Ira Gershwin role that Ira played. His mastery of songwriting continued, however, after the early death of George. He wrote additional hit songs with composers Jerome Kern, Kurt Weill, Harry Warren and Harold Arlen. His critically acclaimed 1959 book "Lyrics on Several Occasions", an amalgam of autobiography and annotated anthology, is an important source for studying the art of the lyricist in the golden age of American popular song. Gershwin was born in New York City, the oldest of four children of Morris (Moishe) and Rose Gershovitz (née Rosa Bruskin), who were Russian Jews, born in St Petersburg, who had emigrated to
Isabella Jones and Ira Junius Johnson Black, but of mixed White and Cherokee descent. Three Klansmen were brought to court. At first, only one was found guilty and fined $50; when he appealed, the court gave him a three-month sentence. Johnson and Jones married a month after the incident. Ira Junius Johnson's paternal grandfather George Branson Johnson was a free Black man from Maryland who migrated with his family of eleven children (including Ira Junius's father) to the Province of Canada in the 1860s, where they settled in Oakville. They may have used the Underground Railroad to get there. Johnson's maternal grandfather Junius B. Roberts was