JOHN JAMES LEDWITH
Grandfather of Don Ledwith
John James Ledwith was born March 20, 1877, at Lincoln,
Nebraska, the son of
James and Anastasia Maher Ledwith,
He was graduated from Lincoln High School and received a B.Sc.
degree in
chemistry from the University of Nebraska in 1900, and an LL.B.
degree in
1903, pursuing law studies on a scholarship given to him by
Roscoe Pound,
then Dean of the University of Nebraska Law College, While a
student at the
University he was selected as a member of the Innocents Society,
an honor
group for senior men, and was also elected to the Order or the
Coif, a law
scholastic honorary,
Upon receiving his law degree he was asked to join the Law
College faculty
and he taught from 1903 through the morning of the day he died In
1938,
attaining the rank of Associate Peofessor. He was also a faculty
member of
the University Athletic Board and of the University Senate,
He had a private law practice from 1903 until his death. He was a
member of
the examining board of the Nebraska State bar Commission for 20
years, and
was active in both the Nebraska and American Bar Associations,
serving as
president of the .Nebraska State Bar Association in 1934.
He was attorney for the Catholic Bishop of Lincoln as well as for
the
Southern Nebraska Diocese, which included Lincoln and all the
Catholic
churches., schools, and hospitals in Nebraska in the area south
of the
Platte River*
During World W'ar I he was a member of the executive board of the
civilian
war agencies of the Midwest Region. He was also a four-minute
man, a group
of civilians who gave speeches to raise money too support the war
effort.
He served on the boards of directors of the Lincoln Social
'Welfare Society,
of the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce, and of the Lincoln Library
Board.
He died at his desk in his law office in Lincoln, Nebraska,
following a
heart attack suffered on September 19, 1938,