Henry Ware Eliot Henry Ware Eliot Henry Ware Eliot (November 25, 1843 – January 7, 1919) was an American industrialist and philanthropist who lived in St. Louis, Missouri. He was the father of poet T. S. Eliot. He was the son of Abigail Adams (Cranch) and William Greenleaf Eliot, a prominent St. Louis Unitarian minister who was a co-founder of Washington University. Eliot graduated from Washington University, A.B. 1863. Henry Eliot remained a Unitarian all his life. Henry was named in honor of Henry Ware Jr., a prominent leader of Harvard Divinity School and mentor of Henry Eliot's father in seminary. Eliot first
T. S. Eliot one of the most moving poems Eliot wrote, and perhaps the "most perfect", though it was not well received by everyone. The poem's groundwork of orthodox Christianity discomfited many of the more secular "literati". In 1939, Eliot published a book of light verse, "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" ("Old Possum" was Ezra Pound's nickname for him). This first edition had an illustration of the author on the cover. In 1954, the composer Alan Rawsthorne set six of the poems for speaker and orchestra in a work titled "Practical Cats". After Eliot's death, the book was adapted as the basis