Charles Evans Whittaker (1901-1973) was named to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Dwight Eisenhower. Supreme Court justices receive a lifetime appointment, but Whittaker resigned after serving only five years.

Charles Whittaker was born in Troy, Kansas, on February 22, 1901, and was raised on his father's farm. Grief-stricken at the death of his mother on his 16th birthday, he quit high school and buried himself in full-time farm work. In describing this difficult period in his life, Whittaker movingly commented to the Senate Judiciary Committee many years later: "I rode a pony to school through six miles of mud night and morning for about a year and a half. When my mother died, it broke my heart; she died on my birthday, 1917. I felt I couldn't go on and I quit high school."

After agreeing to be tutored in high school subjects, Whittaker was accepted into the night...