Leslie Cornelius ARENDS, Congress, IL (1895-1985)

ARENDS, Leslie Cornelius, a Representative from Illinois; born in Melvin, Ford County, Ill., September 27, 1895; attended public and high schools and Oberlin (Ohio) College; during the First World War served in the United States Navy in 1918 and 1919; engaged in agricultural pursuits and banking; in 1935 became member of the Ford County (Ill.) Farm Bureau and in 1938 a member of the board of trustees of the Illinois Wesleyan University at Bloomington; elected as a Republican to the Seventy-fourth Congress; reelected to the nineteen succeeding Congresses and served from January 3, 1935, until his resignation December 31, 1974; minority whip (Seventy-eighth and Seventy-ninth Congresses, Eighty-first and Eighty-second Congresses, and Eighty-fourth through Ninety-third Congresses), majority whip (Eightieth Congress and Eighty-third Congress); was not a candidate for reelection to the Ninety-fourth Congress in 1974; died on July 17, 1985, in Naples, Fla.; interment in Melvin Cemetery, Melvin, Ill.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present