magazine coverage of the Pacific. Following Iwo Jima, he was released to inactive duty and resumed his old newspaper position at East St. Louis.

On June 25, 1951 he was recalled to active duty in the navy with the rank of commander and was assigned the Head News Branch, Office of Information, with offices in the Pentagon at Washington, D. C. He is still on active duty.

Robert A. Barracks was always active in civic affairs. He organized the East St. Louis Traffic Council, served on the Governor's Traffic Safety Committee and was a member of the original Bi-State Authority. He is a member of numerous clubs and organizations in East St. Louis and Washington, D. C.

Mr. and Mrs. Eli Bennett, leaving Trowbridge, England to start a new life in America, reached the Atlantic seacoast in 1849. They first stopped in Chicago, and later came to Metamora, from which place they moved to El Paso in 1859, only three years after the first buildings were erected. It is believed he had previously helped John Bennett build the Union House, El Paso's first hotel, in which Eli's wife Elizabeth opened the first hat shop in town. Mr. Bennett was a carpenter and an expert cabinet maker.

While still an English subject, Eli Bennett was asked to repair the royal chair in Westminster Abbey upon which Queen Victoria was to be crowned June 28, 1838. Proud of his work, in a prankish mood Bennett picked up his wife and placed her in the historic chair just one day before the coronation ceremony. Mr. and Mrs. Bennett were invited to the Queen's coronation. Mrs. Bennett s brother, John Head, was organist at the London Baptist Church where the famous Charles Spurgeon preached. Mr. Bennett is listed in our appendix of pioneers.

Frank C. Cleary was born October 23, 1903, on the old Cleary farm between Gridley and El Paso, the son of Michael J. and Julia Hanifin Cleary. His grandfather, Thomas Cleary, came from Ireland and settled one mile west of the present Cleary homestead where Frank's father was born. Frank's mother was a school teacher when she married. Her parents also came from Ireland and lived in Rock Island before settling on a farm northwest of Gridley.

Young Frank was known as "Foxy" to his playmates at the old Grandview School, at high school in El Paso, and at St. Viators at Bourbonnais, Illinois. He had attended both McKinley and Jefferson Park schools in El Paso, but was graduated at St. Viator's in June of 1921. In August, 1922, Frank snapped enough sweet corn to pay his fare to Washington, D. C. and enter Georgetown University. With the personal help of two sympathetic congressmen, after three and one-half years he graduated with a B. S. degree in Foreign Trade.

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