Biography
Hall was born in Armour, South Dakota, on July 31, 1894, and attended two years of high school in Tecumseh, Nebraska. He lived in a Nebraska orphanage for a time before moving to Los Angeles to study law. He took a one-year course at Polytechnic High School (Los Angeles), then attended the University of Southern California Law School at night in 1912–16. He began his legal practice in 1916.
Hall was married five times. He and his first wife were divorced in 1929, and Hall sued journalist Fred H. Girnau for libel when Girnau printed a two-column article asserting that testimony at the divorce proceedings showed that Hall "used the pretty face of his wife for a punching bag." Hall's attorney declared the statement untrue and Mrs. Hall said the report was false and malicious.
The longest marriage was to Gertrude May Engel, beginning in 1930. They had two daughters, Mary and Suzanne, and were divorced in 1956 after court battles that lasted several years. She died in 1964. His fourth wife was Kathryn Kyle Black, whom he married in Kansas City, Kansas, in November 1956. She died in 1970. Next he married Mari Bahn, who died in February 1973.
Hall, who had been a Mason and an Elk, died on December 8, 1979.
Read more about this topic: Peirson Mitchell Hall
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