Early Life
Branigin was born on July 26, 1902, in Franklin, Indiana, the third of Elba and Zula Branigin's four sons. Branigin's father was a lawyer, teacher, and amateur historian. Branigin attended local public schools, graduating from high school in 1919, and went to nearby Franklin College, where he majored in Spanish, French, and history. Branigin was involved in the school's drama club as well. After graduating from Franklin in 1923, he enrolled at Harvard University Law School, where he earned a law degree in 1926. Branigin returned to Indiana and took a job with the Franklin County prosecutor's office, and remained there for three years. On November 2, 1929, Branigin married fellow Franklin College graduate Josephine Mardis. The couple had two sons, Roger Jr. and Robert.
In 1930 Branigin took a job as attorney for the Federal Land Bank and the Farm Credit Administration in Louisville, Kentucky. He was soon promoted to general counsel for the bank and traveled a five-state region giving speeches. He retired from the bank in 1938 to join a law firm in Lafayette, Indiana. Branigin became a partner in the Stuart, Branigin, Ricks, and Schilling law firm. At the outbreak of World War II, Branigin enlisted in the U.S. Army and was quickly assigned to the contract division of the Judge Advocate General's Office in Washington, D. C., where he became head of the legal division of the army's transportation corps with the rank of lieutenant colonel. After the war, Branigin returned to his Lafayette law practice.
Read more about this topic: Roger D. Branigin
Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)