Curtis D. Wilbur - Biography

Biography

On March 19, 1924, Curtis Wilbur was sworn in as Secretary of the Navy. The first appointee of President Calvin Coolidge, Curtis Wilbur came into the position with a reputation as a man of high intellect and a character of "unimpeachable integrity."

By the end of his term, Curtis Wilbur had achieved success in enlarging and modernizing the fleet and established a naval air force which would grow to become a potent component in the war with Japan.

In the last hours of his presidency, Coolidge nominated Curtis Wilbur to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. However, when the 70th Congress ended that week, the Senate had not acted on the nomination, so it expired. President Herbert Hoover then resubmitted the nomination to the Senate in the 71st Congress, which approved it. Wilbur served as a judge in active service until 1945 when his senior status began.

In the 1930s, one of his children, Dr. Leonard Wilbur, established a mission hospital in the province of northern China now now known as Shanxi. Leonard, his wife (Jean Spaulding) and two children (Ruth and Lyman) survived invasions by Chinese communist insurgents and Japanese troops. However, on Easter Sunday 1940, Leonard died in Shanxi of typhus. His wife later gave birth to their third child, Bruce, before departing China for San Francisco.

Following retirement, Curtis Wilbur spent time with his wife, the former Olive Doolittle, and their three three surviving children (Edna, Paul and Lyman Dwight). He died in 1954.

• Curtis Dwight Wilbur and his family.

• Secretary Wilbur with Captain Isoroku Yamamoto of the Japanese Navy.