June Bingham Birge (June 20, 1919 – August 21, 2007) was an author, playwright, and member of the

Lehman family The Lehman family is a prominent family of Jewish German-Americans who founded the financial firm Lehman Brothers. Some were also involved in American politics. Members have married into the prominent Morgenthau, Loeb, and Bronfman families. The ...

Biography

Born as June Rossbach in

White Plains, New York (Always Faithful) , image_seal = WhitePlainsSeal.png , seal_link = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = U.S. state, State , su ...

. She was the daughter of Mabel Limburg and Max J.H. Rossbach. She was the grand niece of New York Governor

Herbert H. Lehman Herbert Henry Lehman (March 28, 1878 – December 5, 1963) was an American Democratic Party politician from New York. He served from 1933 until 1942 as the 45th governor of New York and represented New York State in the U.S. Senate from 194 ...

, for whom the

Lehman College Lehman College is a public college in the Bronx borough of New York City. Founded in 1931 as the Bronx campus of Hunter College, the school became an independent college within CUNY in September 1967. The college is named after Herbert H. Lehma ...

is named. Her maternal grandmother was Clara Lehman Limburg, and her great-grandfather was Mayer Lehman, one of the founders of the

Lehman Brothers Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ( ) was an American global financial services firm founded in 1847. Before Bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States (behind Gol ...

firm.Lehman College: "June Bingham Birge, 1919 - 2007"
August 27, 2007
March 29, 1987 She earned a bachelor's degree in English from

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

in 1940. Birge wrote several non-fiction books, including ''Courage to Change: An Introduction to the Life and Thought of Reinhold Niebuhr'' (Scribner, 1961); '' U Thant: The Search for Peace'' (Knopf, 1966); and, with Norman Tamarkin, ''The Pursuit of Health'' (Walker, 1985). Her plays included a musical, ''Asylum: The Strange Case of Mary Lincoln'', and a play about the women around Franklin D. Roosevelt, ''Triangles''.

Personal life and death

In 1939, she married

Jonathan Brewster Bingham Jonathan Brewster Bingham (April 24, 1914 – July 3, 1986) was an American politician and diplomat. He was the US delegate to the United Nations General Assembly and was elected to Congress from The Bronx, serving in the House of Representatives ...

, who served in Congress from 1965 to 1983 as a Democrat representing

The Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

; he died in 1986. They had four children: Sherrell Bingham Downes; Timothy Woodbridge Bingham; Claudia Bingham Meyers; and June Mitchell (Micki) Esselstyn (d. 1999).Gainesville Sun: "Local reverend dies of cancer" By GARY KIRKLAND
October 28, 1999 In 1987, she married Robert Bowen Birge. June Bingham Birge died at her home in Riverdale,

, aged 88, from

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

."June Bingham Birge, Who Wrote Books and Plays, Dies at 88"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', August 29, 2007. Accessed May 4, 2008. "June Bingham Birge, the author of books and plays, died August 21 at her home in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. She was 88." She was survived by her second husband; three children from her first marriage; a stepson; 10 grandchildren; 2 step-grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. A daughter from her first marriage, the Rev. June Mitchell Esselstyn, died in 1999. She is buried in Woodbridge Cemetery, Salem, New London, Connecticut.

References

External links

NY Times obit New York Sun obituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Binghambirge, June 1919 births 2007 deaths 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights American people of German-Jewish descent Barnard College alumni Deaths from cancer in New York (state) People from White Plains, New York People from Riverdale, Bronx Lehman family 20th-century American non-fiction writers