Inductees from 2014

Warren Alpert (1920-2007)
Categories: Business / Entrepreneurs, Medicine & Health Care, Philanthropists
Pursuing Health to Benefit Society
“I wanted to be rich,' he told the Boston Globe very seriously in 1988, “so I could give my money away.”

That would all happen but not nearly as quickly has he might have hoped. He had graduated from BU in 1942, and by June 1944, he was a private first class in Army Intelligence aboard one of ships in the immense armada approaching the Normandy coast. But he was not to set foot in France. Read more >
Colonel Gonzalo Edward "Ned" Buxton, Jr. (1880-1949)
Categories: Literature / Writers / Newspapers, Military

Gonzalo Edward “Ned” Buxton Jr. (1880-1949) was born in Kansas City, Mo., to Dr. G. Read more >
Arthur "Artie" Cabral
Categories: Music (Singers, Composers)

Arthur “Artie” Cabral is a prominent drummer on the national and regional music scene whose first professional music job came at the age of 13. Artie has also served as president of the Providence Federation of Musicians, AFM 198-457, for the past eighteen years and has just been elected to another two-year term.
Read more >
Justice Antonio Caposto (1879-1962)
Categories: Law / Legal Pioneers

Justice Antonio Capotosto, 1879-1962, Harvard-educated lawyer and first Italian-American member of the Rhode Island Bar Association, assistant attorney general, Superior and Supreme Court justice, founder and first president of the Aurora Club.

Col. Everitte St. John Chaffee, 1880-1971, World War I military commander and Harvard-educated lawyer, appointed in 1925 as the first superintendent of the state police.

Gov. William S. Flynn, (1885-1966) was a member of the Rhode Island State Senate from 1912 - 1914 and again from 1917 - 1922. He was Governor of Rhode Island from 1923 to 1925, and brother of Chief Justice Edmund Flynn and Coach John A. Read more >
Chief Justice Edmund W. Flynn (1890-1957)
Categories: Government & Politics, Law / Legal Pioneers

Chief Justice Edmund W. Flynn, 1890-1957, Rhode Island’s longest-serving chief justice, graduate of Georgetown Law School, state representative from South Providence, legal scholar, architect of the “Bloodless Revolution,” and a draftsman of the two most recent digests of Rhode Island’s general laws (1938 and 1956).

After graduation from Holy Cross College and Georgetown Law School, he served five years as a Democratic state representative from South Providence. Flynn was elevated to the position of chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court on January 1, 1935, as part of the "Bloodless Revolution. Read more >
Mayor Joseph Henry Gainer (1878-1945)
Categories: Government & Politics

Mayor Joseph Henry Gainer, 1878-1945, attorney, city councilman, alderman, and Providence mayor from 1913 to 1927, presided over development of city’s outer harbor, creation of its water supply, and other projects.

Joseph Henry Gainer was born in Providence, January 18, 1878, the son of John and Margaret (Keogh) Gainer, immigrants from Ireland. One of the only surviving chjldren in the family, Joseph was at LaSalle Academy, and Holy Cross College. Immediately following his graduation from Catholic University law school, Mr. Read more >
Major General Morphis Albert Jamiel (1922-2013)
Categories: Civic Leaders, Famous RI Families, Government & Politics, Military

Major General Morphis Albert Jamiel, 1922-2013, truly exemplified the very best of America. Born into the well-known Jamiel family of Warren in 1922, his parents were the late Albert and Mary Jamiel. He had twelve brothers and sisters. From this humble origin in the small town of Warren, he eventually carved out a notable career as a well-respected attorney, public servant, and soldier. Read more >
Albert T. Klyberg
Categories: Historians/Historical Accounts, Preservation

Albert T. Klyberg, a native of New Jersey, came to Rhode Island in 1968 after completing his doctoral courses at the University of Michigan. His purpose was to assume the directorship of the staid Rhode Island Historical Society--a position he held with distinction for three decades.

Upon arrival Al immediately recognized a deficit in the Ocean State's history. Read more >
Ambassador J. William Middendorf, II (1924-)
Categories: Literature / Writers / Newspapers, Military, Music (Singers, Composers)

John William Middendorf II of Little Compton was born in Baltimore, Maryland on September 22, 1924. He graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in 1945 with a bachelor's degree in naval science after having served in World War II as an engineering officer and navigator aboard LCS 53. He then earned an A.B. Read more >
Isabelle Florence Ahearn O’Neill (1880-1975)
Categories: Government & Politics, Theater, Women

Isabelle Florence Ahearn O’Neill, 1880-1975, stage and silent-film actress and suffragette. She was the state’s first female legislator, elected to the House in 1922. She also served as deputy Democratic floor leader in the Senate.