Roscoe Arbuckle a feature film. Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle was born on March 24, 1887, in Smith Center, Kansas, one of nine children of Mary E. "Mollie" Gordon (d. February 19, 1898) and William Goodrich Arbuckle. He weighed in excess of at birth and, as both parents had slim builds, his father believed the child was not his. Consequently, he named the baby after a politician (and notorious philanderer) whom he despised, Republican senator Roscoe Conkling of New York. The birth was traumatic for Mollie and resulted in chronic health problems that contributed to her death 12 years later. When Arbuckle was nearly
Roscoe Conkling Bruce Bruce became editor-in-chief of the Harriet Tubman Publishing Company. He also authored a school textbook called, "Just Women," which gave a history of notable African-American women. On June 3, 1903, Bruce married Clara Washington Burrill of Washington, D.C. at the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church. Clara was a Radcliffe and Boston University Law School graduate who was also the first woman anywhere to edit a law review. However, given her race and gender, she struggled to find work as an attorney. They had three children, Clara Josephine, Roscoe Conkling Jr. ("Bokie") and Burrill Kelso Bruce. Son, Roscoe Jr., embezzled money from