Bessie Bisplinghoff (1916 - 2003)

Bessie's immediate relatives including parents, siblings, partnerships and children in the Bisplinghoff family tree.

Bessie's Family

Add a parent

Add a parent

Bessie Bisplinghoff Add a partner Add a child Add a partner Add a child

Add a sibling

We currently do not have photos of Bessie Bisplinghoff. Below are potential family photos that share Bessie's last name or surname. Pictures really do say a thousand words. Add photos of Bessie during various points of her life

Bisplinghoff sons, Chattanooga - 1862

Add photo

What do you remember about Bessie Bisplinghoff? Share your memories of special moments and stories you have heard about her. Or just leave a comment to show the world that Bessie is remembered.

Post

Refresh this page to see various historical events that occurred during Bessie's lifetime

In 1916, in the year that Bessie Bisplinghoff was born, visiting nurse Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S. at 46 Amboy St. in Brooklyn New York. Ten days after the clinic opened, Sanger was arrested for "violating laws against giving out birth control information" which was defined as obscenity. The clinic was not handing out birth control - just information about sex and birth control methods. (The Comstock law categorized information about abortion, family planning, and contraception as “obscene”.) The clinics and organizations that Sanger established later evolved into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

In 1924, at the age of only 8 years old, Bessie was alive when in May, wealthy college students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb kidnapped and killed 14 year old Robert Franks "in the interest of science". Leopold and Loeb thought that they were intellectually superior and that they could commit the perfect crime and not be caught. They were brought in for questioning within 8 days and quickly confessed. Clarence Darrow was hired as their defense lawyer, getting them life imprisonment instead of a death sentence. Loeb was eventually killed in prison - Leopold was released after 33 years, dying of a heart attack at age 66.

In 1941, when she was 25 years old, on December 7th, the Japanese attacked the military base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The surprise aerial attack damaged 8 U.S. battleships (6 later returned to service), including the USS Arizona, and destroyed 188 aircraft. 2,402 American citizens died and 1,178 wounded were wounded. On December 8th, the U.S. declared war on Japan and on December 11th, Germany and Italy (allies of Japan) declared war on the United States. World War II was in full swing.

In 1973, she was 57 years old when on August 15th, amidst rising calls for the impeachment of President Richard Nixon, Congress imposed an end to the bombing of Cambodia.

In 1999, by the time she was 83 years old, the fear that Y2K (year 2000) would cause the failure of computers worldwide when clocks didn't properly update to January 1st, 2000 became near panic. While some computer systems and software did have problems, the panic was unfounded and computer life went on.