 Barkley died of a heart attack while giving a speech at the Washington and Lee Mock Convention on April 30, 1956.Willie Alben Barkley, the eldest of John Wilson and Electa Eliza (Smith) Barkley's eight children, was born November 24, 1877.His grandmother, midwife Amanda Barkley, delivered him in the log house she lived in with her husband, Alben, in Wheel, Kentucky.