Charles Phelps Taft II
Charles Phelps Taft II (September 20, 1897 – June 24, 1983) was a U.S. Republican Party politician and member of the Taft family. From 1955 to 1957, he served as Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio. Like other members of his family, Taft was a Republican for the purposes of statewide elections. However, when running for municipal office in Cincinnati, Taft was a member of the Charter Party. During his term as mayor, Fortune magazine ranked Cincinnati as the best managed big city in the United States. As mayor, he gained the nickname "Mr. Cincinnati". Charles Phelps Taft II was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the youngest of three children born to President William Howard Taft and First Lady Helen Herron Taft. His siblings were U.S. Senator Robert A. Taft and Bryn Mawr College professor Helen Taft Manning. He was named after his uncle, U.S. Congressman Charles Phelps Taft. Taft was only 11 years old when he moved to the White House, upon his father's election as President. During his father's tenure as Secretary of War, he was a frequent playmate of President Theodore Roosevelt's children. On the morning of May 17, 1909, the same day his mother suffered a severe stroke, he underwent a "bloody adenoid operation". Taft dropped out of Yale University in order to serve in the United States Army during World War I and later returned to graduate in 1918, and then earned his law degree from Yale Law School in 1921. He was a member of Beta Theta Pi and a 1918 initiate into the Skull and Bones student society. Taft married Eleanor Kellogg Chase on October 6, 1917, in Waterbury, Connecticut. His wife's father ran the Waterbury Clock Company. They had 7 children: Eleanor Kellogg Hall (Taft) (September 16, 1918 – June 28, 2004) Sylvia Howard Lotspeich (Taft) (August 7, 1920 – June 26, 2008) Seth Taft (December 31, 1922 – April 14, 2013) Lucia Chase Taft (June 6, 1924 – October 29, 1955) Cynthia Herron Taft Manning (April 28, 1928 – July 16, 2013) Rosalyn Rawson Taft (January 7, 1930 – September 4, 1941) Peter Rawson Taft III (1936).
