basketball Association of America and the fledgling National Basketball Association for such teams as Cleveland, Denver, Boston, and Baltimore with a career total of 3,480 points in 276 games and was selected as one of the 100 greatest players of the first century of basketball by the Basketball Alumni Foundation in 1991.



 

  • Allan Tubach (1939 -      )   For more than four decades, Tubach’s painting subjects have included people, landscapes and architecture from around the world. His greatest emphasis is urban and rural Nebraska. A large number of pieces focus on the cities of Omaha and Lincoln, but also the artist’s boyhood home area of Richardson County in the southeast corner of the state. J. Brooks Joyner, Director of the Joslyn Art Museum, said “Allan Tubach’s work unfolds before us like a cubistic tapestry of his collective observations of particular locations. They are breathtaking, spacious and dynamic compositions.”

  • Arthur J. Weaver (1873 - 1945)  He was born on a farm near Falls City and educated in its public schools.  After receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Nebraska in 1896 and a year later his law degree, he started his practice in Falls City.  He served as city and county attorneys and in 1915, as mayor.  In 1928, he was elected governor.  He was actively involved with the agricultural, recreational and historical development of Nebraska.

  • David Wiltse (1940 -      )  From Falls City and a graduate of the University of Nebraska he is the author of ten plays, twelve novels and several dozen television films, television series pilots, feature film scripts, and magazine articles. His home town of Falls City was the locale of his two most recent novels, "Heartland" and "The Hangman’s Knot" and an earlier work, "Home Again", was set in the town of Cascade, a thinly disguised version of Falls City. The fictitious Cascade is also the setting for "A Dance Lesson" which is a partly autobiographical recollection of his youth. Mr. Wiltse’s Nebraska theme is also part of the play "A Grand Romance", a memory play dedicated to his grandmother, a native of Lincoln, and his grandfather, a former professor at the University of Nebraska. Mr. Wiltse is a recipient of a Drama Desk Award as Most Promising Playwright, an Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America, and the Nebraska Sower Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts. He lives in Weston, Connecticut.

 

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