Jerome Fox (1946-1952)

Birth: March 26, 1904

Death: September 13, 1957 (Age 53)

Burial: Saint Augustine Cemetery (Chilton, Calumet County, Wisconsin)

 

Born March 26, 1904, in Chilton, son of the late Leo P. Fox and Mrs. Pauline Hanert Fox, "Jerry" Fox attended St. Augustine's School and Chilton High School. He was a 1924 graduate of Notre Dame University, where he majored in chemistry, and then taught college chemistry for two years at Trinity College in Sioux City, la. He also was a member of the college football coaching staff. In 1926, he entered Marquette University Law School and in 1930, after receiving his law degree from the University of Wisconsin, he was admitted to the bar. On June 27 1942. at St. Mary's Church at Mayville, he was married to the former Rosemary Bachhuber of Mayville, a former Chilton school teacher. Fox was a member of St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church, a past grand knight of the Knights of Columbus, a member of the Catholic Order of Foresters, and a member of the county, state and national bar associations. 

He was elected to the State Assembly from Calumet County in 1931 when he was only 26 years old and served as the party's floor-leader during his second term in 1933. The following year he resigned from the Legislature to devote full time as legal officer for the state Home Owners Loan Corp (HOLC), a federal agency. He held that post until 1938 when he campaigned unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination as the party's candidate for governor. Atty. Fox then rejoined his father, the late Leo P. Fox, in the practice of law. He was active in the profession continuously since that time except for 2 1/2 years service as a U.S. Naval Air Force lieutenant in World War II. Elected mayor of Chilton in 1946, he held the post for six years until he suffered a heart attack in 1952 and declined to seek a fourth term. In 1948, by defeating Charles Greene of Milwaukee, Fox became state Democratic Party chairman to climax one of the bitterest intra-party battles in the party's history in Wisconsin. Prior to being named titular head of the Democratic Party as chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee, he had served as chairman of the state's Democratic Organizing Committee. He also was a delegate to several national Democratic conventions, including the one in 1956 in Chicago. He was chairman of the Wisconsin delegation at Philadelphia in 1948. "Jerry" Fox also served as Calumet County Democratic chairman, as chairman of the DOC fund-raising campaign in 1952, and as permanent chairman of the 1946 state convention in Milwaukee. In 1949, he was recognized by the Chilton Chamber of Commerce as "Man of the Year."  His political career also included two terms on the Calumet County Board of Supervisors and several terms as City Attorney for Chilton. Active for many years in community civic programs, Fox at the time of his death was serving as president of the Chilton Area Development Corp., an organization which recently attracted Western Industries, Inc. of Milwaukee, to build a plant here.

Along with his wife, he has seven children: Jerome Jr., Kathleen, Thomas, Michael, John, Rosemary and Terrance; his mother Mrs. Pauline Fox, Chilton; two brothers, Dr. Paul Fox of Chicago, and Leo J. Fox, an attorney at Coral Gables, Fla., and a sister, Mrs. Daniel McNally, Wauwatosa.