Geronimo Way King (1886-1964)

From the Georgia Official and Statistical Register, 1951-52.

     Presumably named in honor of the famed leader of the Apache Indian tribe, Geronimo Way King served terms in both houses of the Georgia Legislature in the late 1940s and early 1950s. His story begins with his birth in Cusseta, Georgia on October 24, 1886, the son of Gary Wood and Catherine Alice King. Sources mentioning King have proven to be few and far between, and it is unknown at this time what exactly prompted King's parents to bestow the highly unusual name of "Geronimo" upon him.
  King is listed by the 1951-52 Georgia Official and Statistical Register as attending schools local to the Cusseta area and he eventually graduated from the local high school. He continued his education at the University of Georgia and graduated from this institution in 1908 with a Bachelor of Science degree. A decade after his college graduation, King married Chattahoochee County native Martha "Mattie" Virginia Foster (1895-1984) and this union eventually produced three children: Virginia Way King Robertson (1919-2011), Hal Foster (born 1922), and Helen Hasseltine (born 1925).
  Five years following his marriage, Geronimo King was elected to his first public office, that of Chattahoochee County Superintendent of Schools. He served in this post for thirteen years (1923-1936) and is also listed by the Georgia Register as serving a term on the county board of education. King was later elected as the Mayor of his hometown of Cusseta, but no available source mentions when he was elected or how long he served.

                                              Portrait from the Columbus Ledger, September 23, 1964.

   Geronimo King was elected to the State House of Representatives from Chattahoochee County in 1948 and took his seat at the beginning of the following year. His term in the House concluded in 1951 and later that year he began a term in the State Senate, where he also served for one term.
   Little else could be found on King's life after his service in the legislature. King died shortly before his 78th birthday on September 23, 1964, in his hometown of Cusseta. His wife Martha survived him by twenty years, dying in December 1984 at age 89. Both were subsequently buried in the Mount Olive Cemetery in Cusseta. 

Lansdale Ghiselin Sasscer (1893-1964), Lansdale Ghiselin Sasscer Jr. (1926-2020)

From the Annapolis Capitol, November 3, 1948.

    A seven-term member of Congress from Maryland, Lansdale Ghiselin Sasscer had earlier represented Prince George's County in the state Senate for fifteen years. He was born on September 30, 1893, in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, the son of Frederick (1856-1929) and Lucinda Ashton Claggett Sasscer (1857-1921).  Sasscer attended schools local to Prince George's County and later graduated from the Tome School in Port Deposit.
   After graduating high school, Sasscer continued his education at the Dickinson School of Law in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He graduated from here in 1914 and passed his bar exam the same year. Within three years of opening a law practice, Sasscer signed on to serve his country overseas during World War I, being a first lieutenant in the 59th Artillery. In 1919 he married to Agnes Goffren (1891-1984), to whom he was wed for over forty years. The couple would have three children, Agnes Lansdale, Lucy Claggett, and Lansdale Ghiselin Jr. (born 1926). Of these children Lansdale G. Sasscer Jr. would follow his father into public life, being an attorney and four-term member of the Maryland House of Delegates.
   Following his return from military service Sasscer recommenced with his law practice and in November 1921 won election to the Maryland State Senate. He would serve in that body for sixteen years (1922-1938) and was the president of this body during the sessions of 1935 and 1937, as well as chairing the committees on Finance and Judicial Proceedings. In addition to his tenure in the state senate, Sasscer served as part of the Maryland delegation to the 1924 and 1936 Republican National Conventions.
  In 1938 Lansdale Sasscer announced that he'd be seeking the Democratic nomination for Governor of Maryland in that year's September primary. As one of four candidates vying for the nomination, Sasscer faced an uphill battle and placed fourth on election day, polling 23, 587 votes to Herbert O'Conor's winning total of 147,613.  O'Conor would go on to win the general election that November and served as Maryland Governor until being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1946.
   Fate intervened in Sasscer's political fortunes in December 1938 when seven-term Maryland Congressman Stephen Warfield Gambrill died in office in Washington, D.C. A few weeks following Gambrill's death, a special election was held in February 1939 to fill the vacant seat, with Lansdale G. Sasscer being the Democratic nominee. Running against Sasscer in this special election was Albert Kingsley Love, who had run three earlier losing candidacies for Congress. When the votes were tallied it was Sasscer who won out, besting Love by a vote of 23, 287 to 4, 742.

                           This painting of Sasscer is in the possession of the Maryland State Archives.

   Sasscer would win his first full term in the house in November 1940, beating Republican nominee John Torvestad by over 30,000 votes. He successively won his reelection bids in 1942, 1944, 1946, 1948, and 1950, serving nearly 14 years in the U.S. House of Representatives. In early 1952 Sasscer entered the Democratic primary for U.S. Senator from Maryland, and in May of that year lost out to state senator George Perry Mahoney, 122,679 votes to 136, 932.
   Following his senatorial defeat, Sasscer finished his final term in Congress, which concluded in January 1953. He wasn't a candidate for renomination and after leaving the government returned to his law practice in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. It was here that he died on May 5, 1964, at age 70, and he was subsequently interred in the Trinity Episcopal Church Cemetery in that town. Agnes Goffren Sasscer survived her husband by two decades, dying in 1984 at age 93 and was also interred in the Trinity Cemetery.

Sasscer in the latter period of his Congressional service, 1952.

                                                                   Lansdale G. Sasscer Jr.

   Politics continued in the Sasscer family with Lansdale Ghiselin Sasscer Jr. (born September 25, 1926) who represented Prince George's County in the Maryland legislature for two four-year terms. A veteran of World War II, Sasscer served in the Coast Guard and was a graduate of the University of Virginia in the class of 1950. Admitted to the Maryland bar in 1951, Sasscer won election to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1954 and would serve in that body from 1955-1963. 
   In 1962 Sasscer was an unsuccessful candidate for the state senate, and after his service in the house of delegates returned to the practice of law until his retirement in the 1990s. A member of the Maryland and District of Columbia Bar Associations, Sasscer was also a member of the board of directors for the Bank of Brandywine. He died at the Sasscer family home on April 13, 2020, aged 93.