FRIEBOLIN, CARL DAVID (19 Jan. 1878-2 Sept. 1967), lawyer, teacher, federal bankruptcy referee, and well-known wit and satirist who wrote the CITY CLUB OF CLEVELAND's ANVIL REVUE for years, was born in Owatonna, Minn. to Rev. William and Kate Dennerline Friebolin. The family moving to Cleveland in 1885. Friebolin attended CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL, received his law degree from Western Reserve University in 1899, and practiced law in Cleveland. With the encouragement of Mayor TOM L. JOHNSON†, he was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives in 1911 and to the Ohio senate in 1913. Before his senate term was completed, he was appointed to the common pleas bench but lost when he ran for election to the post. In 1916 he was appointed federal bankruptcy referee, continuing in that position until his death. He became a nationally known expert on bankruptcy law, helping draft the 1938 Natl. Bankruptcy Act and also drafting the rules of uniform procedure adopted by the Natl. Assoc. of Referees. From 1934-59 he taught bankruptcy law at WRU. In Cleveland, Friebolin is perhaps best known as the author of the Anvil Revue, a satiric look at Cleveland put on each year by the City Club. For the revue, he created the character Ben Sapp, the confused ordinary citizen who "got over the fence last." Friebolin died in Cleveland at 89. After his death, the Carl Friebolin Memorial Scholarship was established at Case Western Reserve Law School. He married Florence Brookes on 30 June 1906, and had a son, Brookes, born in 1910.

Carl Friebolin Papers, WRHS.

Related Article(s)

• LAW
• POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT