Milestones, Feb. 3, 1936

Born. To Fred Astaire, 36, cinema’s No. 1 hoofer; and Phyllis Livingston Baker Potter Astaire, 27; a son, their first child; in Hollywood. Weight: 6½ lb. Name: Fred Jr.

Married. Maria Iturbi, 18, daughter of Jose Iturbi, Spanish pianist and conductor; and Stephen Hero, 20, concert violinist, Iturbi’s protege; in Bedford Hills. N. Y.

Married. Edward Francis (“Ned”) Hutton, 58, wealthy stockbroker, ex-board chairman of General Foods Corp.; and one Dorothy Dear Metzger; in Ritter, S. C. Two months ago Mr. Hutton’s second wife, Marjorie Post Close Hutton, married Joseph Edward Davies of Washington, D. C. (TIME, Dec. 23).

Married. Frank Finley Merriam, 70, Governor of California; and Jessie Stewart Lipsey, 66, onetime Iowa acquaintance; in Palm Springs, Calif.

Died. John Mills, 25, bass, eldest brother of the famed Negro quartet; of a lung ailment; in Bellefontaine, Ohio. John Mills Sr. takes his son’s place.

Died. Colonel Daniel Earle (“Smiling Dan”) McGugin, 56, lawyer, longtime (1904-34) Vanderbilt University football coach, since 1934 Vanderbilt athletic director, known as “dean of Southern football coaches”; of a sudden heart attack; in Nashville.

Died. Frank Herbert Simonds, 57, newspaper correspondent, editor, author, able U. S. interpreter of European affairs since 1914; of pneumonia; in Washington, D. C. A pessimistic and trenchant writer, he was convinced that the Treaty of Versailles did not end the War, accurately predicted Germany’s attempt at anschluss with Austria, the Italo-Ethiopian War.

Died. Clara Butt, 62, onetime milkmaid who became Great Britain’s most popular contralto and a Dame Commander of the British Empire; after a long illness; in Oxford, England. Six feet, three inches tall and equipped with a voice so powerful that neither Albert Hall’s organ nor the Coldstream Guards could drown her notes,, she was a favorite with royalty, performing many times before Queen Victoria, Edward VII, George V.

Died. Rev. Dr. Jay Thomas Stocking, 65, moderator of the General Council of Congregational and Christian Churches; of pneumonia; at Newton Center, Mass.

Died. William Adger Law, 71, president of Penn Mutual Life Insurance Co.; of a gunshot wound; in Greensboro, N. C.

Died. Herbert Janvrin Browne, 74, newspaperman, long-range weather forecaster; of pneumonia; in Washington. D. C. Selling his forecasts to industrial concerns and agriculture, he reached his zenith in 1925 by predicting that 1927 would be “a year without a summer.”

Died. George Woodward Wickersham, 77, corporation lawyer, U. S. Attorney-General under President Taft, stanch advocate of the League of Nations; of a heart attack; in a Manhattan taxicab. In 1929 he headed President Hoover’s National Commission on Law Observance and Law Enforcement. The 286-page report, issued in 1931, equivocated on Prohibition, aroused a storm of controversy, both wets and drys claiming victory. None of the recommendations became law.

Died. Dr. Elwood Mead, 78, engineer, world authority on drainage and irrigation, since 1924 chief of the Bureau of Reclamation, supervising such projects as Boulder Dam; of thrombosis; in Washington, D. C.