W.L. Roper, 92; Journalist and Author

William Leon Roper, a self-educated man who became a prominent journalist and author of books on history and biography, has died at the age of 92.

The veteran writer, who lived in Chino, died of complications of old age Jan. 7 at Veteran’s Hospital in Loma Linda.

Born May 6, 1897, near Republic, Mo., Roper earned a Purple Heart for his U.S. Army service in France in World War I. He attended Drury College briefly, but basically educated himself by reading in his local library.

“I regard libraries as one of my greatest benefactors,” he once told an interviewer. “God bless Andrew Carnegie, the patron saint of our public libraries.”

Roper moved to California in 1923 and worked as a reporter on both the now defunct Los Angeles Examiner and the Los Angeles Times, and handled public relations for Los Angeles County Superior Court judges.

He later served as publicity director for the political campaigns of California Lt. Gov. George Hatfield in 1938, U.S. Sen. William F. Knowland in 1946 and Gov. Goodwin J. Knight in 1950, and Texas Gov. Dan Moody in 1942.

Roper’s books included “Golden Chronicle,” a history of the California Highway Patrol; “Roy Rogers, King of the Cowboys,” and “How to Win in Politics.”

His first wife, Violet May Corwin, whom he married in 1923, died in 1967. He then married Zenith Armstrong Westbrook in 1969, and she died in 1975. He leaves a daughter, Rosemary Ellen Ivins, of Thayne, Wyo., four grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.