User:Mark olberding

Samuel Tedesco was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1915. His parents were Joseph and Jane Tedesco. Samuel attended St. Charles School on East Main St. in Bridgeport and Harding High School, from which he graduated in 1932. He attended the University of Kentucky and graduated in 1936 with a pre-law degree. He graduated from Boston University Law School in 1938. One year later, Mr. Tedesco was elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives and began the practice of law in Bridgeport. It was at this time that Mr. Tedesco began his association with the NAACP,successfully defending an African-American man in Stamford, Connecticut,who had been wrongly accused of raping and affluent Greenwich woman. His co-counsel was future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Chief Legal Counsel for the NAACP at that time. Mr. Tedesco was married to his wife, Evelyn in 1942.

Mr. Tedesco was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1942.As a member of the Army Corps of Engineers, he attended Southern Mississippi school of engineering. In 1943, Mr. Tedesco was sent to England, where he attended Oxford University. In July, 1944, he landed at Normandy, France, and eventually was stationed in Paris and given the assignment of removing explosives from buildings abandoned by the German Army. With his training as an attorney and at the Corps of Engineers schools, Mr. Tedesco was given an assignment at the Versailles Castle in Versailles, France.It was because of contributions to the Catholic Orphanage in Versailles that he was awarded the Versailles Medal by city officials.He served in France and Germany until 1946.

Upon returning home, Mr. Tedesco re-started his law career and was elected to the Connecticut Senate in 1949. In 1951, he became Democratic Minority Leader of the State Senate. In 1955, Attorney Tedesco was appointed by the Governor of Connecticut, John Lodge, to the post of City Court Judge in Bridgeport. It was also at that time that he ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Bridgeport against eleven time incumbent, Jasper McClevy, a Socialist. Mr. Tedesco defeated Mayor McClevy in 1957 by 161 votes. Mr. Tedesco received a congratulatory phone call from Senator Hubert Humphrey, who informed Mr. Tedesco that he had defeated the other Socialist mayor in the U.S. when he was elected mayor of Minneapolis several years earlier. Mayor Tedesco was a strong supporter of Senator John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election. Mr. Tedesco had been introduced to Senator Kennedy by Governor Abraham Ribicoff, who would later be Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under President Kennedy and U.S. Senator for Connecticut. Mr. Tedesco introduced Senator Kennedy to a crowd of 100,000 people when the Massachusetts Senator visited Bridgeport (Senator Kennedy hangered his DC-3 private airplane,Caroline, at Bridgeport Airport throughout his presidency). After the 1960 Presidential Election, the Federal Government gave grants to the City of Bridgeport To Build Central High School, Kennedy Stadium, and the new City Hall (formerly Central High School). In 1963, Mayor Tedesco was elected Lt. Governor and received more votes than Governor John Dempsey, who had succeeded Ribicoff when he was appointed to the Federal cabinet position. During this period, Mr. Tedesco was re-elected to three more terms as mayor of Bridgeport. In 1965,Mr. Tedesco retired as Mayor and Lt. Governor to accept a Superior Court Judgeship with the State of Connecticut.He served in this capacity until 1980 and rose to the position of Administrative Judge for Fairfield County. In 1980, Mr. Tedesco retired and became the first member of the Connecticut Judiciary to practice law after retirement. He practiced law with his son, Joseph, until 1985.