Cairo Alwin Trimble (1869-1952)

From the Republicans of Illinois, 1905.

   Prominent for many years in Illinois legal circles, Cairo Alwin Trimble served as a Presidential elector for Illinois and was later a delegate to the 1912 and 1936 Republican National Conventions. Besides having a first name that is also a city in Egypt, Trimble went on to further prominence later in life, serving as the President of the Illinois State Bar Association. He was born in Princeton, Illinois on March 15, 1869, a son of Harvey Marion and Margaret Sabin Dakin Trimble. His early education took place in schools local to Princeton and he later went on to graduate from Princeton High School. Trimble decided upon a career in law early in his life and in 1892 was admitted to the Illinois bar.

  Cairo Trimble married twice during his life, the first being to Ms. Alice McKey in 1894. Two children were born to the couple, Margaret Victoria Trimble Towne (1897-1974) and Cairo Dakin Trimble (1905-1931). Following Alice McKey Trimble's death in 1916, Trimble remarried in January 1919 to Nancy Creswell Kyle, who died in 1947.

   Trimble opened a law practice in Princeton and operated here for many years, and while a lawyer by trade, he gained additional repute through involvement in several other civic endeavors in Princeton. He was for many years a member (as well as President) of the Princeton High School Board of Education and was also a bank director. In addition to his work in Princeton, Trimble was later elected as a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. He served on the board for eight years (1917-1925) and would continue to have involvement with the university for many years afterward.

  In addition to his law practice in Princeton, Trimble was named as a Republican Presidential Elector for Illinois in 1908, and four years later was a member of the Illinois delegation to the 1912 Republican National Convention being held in Chicago. Trimble would serve again as a delegate in 1936, journeying to Cleveland to take part in the Republican National Convention that nominated Alf Landon for the Presidency.

From the Alumni Quarterly and Fortnightly Notes of the University of Illinois, 1918.

  Trimble's lengthy career as one of Bureau County's most prominent practitioners of law culminated with his election as President of the Illinois State Bar Association in 1936. His tenure in this post (1936-1937) came at a time when President Franklin Roosevelt's "court packing" plan was largely derided by those in legal circles, and Cairo Trimble's viewpoint on the matter was no exception. He was mentioned by the February 1937 edition of the Telegraph Herald as stating that half of the Illinois State Bar Association's members had taken part in a statewide referendum, with 3,062 members voting against Roosevelt's plan while 377 voted for it.

  In his later years, Trimble maintained an active schedule, being a member of the local Masonic chapter, the Bureau Valley Country Club, the Hamilton Club of Chicago, and was a past member of the Board of Governors of the American Bar Association. Trimble is recorded as serving as the President of the Illinois State Board of Law Examiners, although his dates of service in this office are unknown at this time. Cairo Alwin Trimble died in his native city of Princeton on September 23, 1952, at age 83, having outlived two wives and one of his children. He was survived by his daughter Margaret and was later interred in the Trimble family plot at the Oakland Cemetery in Princeton.

  

Trimble as he looked during his later years, from a 1940 edition of the ABA Journal.

From the Dixon Evening Telegraph, September 24, 1952.