Dimmitt Heard Hoffman (1884-1965)

Portrait from the Official Manual of the State of Missouri, 1957.

   An attorney based in Sedalia, Missouri, Dimmitt Heard Hoffman was elected as a judge for Missouri's 30th judicial circuit court and subsequently held that post for a total of thirty-six years. One of three children born to Judge Louis Hoffman and the former Sarah Eleanor Dimmitt, Dimmitt H. Hoffman was born in Sedalia, Missouri on August 29, 1884. Hoffman was given the unusual first name Dimmitt due to it being his mother's maiden name and was a student in the public school system of Sedalia. 

   In the early 1900s, Dimmitt Hoffman entered the University of Missouri and in 1907 graduated with his A.B. degree. He earned his Bachelor of Laws degree two years later and for a time taught a commercial law class at a business school in his home city of Sedalia. Following his admission to the state bar, Hoffman joined his father Louis (a former county prosecuting attorney and circuit court judge) in the law firm of Hoffman and Hoffman, which would attain "high place amongst the legal firms of Pettis County and western Missouri".

  Dimmitt H. Hoffman married in September 1916 to Agnes Lucille Davis (1891-1930), with whom he had one daughter, Mary Alice (born ca. 1928). Following Agnes' death at age 39 in 1930 Hoffman remarried to Maurine Hieronymus (1899-1959) and had another daughter, Ruth Maurine (born ca. 1936). 

Dimmitt H. Hoffman, from the 1905 Savitar yearbook.

    After a decade of practicing law in Sedalia Dimmitt Hoffman won election as a judge for Missouri's 30th judicial circuit court in 1922, defeating his Democratic opponent by a vote of 7,570 to 5,504. He would win reelection on five further occasions (1928, 1934, 1940, 1946, and 1952)  and during his lengthy tenure on the bench was elected as a member of the executive council of the Missouri Judicial Conference's Kansas City Court of Appeals district. He was first elected to that council in 1944 and two years later won another three-year term. 

    In 1958 Hoffman was not a candidate for reelection to the circuit court. In October of that year, he had been hospitalized in Wisconsin due to a blood clot in his leg, leading to speculation that he would "not be able to finish out his term". He retired from the bench at the end of his term in December 1958. Tragedy struck Hoffman in August 1959 when his second wife Maurine died at age 59. He would marry for a third time sometime later to Lois Driskell (died 1976), about whom little is known.

    Judge Dimmitt Hoffman died at age 81 on November 30, 1965. He was survived by his third wife Lois and was later interred at the Crown Hill Cemetery located in Sedalia, Missouri.

From the 1937-38 Official Manual of the State of Missouri.

Amandus Delos Risdon (1837-1924), Amandus Brackman (1884-1972)

Portrait from "The History of Adair County", 1911.

  Our write-up for today takes us once again to Missouri, a state that has been very well represented here on the site over the past five years. Today's oddly named duo both possess the unusual first name "Amandus" and both were prominent practitioners of law in their respective counties. The first of these men, Amandus Delos Risdon, lived to be nearly ninety years old, and during that long life rose to become a standout citizen in Adair County. He would serve for many years as prosecuting attorney of that county and for a time was also city attorney of Kirksville, the Adair County seat. 

   A native of the Buckeye State, Amandus Delos Risdon was born in Tiffin, Ohio on July 12, 1837, the son of David and Elizabeth Batzell Risdon. Amandus left his home in Ohio at a young age and resettled in Iowa, later attending college at Weston, Iowa, and the Grinnell College at Grinnell. Early in the Civil War Risdon enlisted in Co. I of the 13th Iowa Volunteer Infantry and during his service took to reading law in his spare time. 

  At the conclusion of his service in 1864, Risdon was admitted to the Iowa Bar at Marengo and married in Iowa City, Iowa in January 1865 to Frances Butler (1846-1878). The couple would have one son born to them, Ernest (1868-1949). Following Frances Risdon's death in May 1878, Risdon remarried in Adair County on December 22, 1881, to Julia Ella Mitchell, with whom he would have another son, Audrey (1883-1951), later to serve as Kirksville city clerk.

   Shortly after being admitted to the Iowa Bar Amandus Risdon relocated to Kirksville, Missouri, where he would build up a law practice. In 1877 he was elected to his first term as Prosecuting Attorney of Adair County and would serve in that capacity for a total of ten years (1877-79, 1881-87, and 1895-97.) Sources also relate that Risdon served Kirksville as its city attorney as well as a city councilor and president of the Board of Education.

   From 1891-93 Risdon served as a regent for the Kirksville Normal School and in September 1917 received the honor of being elected president of the Missouri Association of Elks for a one-year term. He died on September 18, 1924, at age 87 and was later interred at the Forest-Llewellyn Cemetery at Kirksville.

Portrait from the Official Manual of the State of Missouri, 1953.

    Lifelong Missouri native Amandus Brackman served as a judge for the Thirteenth Circuit Court of Missouri for over a decade, first being appointed to the bench in 1929. Born on January 14, 1884, in Ceder Hill, Missouri, Amandus Brackman was a student in the public school system of Jefferson County and for two years taught school in the Jefferson County area. In 1905 he graduated from the law department of the Washington University at St. Louis and afterward practiced law in both St. Louis and Clayton, Missouri.

   Following his graduation, Brackman not only practiced law but also worked as a reporter for the "St. Louis daily newspapers" from 1905-1909. He married in December 1909 to Ms. Lillian Ruehl (1890-1955). The couple was wed for over forty years and their union saw the births of three children, Roy (1910-1992), Lois (birth-date unknown), and Paul (birth-date unknown).

   Amandus Brackman first entered Missouri political life in 1911 when he was appointed as assistant prosecuting attorney for St. Louis County. He served in that capacity for two years and in 1915 began a two-year stint as city attorney for Maplewood, Missouri. Several years later Governor Arthur M. Hyde selected Brackman to serve as a "special attorney general" in charge of investigating fraud charges arising out of the St. Louis County election primary. Brackman's time investigating those alleged frauds extended five months and in August 1929 was appointed as the judge for the newly created division No. 4 of the 13th Circuit Court of Missouri. His term extended until 1931 and in 1936 served as part of the Missouri delegation to that year's Republican National Convention being held in Cleveland, Ohio. 

   In 1942 Amandus Brackman was elected to a full six-year term on the Thirteenth Circuit Court of Missouri and in November 1948 won another six-year term, serving on the bench until January 1955. Widowed in the last-named year, Brackman was given the Award of Honor from the St. Louis Lawyer's Association in 1967 and died in March 1972 at age 87. A burial location for him remains unknown at the time of this writing.

From the 1929 Official Manual of  Missouri.