Gary, Jim and List: Yes, I still belong. I don't live in St. Louis anymore but this Laughlin family should be written up. Both MHS and STPL have expressed interest in this. But, I don't have permission to use some of the Laughlin Family records to round it out. Perhaps about 10 months ago, Mrs. Laughlin contacted me about finished the article, but I have again lost contact with her. It's all public record, or at least many parts of it. And I have most of it. I had always hoped that Hugh and his wife would write this up in total. All Mr. Northcott and Ms. Smith need to do is compare notes and pull the newspaper files under the various surnames and the VP. It's all there. Ms. Laughlin and Count Pfister were married at the Episcopal Church directly across the street from the St. Louis Public Library. It was all society news. The only think I have NOT researched is newspaper articles in DC and Rome. Someone on this list (I think) sent me a translation of her death in Italy saying she had died of leukemia. The personal data on Judge Laughlin and photograhps from my grandmother's album could help fill in some holes and provide some graphics to the story. I also meant to correct a misleading statement in my first email. Judge Laughlin and Ora Brownfield had no children. All of his children were by the spurned first wife, Hester Bates of Kentucky. I can always remember my father talking about them (he called them his rich uncle Judge Laughlin and Aunt Ora, from Chicago, but he didn't really know them well, if at all.) My father never once mentioned a first wife, a divorce or anything about Hester Bates Laughlin Pfister. He was only an infant when she took her life and I'm sure he never knew any of these people. But one does wonder why his grandmother's gravestone and two other family members were paid for by Judge Laughlin's son by his FIRST wife, at Fee Fee (not Belle Fontaine). He once told me "Craig, just leave all this alone!" Thanks for your interest, and I am planning to come back to St. Louis in September for a class reunion, and maybe I can dig more into this. For one, I'd like to know exactly where Judge Laughlin's extravagant hunting farm was in what I think is now somewhere around Wellston but perhaps to Northwest Plaza was located. There is a huge edifice of a building on that place which was the site of many a "fete" which is where I think the young and beautiful half-sisters Ora and Delia met their respective husbands. Ora to Judge Laughlin, and Delia to "Doctor" Brownfield. (Not "Brown" and not "Field", just Brownfield. I've traced them back to some really raucus Scots-Irish to Pennsylvania around 1740. The whole clan, women included, were all arrested in a serious fracous against a neighbor. Fun people!) Oh my. Craig Kilby Lancaster, Virginia persisto@earthlink.net