George Miller O'Brien is a former member of the United States House of Representatives

United States House of Representatives

The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

. He was a Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 who represented Illinois' 17th congressional district

Illinois' 17th congressional district

The 17th Congressional District of Illinois covers much of west central Illinois, including the cities of Sterling, Rock Island, Moline, Kewanee, Galesburg, Canton, Macomb, Quincy, Springfield and Decatur, and areas in Henry, Whiteside, Rock Island, Mercer, Knox, Warren, Henderson, Fulton,...

.

O'Brien was born in Chicago, Illinois to a middle-class Irish Catholic

Irish Catholic

Irish Catholic is a term used to describe people who are both Roman Catholic and Irish .Note: the term is not used to describe a variant of Catholicism. More particularly, it is not a separate creed or sect in the sense that "Anglo-Catholic", "Old Catholic", "Eastern Orthodox Catholic" might be...

 family. He attended a private Catholic school before entering Northwestern University

Northwestern University

Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....

. He is a member of the Sigma Chi

Sigma Chi

Sigma Chi is the largest and one of the oldest college Greek-letter secret and social fraternities in North America with 244 active chapters and more than . Sigma Chi was founded on June 28, 1855 at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio when members split from Delta Kappa Epsilon...

 Fraternity

Fraternities and sororities

Fraternities and sororities are fraternal social organizations for undergraduate students. In Latin, the term refers mainly to such organizations at colleges and universities in the United States, although it is also applied to analogous European groups also known as corporations...

. O'Brien earned a law degree from Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

. However, he did not get to practice law until returning from World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. During the war, O'Brien rose to the rank of lieutenant

Lieutenant

A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...

 while fighting in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. Beginning in 1946, he practiced law privately. In 1970, he was appointed to the state's Legislative Advisory Committee, and in 1971 he was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives

Illinois House of Representatives

The Illinois House of Representatives is the lower house of the Illinois General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Illinois. The body was created by the first Illinois Constitution adopted in 1818. The state House of Representatives is made of 118 representatives elected from...

.

After just one term in the state House, O'Brien successfully ran for Congress in 1973. O'Brien was a near centrist who was popular among members of both parties. Following redistricting in 1982, he and fellow Republican Ed Derwinski

Ed Derwinski

Edward Joseph Derwinski is an American politician who served as the first Cabinet-level United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs, serving under President George H. W. Bush from March 15, 1989 to September 26, 1992...

 were drawn into the same district, which retained Derwinski's number, the 4th. Though Derwinski had 14 years more seniority then O'Brien, O'Brien won the primary, and then general elections. In April 1986, O'Brien discovered that he had prostate cancer, which forced him to resign from that year's election. He succumbed to the disease just two months later. Fellow Illinois Republican Congressman John E. Grotberg

John E. Grotberg

John E. Grotberg was a former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from Illinois....

too died of cancer just four months later.

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