Barkley, Alben W. (1878-1956)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1956 May 10 p. 1

Birth date: 1878

text of obituary:

FORMER VICE-PRESIDENT TAKEN IN DEATH

Former Vice-President Alben W. Barkley, 78, again a senator since last year, collapsed and died of a heart attack April 30 in the midst of a speech he was making at Lexington, Va. funeral services were held Thursday, May3, at Paducah, Ky. from the Broadway Methodist Church, where he and his family had customarily attended. Burial was near his first wife, Mrs. Dorothy Brower Barkley, who died in 1947.

Barkley had just referred to himself as being a junior senator again, saying, "I am glad to sit on the back row, for I had rather be a servant in the house of the Lord than to sit in the seats of the mighty" when he faltered and fell dead on the platform.

Present at the last rites were former President Harry S. Truman, with whom Barkley was a teammate in 1948, and a score of senators and other high government officials. President Eisenhower paid final tribute to him at a special service in Washington on the previous day.