1926 births

Carmen Romano de López Portillo (born Carmen Romano Nolk; 10 February 1926 – 9 May 2000) was the First Lady of Mexico from 1976 to 1982. She was the first wife of Mexican president José López Portillo.

Janet Gray Hayes (July 12, 1926 – April 21, 2014) was the 60th mayor of San Jose, California, elected to two consecutive, four-year terms from 1975 to 1983. She was both the first woman to be elected mayor San Jose, and the first woman elected mayor of a major U.S. city with a population of more than 500,000 people.Born in Rushville, Indiana, Hayes went to University of Chicago and then received her bachelor's degree from Indiana University. In 1956, Hayes and her husband moved to San Jose, California where her husband practiced medicine.
Hayes was elected to the San Jose City Council in 1971 In 1973, she was voted by the city council to serve as the city's vice mayor, becoming the first woman to hold that position. In 1974, she was elected mayor of the city. She was reelected in 1978. She was a Democrat and campaigned as an environmentalist and wanted to fight Urban sprawl in San Jose.She died of a stroke on April 26, 2014, in Saratoga, California.

Frances L. Janssen [Big Red, or Little Red] (January 25, 1926 – November 27, 2008) was an American pitcher who played from 1948 through 1952 in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Listed at 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m) and weighing over 155 lb, she batted and threw right-handed.
She was a well-traveled pitcher during her five-year career in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. She moved constantly from one city to another because the league office shifted players to help teams stay competitive. Janssen was also cut twice from the league, but she kept playing for seven different teams for different periods of time and different stays.
Born in Remington, Indiana, Frances was the daughter of Fred and Anna (née Petersen) Janssen, who emigrated from Germany in the mid-1910s and settled in the farmlands of Indiana. She had a brother, Paul, and four sisters, Betty, Tinie, Wilma, and Anna. Almost six feet tall, Frances played basketball and organized softball while attending Gilboa High School. She later received an associate degree in business from South Bend IUPUI and attended the International Business College of Fort Wayne. She graduated in 1944 and immediately went to work in an office. [3]
By this time, several girls from her local softball team had been scouted and signed by the league. Frances gave it a tryout in 1946, but she did not make the grade. She then insisted again in 1948 and was accepted. After spring training, she was assigned to the South Bend Blue Sox for a couple of days before being sent to the Grand Rapids Chicks. She went 4–4 with a 3.98 earned run average in 11 games and was released after one month of action. I got released because I couldn't throw a curveball, she recalled in an interview. [1] But Janssen did not give up and accepted a demotion to the Chicago Colleens/Springfield Sallies rookie touring teams to work things out. The Colleens and the Sallies had lost their franchises after their poor performances the previous year. Both teams played exhibition games against each other as they traveled primarily through the South and East, traveling through 20 states and playing in 46 cities. We traveled more than 10,000 miles in 1949 from Illinois to Texas, across the Gulf States, and up to New Jersey and Pennsylvania, she later explained in an interview with Jim Sargent for the Society for American Baseball Research. We played in minor league parks in Tulsa and Baltimore, as well as in city parks, and we drew good crowds.
In two of those games, she was asked to switch to the Sallies and serve as playing manager as well as chaperone. She handled both jobs well while also leading her Colleens team in pitching. By the way, she came along fine and hurled two one-hitter shutouts against Springfield at Oklahoma and South Carolina ballparks. She finished the tour with a 16–6 record in 23 pitching appearances. Nevertheless, since the league counted the whole tour as exhibition games, no official statistics were kept.
Janssen was promoted to the Peoria Redwings in 1950 and ended up pitching for the Fort Wayne Daisies in the postseason. She went 3-3 with a 3.87 ERA in 19 games for Peoria and Fort Wayne and pitched 12 innings of shutout ball without a decision in three playoff games, even though the Daisies lost to the Rockford Peaches in the best-of-seven final round.
She opened the 1951 season with Fort Wayne and returned to Peoria early in the year, which made her feel like the end of the world, according to her own words. Then she was sent to the Kalamazoo Lassies during the midseason and finished the year with the Battle Creek Belles. Through her lengthy and arduous journey, Janssen posted a career-best 26 games pitched, only six behind Belles teammate Migdalia Pérez, while also setting career-highs in ERA (2.67), innings pitched (145), and strikeouts (43). She had a very good season overall, although this was not reflected in her 6–10 losing record. [1]
Janssen spent the entire 1952 season with Battle Creek and was used in relief duties, a seldom-used role in the league. She appeared in only five games, going 0-1 with a 5.00 ERA in 18 innings of work. [1]
Following her baseball days, Janssen played center for the South Bend Rockettes women's basketball team and volleyball with the South Bend Turners for more than a decade. She helped the Rockettes win five national championships and won a national champion title with the Turners. She was also an insurance representative for Laven Insurance Company in South Bend for 25 years and retired in 1991. [4]

Knox Wagner "Bulldog" Ramsey (February 13, 1926 – March 19, 2005) was an American football offensive lineman in the National Football League (NFL) for the Chicago Cardinals, the Philadelphia Eagles, and the Washington Redskins. Ramsey also played in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) for the Los Angeles Dons. When the All-America Football Conference dissolved in 1950, the NFL an AAFC dispersal draft to assign players from the Buffalo Bills, Chicago Hornets and Los Angeles Dons. Ramsey was drafted (1st Round) by the San Francisco 49ers as the 10th overall pick and traded to the Chicago Cardinals.
Knox Ramsey played college football at the College of William & Mary where he was selected for three consecutive years to Virginia's all-state teams and the Southern Conference teams. He also was named to the all-time state of Virginia team and the all-time William & Mary football team. Ramsey received second-team All-American honors in 1947 when he was selected by the Associated Press. He played in the 1948 College All-Star Game against the NFL Champions Chicago Cardinals where he faced his brother Buster Ramsey. Ramsey was drafted in the fifth round of the 1948 NFL Draft (32nd pick overall) by the Chicago Bears and in the ninth round (37th pick overall) of the 1948 AAFC Draft by the Los Angeles Dons. Following his professional football career Ramsey was inducted into the William & Mary Hall of Fame and the Blount County (TN) Sports Hall of Fame.

Meredith Irwin Flory, known professionally as Med Flory (August 27, 1926 – March 12, 2014), was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader, and actor.

Jack Frasure Hyles (September 25, 1926 – February 6, 2001) was a leading figure in the Independent Baptist movement, having pastored the First Baptist Church of Hammond in Hammond, Indiana, from August 1959 until his death. He was well known for being an innovator of the church bus ministry that brought thousands of people each week from surrounding towns to Hammond for services. Hyles built First Baptist up from fewer than a thousand members to a membership of 100,000. In 1993 and again in 1994, it was reported that 20,000 people attended First Baptist every Sunday, making it the most attended Baptist church in the United States. In 2001, at the time of Hyles's death, 20,000 people were attending church services and Sunday school each week.

Robert E. Donham (October 11, 1926 – September 21, 1983) was an American professional basketball player. Donham was selected in the third round of the 1950 NBA draft by the Boston Celtics after a collegiate career at Ohio State. In four NBA seasons, all with the Celtics, Donham recorded 1,818 points, 1,071 rebounds and 706 assists.

William R. Frink (31 July 1926 – 1 July 2005) was an American former news presenter. He served as the sportscaster for Chicago's WLS-TV (an ABC-affiliate).

Benjamin Hoskins Paddock Jr. (November 1, 1926 – January 18, 1998) was an American bank robber and con man who was on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list from 1969 to 1977. He was the father of mass murderer Stephen Paddock, the perpetrator of the 2017 Las Vegas shooting.

María Blanca Estela Pavón Vasconcelos (February 21, 1926 – September 26, 1949) was a Mexican film actress and singer of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema.
She appeared in several classic films of the 1940s. Her career peaked between 1948 and 1949.
She won an Ariel Award for Best Actress in the 1947 film Cuando lloran los valientes and was nominated for another due to her successful performances in Mexican films.
She starred alongside Mexican star Pedro Infante in several films including Nosotros los Pobres in 1948.
On September 26, 1949, she died in a plane crash near the Popocatépetl volcano located between Mexico City and Puebla with another 23 people on board.