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Edward Clay O'Rear (February 2, 1863 – September 12, 1961) was an American politician who served on the Kentucky Court of Appeals and was a Republican candidate for the United States House of Representatives in 1888 and for Governor of Kentucky in 1911. His father died when O'Rear was very young, and he began work as a printer's devil to help support his mother and fourteen siblings. Eventually, he became editor of the ''Mountain Scorcher'' newspaper and read law under its publisher. He gained admission to the bar in 1882. In 1888, O'Rear failed to unseat incumbent Congressman William P. Taulbee, but in 1894, he was elected county judge of Montgomery County, Kentucky, by a small margin, becoming the only Republican to hold that office in the county's history. He was elected to the Kentucky Court of Appeals, then the state's highest court, in 1900 and was re-elected in 1908. Among his important decisions were legalizing parimutuel betting, designating counties as the voting unit in local option prohibition votes, and upholding the Day Law that mandated racial segregation in the state's public schools. In 1911, O'Rear ran for governor, but his progressive platform alienated his party's more conservative wing, and he lost the election to Democrat James B. McCreary. Shortly after the election, he resigned from the Court of Appeals and returned to private practice. O'Rear became wealthy as a chief counsel in Kentucky for the Consolidation Coal Co. and augmented his wealth through investments in real estate. In the 1920s, he helped Mary Carson Breckinridge legally organize the Frontier Nursing Service. He became more conservative later in life, opposing integration of the graduate school at the University of Kentucky and Democratic Gov. Bert T. Combs' attempt to revise the state constitution. He continued to practice law into his nineties, becoming one of the oldest active lawyers in the U.S. He died Sept. 12, 1961 at 98. The combined lives of O'Rear and his father spanned the administrations of every U.S. President from George Washington to John F. Kennedy. ==Early life and family== Edward Clay O'Rear was born February 2, 1863 on his parents' farm in Camargo, Kentucky.〔Hughes, p. 1〕 He was the fourteenth of fifteen children of Daniel O'Rear and was born when his father was 68 years old.〔 His mother, Sibba (Mynheir) O'Rear, was his father's second wife.〔Johnson, p. 813〕 His paternal heritage was Scotch-Irish.〔 When O'Rear was seven years old, his father died, and his mother moved the family – destitute in the aftermath of the Civil War – to the county seat of Mount Sterling.〔〔Klotter, p. 217〕 To help support his family, he began work as a printer's devil at ''The Sentinel and Democrat'', a county newspaper, at age nine.〔 He later worked for ''The Outlook'' in Owingsville and ''The Sentinel'' in Flemingsburg before taking a job as editor of the ''Mountain Scorcher'', a newspaper in West Liberty, at age seventeen.〔〔Trout, "Judge O'Rear Dies at 98"〕 Colonel John T. Hazelrigg, the publisher of the ''Mountain Scorcher'', was also an accomplished lawyer, and in his spare time, O'Rear read law with him.〔 He was later appointed deputy circuit court clerk.〔 On March 16, 1882, O'Rear was admitted to the bar in Morgan County.〔 Candidates were legally required to be twenty-one before admission, and the Kentucky General Assembly had to grant O'Rear – then only nineteen – a special exemption.〔 He began practice in West Liberty.〔 On November 29, 1882, he married Virginia Lee Hazelrigg, daughter of his law tutor.〔Johnson, p. 814〕 The couple had five children – Prentice, John, James, Helen, and Hazel.〔 O'Rear was a member of the Knights Templar.〔 The O'Rears were also members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and O'Rear served on the church's board of education at the 1898 general conference.〔 Later, he was named chairman of a five-man committee to issue an opinion regarding the church's ownership of Vanderbilt University.〔 The committee found that the university belonged to the church.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Edward C. O'Rear」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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