William R. Van Aken

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William Russell Van Aken (December 1, 1912 - September 28, 1993) was an American lawyer and politician from Ohio.^[1]

[edit] Biography

He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Florence (Swallow) and William J. Van Aken, a former mayor and influential citizen of Shaker Heights, Ohio. He graduated from Shaker Heights High School in 1930 and received his B.S. from Lafayette College in 1934 and his LL.B. from Western Reserve University Law College in 1937. He then was admitted to the bar in the same year, and operated his law office of Van Aken & Bond until his retirement in 1987.

A Republican, Van Aken was a member of the Ohio House of Representatives (1943-1944 and 1947-1948), the Shaker Heights City Council (1951-1955), and the Ohio Republican Party central and executive committees. He was president of of the Ohio Bar Association (1958-1959) and co-founder of the National Conference of Bar Foundations.

He wrote Ohio Real Estate Law and Practice (1985), with Robert Hauser, and Buckeye Barristers (1980), a history of the Ohio Bar Association.

He married Dorothy Harrison in 1940 and had four children, Nancy, Mary Alice, Louise and William. He was a member of the Church of the Western Reserve, and was buried in Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery.

[edit] References