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Permanent LinkRepresentative John Mercer Rankin View All Years
JOHN M. RANKIN, legislator and jurist, died at Des Moines, Iowa, June 20, 1947; born on a farm in Fulton county, Illinois, June 9, 1873; educated in rural schools and Western Normal college at Bushnell, Illinois; studied law in Chicago Kent College of Law; practiced law in Chicago from his admission to the bar in 1904 until he moved to Keokuk, Iowa, in 1917; served in the Spanish-American war with the Sixth Illinois infantry; married Marie Short of Keokuk, who with a daughter, Mary Ann, survives him; served as representative in the Iowa General Assembly from Lee county in the Thirty-ninth, Fortieth and Forty-first sessions; appointed judge of the Lee county district court in 1925, at the close of the legislative session, and was upon the bench from April, 1925, until December 31, 1938; selected by Attorney General Fred D. Everett as first assistant attorney general, January 1939 and upon the death of Mr. Everett June 17, 1940, was appointed by Gov. Geo. A. Wilson to fill the unexpired term; re-elected in 1942, 1944 and 1946, and is the second successive attorney general of Iowa to die in office; a member of the Iowa State Bar association, American Bar association, Masonic, Odd Fellows, Modern Woodmen and Elks orders and a Republican.