In 1936, during the Depression, Vermont Royster walked through the door of the Wall Street Journal and requested a job. He had only a few months of work experience as an errand boy and reporter, plus a college degree. He started with the Journal as monitor of the stock ticker, and twenty-two years later he was editor of one of the two national daily newspapers in the United States.

Vermont Connecticut Royster was born on 30 April 1914 in his grandfather's house in Raleigh, North Carolina, the firstborn of Wilbur High and Olivette Broadway Royster. He was named after his grandfather Royster, whose siblings were also named after states. The boys were Iowa Michigan, Arkansas Delaware, Wisconsin Illinois, and Oregon Minnesota. The girls also had states' names: Louisiana Maryland, Virginia Carolina, and Georgia Indiana. These unusual appellations were listed in "Ripley's Believe It or Not" and found their way into the...