Meeker Family History & Genealogy

Phoebe (Salnave) Meeker was born in 1723. Phoebe Meeker was married to Nathaniel Daniel Meeker Sr, and died at age 55 years old in 1778. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Phoebe (Salnave) Meeker.

Charles Joseph Meeker Sr of Hilliard, Franklin County, OH was born on January 24, 1929, and died at age 73 years old on February 22, 2002. Charles Meeker was buried at Dayton National Cemetery Section 29 Site 1068 Va Medical Center - 4100 West Third Street, in Dayton.

John J Meeker of New Port Richey, Pasco County, FL was born on August 20, 1906, and died at age 90 years old on October 14, 1996.

Helen Meeker of Florida was born on January 13, 1907, and died at age 68 years old in September 1975.

Ralph Meeker Born: November 21, 1920, Minneapolis, MN Died: August 5, 1988, Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, CA Born Ralph Rathgeber November 21, 1920 Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. Died August 5, 1988 (aged 67) Los Angeles, California, U.S. Resting place Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Los Angeles, California, U.S. Occupation Actor Years active 1951–1980 Spouse(s) Salome Jens (m. 1964–1966) Millicent Meeker (?–1988) Ralph Meeker (born Ralph Rathgeber; November 21, 1920 – August 5, 1988) was an American film, stage, and television actor. He first rose to prominence for his roles in the Broadway productions of Mister Roberts (1948–1951) and Picnic (1953), the former of which earned him a Theatre World Award for his performance. In film, Meeker is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Mike Hammer in Robert Aldrich's 1955 film noir cult classic Kiss Me Deadly. Meeker went on to play a series of roles that used his husky and macho screen presence, including a lead role in Stanley Kubrick's military courtroom drama Paths of Glory (1957), as a troubled mechanic opposite Carroll Baker in Something Wild (1961), as a World War II captain in The Dirty Dozen (1967), and in the gangster film The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967). Other credits include supporting roles in I Walk the Line (1970) and Sidney Lumet's The Anderson Tapes (1971). He also had a prolific career in television, appearing as Sergeant Steve Dekker on the series Not for Hire (1959–1960), and in the television horror film The Night Stalker (1972). After suffering a stroke in 1980, Meeker was forced to retire from acting, and died eight years later of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California. Meeker was born Ralph Rathgeber in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 21, 1920, the son of Ralph and Magnhild Senovia Haavig Meeker Rathgeber. He spent his early life in Michigan and Chicago, Illinois.Meeker attended the Leelanau School in Glen Arbor Township, Michigan, and later was made a member of its hall of fame. He graduated from Northwestern University in 1942, where he majored in music. Meeker starred on Broadway in Mister Roberts (1948–51), directed by Joshua Logan and produced by Leland Hayward. Theatre World said he was one of the 12 most promising actors from the 1947-48 season. He was understudy for Henry Fonda. Meeker's big breakthrough came when he took over the role of Stanley Kowalski from Marlon Brando in the second year of the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Elia Kazan. Logan and Hayward had Meeker under personal contract but agreed to release him from Mister Roberts. He started appearing in June 1949. He played the role until the Broadway run ended in December and then toured on the road with it. MGM Films Meeker made his film debut in the Swiss-made Four in a Jeep (1951), directed by Leopold Lindtberg. He played a starring role alongside Viveca Lindfors. Meeker was then signed to a term contract by MGM who put him in Teresa (1951), directed by Fred Zinnemann. Meeker played a support role, a sergeant, and the film was very popular. MGM then cast him in the leading role in Shadow in the Sky (1952), alongside Nancy Davis, later Nancy Reagan. The studio then tried him in Glory Alley (1952), billed above Leslie Caron and directed by Raoul Walsh. Both films flopped. Paramount borrowed him to play Betty Hutton's leading man in Somebody Loves Me (1952), a musical. It was a minor hit. Meeker's next two MGM films were very popular. He had a supporting role as a misfit ex-cavalryman in the classic Western The Naked Spur (1953) directed by Anthony Mann starring James Stewart. He was then in a well received thriller with Barbara Stanwyck and Barry Sullivan, Jeopardy (1953). His final film for MGM was a crime movie, Code Two (1953). Meeker also appeared on TV shows like The Revlon Mirror Theater and Lux Video Theatre. In 1954 Meeker was cast in a Broadway production of William Inge's Picnic, directed by Logan and also starring Paul Newman and Janice Rule. The play was a critical and commercial success, running for 477 performances. Meeker was awarded the New York Critic's Circle Award in 1954. Picnic became a classic film in 1955, with William Holden and Kim Novak starring in the roles originated by Meeker and Janice Rule. According to Turner Classic Movies, Meeker turned down the lead role because he did not wish to sign a long-term contract with the production company, and he never was offered a role of similar stature again. Meeker returned to films playing a cold-blooded convict in Big House, U.S.A. (1955). In perhaps his most-remembered role, Meeker starred as private detective Mike Hammer in the 1955 Robert Aldrich film of Mickey Spillane's Kiss Me Deadly. Many years later, this film acquired cult status and was seen as an influence on French New Wave directors such as Jean-Luc Godard. He then played a member of the French Foreign Legion in Desert Sands (1955). He was discussed to star in a Spillane sequel My Gun is Quick but it was not made. He was in a thriller, A Woman's Devotion (1957) co-starring Rule. He appeared in Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory, playing a soldier, Corporal Paris, accused of cowardice during battle in World War I. Meeker returned to Broadway in 1958 to appear in Cloud 7 but it only ran 11 performances. He continued to work heavily in TV on such shows as Climax!, Wagon Train, Kraft Theatre, Pursuit, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Schlitz Playhouse, The Loretta Young Show and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Meeker was cast with Dorothy Provine in the 1959 episode, "Blood Money", of the CBS Western series The Texan, starring Rory Calhoun.He had the title role in the TV movie Dillinger (1960). From 1959–1960, Meeker had the leading role as United States Army Sergeant Steve Dekker in the 39-episode television series Not for Hire. In 1961, he starred in the political story Ada with Dean Martin, and in Jack Garfein's experimental drama Something Wild, in which he portrayed a mechanic who saves a young woman (Carroll Baker) from committing suicide, but then holds her captive in his apartment. In 1962, Meeker portrayed Jack Slade in the episode "The Crooked Angel" of ABC's drama series Going My Way, starring Gene Kelly as a Roman Catholic priest in New York City and loosely based on the Bing Crosby 1944 film of the same name. Meeker guest-starred as Frank Marin in the 1964 episode "Swing for the Moon" of ABC's Channing, set on a fictitious college campus and co-starring Jason Evers and Henry Jones. He was also in The Outer Limits, The Defenders, Suspense, The Doctors and the Nurses, and Kraft Suspense Theatre. Repertory on Broadway He returned to Broadway in 1964 for After The Fall by Arthur Miller, directed by Kazan and starring Jason Robards Jr and Barbara Loden. It ran for 208 performances. Meeker later appeared in the 1967 crime drama The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, in which he played gangster George "Bugs" Moran. Meeker was also in the 1967 war film The Dirty Dozen as Captain Stuart Kinder, a military psychologist who attempts to analyze the men. Meeker portrayed police officers in The Detective (1969) with Frank Sinatra and The Anderson Tapes (1970) with Sean Connery. Meeker also starred in Gentle Giant (1967), A Punt, a Pass, and a Prayer (1968), and The Devil's 8 (1968) and guest starred on Dundee and the Culhane, The High Chaparral, The Name of the Game, 1970s. Personal life Meeker married twice: his first wife (1964–1966) was actress Salome Jens, and his second was Millicent Meeker. In 1980, he suffered a severe stroke, which forced him to retire from acting. His health steadily declined, punctuated by several more strokes. He spent the last year of his life in the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Los Angeles, and died there, age 67, of a heart attack.[29] He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles.

John Valentine Meeker; Son of Jacob Redding and Phebe Shaw (Baker) Meeker; Husband of Mary Jane Pence. John Valentine Meeker was born on the 13th day of July 1824, at the little town of Monroe, in Butler county OH, about 25 miles north of Cincinnati. The privations of life on a little farm in the woods of that time were many and severe but Mr. Meeker records that at the age of 4 years he was first sent to school, and at the age of 14 he had a fairly good common school education, which he supplemented by his study by himself of algebra, geometry, trigonometry and surveying. At a little past 14 his father sent him to visit an uncle living in the western part of Indiana where he remained about three years. Returning home he went after a few months, to Indianapolis, IN, where he attended school and was a classmate of Lew Wallace, afterwards Gen. Lew Wallace, and author of Ben Hur. Lack of money, however, forced him to leave school and work upon a farm where he received the meager pay of $6 to $7 per month. In 1844, at the age of 20, he became a teacher, which occupation he followed for many years, both in the East and the West. In 1849 he married Mary Jane Pense at the home of her parents 5 1/2 miles east of Indianapolis, Ind. In 1851 they removed to Eddyville on the Des Moines river in Iowa where he lived and became an Odd Fellow. In 1853 he joined The Dayton Lodge #56 at Eddyville and taught school until 1859, when he came to the Pacific Coast. They traveled by wagon and railroad to NYC, where the family boarded the steamer North Star. They experienced a shipwreck on one of the Bahamas, a sandy key about two miles wide and 10 miles long, and remained on this uninhabited island for six days. Obtaining help from Fortune Island 50 miles away they were transferred to Jamaica and eventually to Aspinwall Panama, where they traveled 48 miles by railroad across the isthmus. On the Pacific Ocean side they took the steamer Cortez for San Francisco. After a rest of five days in San Francisco, they took the steamer Northerner for Portland and Steilacoom, arriving at Steilacoom December 10, 1860, the trip taking two months. Ironically on its next voyage the Northerner sank off Cape Mendicino taking the life of John's brother Oliver Meeker. The trip was a trying one to Mrs. Meeker and her little daughter, the future Mrs. Bean, who were seasick during the whole ocean journey. The first school in Steilacoom was taught in July, August and September, 1854, by Lydia A. Bonney, the mother of the Secretary of the Historical Society in Tacoma, in a house belonging to Willis Boatman. Here Uncle John Meeker taught in 1860, teaching next at the Byrd school house near Fern Hill. The Indian scare about this time drove the family to Steilacoom where "Uncle John" taught for three years mostly in the winter time. The intervals between these terms of school were occupied in government surveying for which he had many contracts. This work supplemented his school work very well, and afforded almost constant and profitable employment. Puyallup. "Uncle John" Meeker taught in the log school house on the A. H. Woolery claim in 1862. About this time John V. Meeker and his brother Ezra Meeker, took government claims of 160 acres each, joining each other and which were mostly within the present limits of Puyallup. From this time on "Uncle John" gave more and more time and attention to his farm at Puyallup until the death of his wife on March 26, 1904. She is buried in Woodbine Cemetery near Puyallup where "Uncle John" in his family notes expresses the wish to be buried by his wife at the end of his life. Titles 1862 Election clerk for Steilacoom precinct 1864 Appointed Pierce County Commissioner by Governor Pickering. 1864 Justice of Peace in Puyallup Valley; petitions to build a road on the south side of the river connecting with the military road. 1865 Asks fro a road up Stuck Valley to the county line 1865 Helps start the Puyallup Valley Hop Industry. 1873 Chosen to select lands for public schools Sept 1873 Appointed County Surveyor, 1878 elected to the position 1873-76 Superintendent of Pierce County Schools 1886 Grand Master of the Washington Grand Lodge of odd fellows in 9th annual convention member of Unity Lodge ##18 1890 An officer in the Puyallup K of P Lodge 1891 Trustee for Puyallup cemetery and the IOOF plat the cemetery. Vocal music teacher throughout his life. - Dennis Larsen (#47401741)

Gordon Meeker of Evansville, Vanderburgh County, IN was born on April 2, 1927, and died at age 70 years old on January 5, 1998.

Adrian H Meeker of West Union, Adams County, Ohio was born on February 7, 1919, and died at age 68 years old in April 1987.

Miriam H Meeker of Athens, Henderson County, TX was born on August 27, 1924, and died at age 68 years old on June 27, 1993.

Stanley R Meeker of Eau Claire, Eau Claire County, Wisconsin was born on October 2, 1916, and died at age 69 years old in March 1986.

Alvin F Meeker of Midway, Liberty County, GA was born on January 18, 1919, and died at age 78 years old on January 9, 1998.

Amos W Meeker of Portsmouth, Scioto County, OH was born on March 4, 1919, and died at age 72 years old on May 28, 1991.

Lawrence E Meeker of Flandreau, Moody County, SD was born on December 8, 1915, and died at age 83 years old on May 14, 1999.

Marion L Meeker of Whittier, Los Angeles County, California was born on March 30, 1923, and died at age 64 years old in August 1987.

Marion W Meeker of Jacksonville, Duval County, FL was born on March 12, 1917, and died at age 89 years old on January 11, 2007.

Marion F Meeker of Hedrick, Keokuk County, IA was born on February 14, 1927, and died at age 81 years old on April 1, 2008.

Hines Meeker of Blue Creek, Adams County, Ohio was born on August 21, 1915, and died at age 59 years old in June 1975.

Bernard Meeker of Weston, Platte County, MO was born on October 2, 1906, and died at age 81 years old on October 25, 1987.

Edwin R Jr Meeker of Irvington, Essex County, NJ was born on April 3, 1914, and died at age 56 years old in December 1970.

Lee R Meeker of Houston, Harris County, Texas was born on June 3, 1928, and died at age 54 years old in November 1982.