“outstanding women of missouri” - presented by the...

Angelou, Maya – Author Armistead, Elma – First Assistant and Associate Superintendent of Schools Bain, Katherine – Pediatrician Baxter, Annie White – First woman in Missouri elected to public office, Benedict, Ruth – Anthropologist Blair, Emily Newell – Writer, suffragist Blanchard, Katie – Advocate for mental health Blow, Susan Elizabeth – Started First Public Kindergarten Brewer, Lake – Early Female Physician Brown, Amelia – Pioneer, teacher, editor, Burge, Ellen Stark – Founded Cox Medical Center Caldwell, Sarah – Opera producer Calloway, DeVerne Lee – First African American elected to Missouri House Carnahan, Jean – First Missouri woman to serve on US Senate Carter, Paula J. – Health care advocate, politician Chopin, Kate – Author Cooper, Millie – Pioneer Cottey, Virginia Alice – Educator, founded Cottey College Cousins, Phoebe – Lawyer, suffragist Covington, Ann – Former Missouri Supreme Court Justice Dunaway, Jane – Early Female Physician Farrington, Hattie – Photographer Gardner, Grace – Educator Giffin, Jerena – First UP wire service reporter Giles, Gwen – First African American elected to Missouri Senate

Ginn, Rosemary L. – Ambassador to Luxembourg Godwin, Linda – Astronaut Hanaway, Catherine L. – First female Speaker of Missouri House Henry, Mildred – Pioneer homemaker Kauffman, Ruth – Physician Kavandi, Janet L. – Astronaut Keeley, Mary Paxton – First woman graduate from University of Missouri School of Journalism Kemp, Rose – Philanthropist, female advocate Kemper, Lorna – Founded Missouri Girls Town King, Virgie – Educator Knell, Emma – First republican woman to serve in Missouri House Lona, Mary – Hispanic publisher Martin, Elizabeth – pioneer innkeeper Martiny, Alise – First woman president of Labor Union McGill, Caroline – Early Female Physician McLorn, Olive Gilbreath – Author, adventurer Minor, Virginia – Suffragist Moore, Agnes – First Chief Clerk of Missouri House of Representatives Oliver, Marie Watkins – Designed Missouri State Flag Ousley, Mayme – First female Mayor in Missouri Powers, Marian Wright – Operatic soprano Reed, Nell Donnelly – Entrepreneur Rexroad, Zoe – Educator, author Rickly, Jesse – Artist Robinson, Jessie – Educator

Rohweder, Helen – Osteopathic physician, artist Rollins, Hazelle Hedges – Marionette factory owner

Ross, Nellie Tayloe – First female governor in US Saueressig, Suzanne – First female Missouri veterinarian Scholz Mountjoy, Grace – Early Female Physician Searcy, Anna B. – Early Female Physician Seevers, Ruth – Early Female Physician Shrader, Dorothy Heckmann – Author Sisters Celeste Pommerel and Saint John Fournier – Founded first school for deaf in St. Louis Smith, Mellcene – One of first women elected to Missouri House Stubblefield, Reva – Artist Sutterfield, Sarah – Homemaker, pioneer Truman, Bess - Wife of the 33rd President of the United States Turner, Sarah Lucille – One of first women elected to Missouri House Ward, Mary Sam Smith – One of eight original WAAC’s Watkins, Mariah – Midwife Weldon, Betty – Publisher, saddlebred horse farm owner Wilder, Laura Ingalls – Author Williams, Cathay – Only female buffalo soldier Woods, Harriett – First female Lt. Governor Missouri Yates, Josephine Silone - First woman named full professor at Lincoln Institute

“ O u t s t a n d i n g W o m e n o f M i s s o u r i ”

Introduction View Pages Alphabetically

of 1“Outstanding Women of Missouri” - Presented by the Missouri Women’s Council.

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Maya Angelou

Author — MAYA ANGELOU WAS BORN April 4, 1928, in St. Louis as Marguerite Johnson, however, she spent her childhood in segregated rural Arkansas. She was among the first African American women to hit the bestsellers lists with her “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” which recounts her traumatic experience while visiting her mother and her years in Arkansas. She is a poet, historian, author, actress, playwright, civil-rights activist, producer and director. She lectures through the United States and abroad and is Reynolds professor of American studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina since 1981. She has published a dozen best-selling books of poetry and prose and numerous magazine articles earning her Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award nominations. At the request of President Bill Clinton, she wrote and delivered a poem at his 1993 presidential inauguration. Angelou’s achievements are numerous. She acted in the powerful mini-series Roots, for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award. She was also the first African American woman to have a screenplay, “Georgia, Georgia” filmed.

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E l m a A r m i s t e a d ,

P h . D . Educator — ELMA ARMISTEAD, PH.D., attended St. Louis University “to become a good teacher.” However, without the encouragement of her male professors to enter administration, (always a male-dominated profession) Armistead might not have sought an administrative position. She became the first female assistant superintendent of schools for Lindbergh School District from 1965-1979 and the first woman associate superintendent of schools for Lindbergh School District in 1979. She admits that many sacrifices accompanied the challenge of administrative advancement, yet “they are the same sacrifices a man had to make.” Although the sacrifices were similar, she felt she had to work twice as hard as men to prove herself equal to them. “Personally, I have not felt discriminated against,” she stated, although there were “a lot of disappointing and discouraging instances.” When asked what the highlights of her career were, Armistead discussed the implementation of the “middle school” concept. She was instrumental in initiating the first middle school program in Missouri (grades six-eight), which has now become the standard. Armistead said her educational career was wonderful and her only regret was that she was unable to implement an elementary foreign language program.


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Dr. Katherine Bain

Pediatrician — DR. KATHERINE BAIN WAS BORN Sept. 1, 1897, in St. Louis, Mo. She received a bachelor’s degree in biology at the University of Missouri in 1920 and her medical degree from Washington University in St. Louis, in 1925. From 1927 to 1940, she was a private practice pediatrician and staff member at the Washington University School of Medicine, and conducted research in childhood allergies at St. Louis Children‘s Hospital. Bain was administrator of the U.S. Children’s Bureau from 1940 to 1972 and a special adviser to the U.S. delegation to the executive board of UNICEF in 1957. She served on special policy committees between UNICEF and the Food and Agriculture Organization, and the World Health Organization. She was appointed alternate U.S. representative to the UNICEF executive board from 1963 to 1973. She received certification in pediatrics in 1943 and in preventive medicine and public health in 1949. In 1973, Bain retired from government service. Dr. Bain passed away in 1999 at the age of 101.


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Annie White Baxter

Politician — ANNIE WHITE WAS BORN IN Pennsylvania and moved with her parents to southwest Missouri, residing in both Carthage and Joplin. Her father was the operator of a Carthage furniture factory with a better than average income. Thus Annie was accustomed to the good life, a gracious home and the admiration of her fellow students. At Carthage High School, where she graduated in 1882, she was said to be the most outspoken, most aggressive and most commanding person in her class. Following graduation, she obtained employment at the Jasper County Courthouse and eventually became the chief deputy county clerk. In 1888, she married Charlie Baxter, a dry goods clerk at the R.H. Rose Department Store. In 1890, although no woman yet could vote in Missouri, she was elected county clerk. This was the first time a woman had been elected county clerk in the United States. In that office, she was among the county officials involved in planning and overseeing construction of the present courthouse, which was completed in 1895.


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Ruth Benedict, Ph.D. Anthropologist—

BORN ON JUNE 5, 1887, in New York City, Ruth Fulton moved several times, including some time spent in St. Joseph, Mo., as her widowed mother pursued teaching jobs. She graduated from Vassar College in New York in 1909, and continued her academic pursuits, receiving her doctorate degree in anthropology from Columbia University in New York City. At Columbia, she studied under one of the preeminent figures in the history of anthropology, Franz Boas, and became close friends with Edward Sapir and Margaret Mead, both influential anthropologists. Her first book, “Tales of the Cochiti Indians,” (1931), and her two-volume “Zuni Mythology,” (1935), were based on 11 years of research into the religion and folklore of different Native American groups. “Patterns of Culture,” (1934), is still recognized as a major contribution to anthropology. In that book, she illustrated, through a comparison of cultures, how small a portion of the possible range of human behavior is incorporated into any one culture, and argued that it is the “personality,” the particular complex of traits and attitudes of a culture, that defines the individuals within it as successes, misfits or outcasts. Benedict was strongly opposed to racism and a forceful proponent for tolerance of cultural difference and variation in lifestyles in our own society. From 1943 to 1945, she was a special adviser to the Office of War Information on dealing with the people of occupied territories and enemy lands. This assignment led her to write her 1946 book, “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword.” In 1947, she was named president of the American Anthropological Association and was acknowledged as one of the outstanding anthropologist in America.


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E m i l y N e w e l l B l a i r

Suffragist — WRITER, SUFFRAGIST, national Democratic Party political leader and feminist, Emily Newell Blair was born in Joplin, Mo., on Jan. 9, 1877. She attended the Women’s College of Baltimore (later Goucher College) and the University of Missouri in Columbia. She returned to Carthage upon her father’s death to help support and care for her brother and three sisters. Blair became active in the local suffragist campaign. In 1914, she became publicity chair for the Missouri Equal Suffrage Association and the first editor of its monthly publication, “Missouri Woman.” After United States’ entry into World War I, Blair became vice chair of the Missouri Woman’s Committee of the Council of Defense. When her husband went abroad for the YMCA, she accepted a position in the publicity department of the Women’s Committee of the Council of Defense, working for Ida Tarbell and Anna Howard Shaw. In 1920, Blair published its history, “The Women’s Committee, U.S. Council of National Defense: An Interpretive Report.” She had been a founder of the League of Women Voters, but realized that since gaining suffrage, women had lost political clout. Although they had the right to vote, they tended not to vote in blocks. Women must, Blair contended, organize and support strong women candidates for office who could lead the demand for equality. Blair was active in securing positions for women in the New Deal. Appointed to the Consumers’ Advisory Board of the National Industrial Recovery Act, she became its chairman in 1935. Her last public service came in 1942 when she was appointed chief of the women’s interest section of the War Department’s Bureau of Public Relations.


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Katie Blanchard

Advocate for Mental Health —

KATIE BLANCHARD WAS A LONG TIME resident of Charleston, Mo., where she lived with her nine children. She received her certificate for the Missouri State Alcoholism Training and Information Program at Washington University in St. Louis. She was an active member of the State Advisory Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse. The Delta Area Economic Opportunity Development Corps employed Blanchard as the economic opportunity development counselor. Her responsibilities included finding jobs for young adults through the Job Corps and local businesses. She went above and beyond her duty by gathering clothes for those in need. She delivered meals to the sick and shut-in, and chaperoned a group of young children to Six Flags for a summer outing. She served as vice chairman of the Mississippi County Child Welfare Advisory Committee.


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Susan Elizabeth Blow

Started First Public Kindergarten —

SUSAN ELIZABETH BLOW (Born June 7, 1843 in St. Louis Missouri – died March 26, 1916 in New York City) was a United States educator who opened the first successful public Kindergarten in the United States; she ran it for 11 years without getting paid. Blow began her training at the New York Normal Training Kindergarten. In 1873, Blow opened a public kindergarten at Des Peres School in what was then a separate city, Carondelet, St. Louis, Missouri, teaching children in the morning and training teachers in the afternoon. Her classroom was very bright and colorful compared to other Kindergarten classrooms in America. She made her classroom perfect for young children. It had short benches and tables and contained many different books and toys. By 1879, there were 53 kindergarten rooms in St. Louis, making the city a model and a focal point of the kindergarten movement. In 1884, because of an illness, Susan retired and traveled. She ended up leaving St. Louis to live in the east in 1889. She also lectured around the country and in 1894 she wrote five books for the International Education Series. Also she wrote articles in the Kindergarten Magazine. Blow was also a part of the advisory committee of the International Kindergarten Union and Committee of Nineteen. Susan Elizabeth Blow died on March 26, 1916. She was buried at Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.


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Dr. Lake Brewer

One of Missouri’s First Female Physicians — DR. LAKE BREWER, CLASS of 1908 at the University of Missouri’s School of Medicine, was a former varsity women’s basketball player who practiced medicine in her hometown of Ridgeway, Mo. for more than 50 years. Although Brewer was aggressive enough to speak up if she thought a family was growing too large, she also was caring enough to drive a patient 90 miles to St. Joseph, Mo. to get a specialist’s opinion. Brewer, who died in 1967, once prescribed to a Kansas City Star reporter that “Work and interest in others, I know, will cure many vague illnesses.”


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A m e l i a B r o w n

Pioneer, Teacher, Editor, and Poet — AMELIA X. BROWN OF EDINA was one of the three outstanding pioneer women of the state of Missouri. As a true pioneer woman, she proved her great worth as a teacher, mother, poet, writer and outstanding community leader. She was born in Warren County, Ohio, in 1847, and moved to Knox County, Mo. in 1857 with her parents. When the old Kirksville Normal School, now called Truman State University, was established, she was among the first students to enroll, receiving a life certificate to teach. She taught in the Edina schools for 10 years. After retiring from teaching, she became superintendent of schools at Lewiston. From 1907 to 1914, Brown served as senior editor of the Edina Sentinel newspaper. She also authored the section on northeast Missouri for a book series on the history of Missouri. Her efforts to educate herself and pass on her knowledge to others never ceased. As a widowed mother, she struggled valiantly and successfully to rear and educate a large family. Amelia Brown died on September 11, 1924.


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Ellen Stark Burge

Community Philanthropist — ELLEN STARK WAS BORN Oct. 18, 1843. She settled in Springfield in 1860 and married George W. Burge in 1865. The Burges were strong supporters of Springfield. They helped start a Methodist church and Ellen was soon in charge of the Sunday school. In 1906, Burge was approached by Dr. J.C. Matthews and Rev. J.W. Stewart about the need for a hospital in Springfield. Burge owned property on North Jefferson Street and gladly donated the house and lot to the Women’s Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church so a hospital could be built. She became president of the local board of managers. The house was a two-story, wood double house and was remodeled into a hospital, opening on Thanksgiving Day 1906 as Burge Deaconess Hospital. Burge soon purchased an adjoining lot, and in 1908, a larger, three-story hospital opened. The original hospital building was then used to train nurses. In 1942, an addition added 40 more beds to the second building. Ellen Burge died at the hospital she built June 9, 1922 at the age of 78.


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Sarah Caldwell

Opera Producer — SARAH CALDWELL WAS BORN IN 1928 in Maryville, Mo. In 1947, she conducted her first opera, Ralph Vanghn-William’s “Riders to the Sea” at Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts. In 1952, Caldwell became the head of the opera department at Boston University. For the next 40 years, she devoted herself to introducing opera to her city, bringing Boston the finest new and standard work while inspiring others to share her passion for opera. She became known for her creative staging and inspired direction. Always an innovator, Caldwell incorporated laser, black lights and film into her productions, making the action break the stage and penetrate fully into the house. She conducted the U.S. premieres of Paul Hindemith’s “Mathis der Maler,” Roger Session’s “Montezuma,”Peter Maxwell Davies’s “Taveerner,” Luigi Nano’s “Introlleranza” and Aaron Schoenberg’s “Moses und Aron.” She also has championed the expansion of the standard opera repertoire, staging such rarely performed works as Prokofiev’s “War and Peace,” Berge’s “Lulu,” Rameau’s “Hippolyte et Arice” and Charpentier’s “Louise.” Caldwell has promoted international artistic exchange by organizing festivals of Russian music in Boston and American music in the former Soviet Union. Since 1993, she has been the principal guest conductor for the Sverdlovsk Philharmonic Orchestra in Russia, and has maintained an extensive orchestral conducting schedule, appearing on the podium of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony and Washington D.C.’s National Symphony Orchestra. Sarah Caldwell passed away March 24, 2006.


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Deverne Lee Calloway Politician — DEVERNE CALLOWAY WAS BORN in Memphis, Tenn., on June 17, 1916. She attended LeMonyne-Owen College in Memphis and did graduate work at Atlanta University and Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. She taught school in Georgia and Mississippi before joining the American Red Cross and traveling to China, Burma and India during World War II. While in India, she led a protest against the segregation of black soldiers in Red Cross facilities. Calloway moved to Chicago after the war and became a member of the Congress of Racial Equality in 1946. She later joined the staff of the Jewish Welfare Fund and developed skills in fundraising. DeVerne and her husband Ernest moved to St. Louis where he became president of the St. Louis NAACP. Calloway was elected to serve in the Missouri House of Representatives on her first bid for public office in November 1962, becoming the first Black woman elected to the state legislature. She served on the House committees on education, public health, safety and social security. She also served on the Elections Committee, Accounts Committee and as chairman of the Federal-State Relations Committee. During her career in the legislature, she worked actively to increase state aid to public education; to improve welfare grants and services for dependent children, the blind, the disabled and the elderly; and to reform prisons. In November 1980, she retired from public office at the conclusion of that legislative term. DeVerne Calloway passed away in 1993.


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Jean Carnahan

Politician — JEAN CARNAHAN IS A Democratic Party activist who served in the United States Senate from 2001-2002, in place of her husband, Mel Carnahan. Her husband died in a plane crash three weeks before the election. After he won the election, Jean Carnahan was appointed to fill his seat becoming the first Missouri woman to serve as a US senator. Her years of involvement in state politics plus her degree in business and administration from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., made her a valid choice to fill the U.S. Senate seat. Before becoming a U.S. Senator, Jean Carnahan devoted her two terms as Missouri’s first lady to improving the lives of Missouri’s children and speaking out on behalf of victims of domestic violence and other problems. As first lady, she advocated childhood immunization and created an annual arts festival for children. She was the co-founder of “Children in the Workplace,” a project to develop employer-supported, on-site daycare centers for working families. She raised funds for the Rape and Abuse Crisis Center and helped build homes for Habitat for Humanity. In 1998, Carnahan completed her first book, “If Walls Could Talk,” a 440-page history of Missouri’s first families and the challenges they faced in public service. In 1995, she received the Child Advocate of the Year Award for Boys and Girls Town of Missouri. She was named 1997 Citizen of the Year by the March of Dimes. She helped create the Missouri Center for the Book to recognize authors from around the state.


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Paula Carter

Politician — PAULA J. CARTER, a St. Louis native, was called “the most powerful woman Democrat in the city,” by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She began her political career when she helped James “Pal” Troupe win a race for fifth ward committeeman. In 1976, she served as precinct captain for Senator J.B. Banks, and he became a long-time mentor and ally. In 1984, Carter secured her first elected office as 27th ward Democratic committeewoman, which she held until her death. She was first elected to the Missouri House of Representatives in 1986 and was re-elected for six additional terms. Carter became known as tenacious and for her willingness to fight for the disadvantaged. She fought to provide better health care for Missouri citizens, especially poor women. The Legislative Black Caucus Foundation created the Paula J. Carter Chairman’s Award to honor adults who work with youth. In 1999, Carter won a special election to replace Senator “Jett” Banks, who resigned from the Senate. Voters re-elected her to a full term in November 2000. Carter became very ill with cancer and died Nov. 5, 2001.


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K a t e C h o p i n

Author — KATE CHOPIN SPENT HER LIFE in St. Louis. Her mother, Eliza Faris O’Flaherty, was the daughter of a French family with history dating back to the founding of St. Louis. Her early life and her mature experience in St. Louis influenced her perception of the human condition. A community of writers and intellectuals in St. Louis supported and shaped her literary life and she hosted a literary salon. During the 1890s, Chopin wrote more than 100 short stories. Critics warmly praised the collection of Creole tales published as “Bayou Folk” in 1894. Chopin’s second novel, “The Awakening,” published in 1899, won her a place in history, both as a writer and as a critic of women’s roles in the family and the community. The book portrayed the inner life of a woman who rejected her role as a businessman’s ornamental wife, but failed to define a place for herself in a judgmental community. The novel challenged conventional values and shocked many critics. Scholars have speculated about the extent to which the author’s own married life resembled the sad marriage in “The Awakening,” but there is no definitive answer to this question. Chopin ultimately gained fame as a realist rather than a local color writer, a novelist rather than a short-story writer and a modernist rather than a teller of sentimental tales. Kate Chopin died in August 22,1904 at the age of 54 .


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Millie Cooper

Pioneer — A DOZEN OR MORE SETTLERS and several slaves were killed in the Boonslick area from the opening of hostilities in 1812 until the close of the war in 1815. A number of interesting stories about this period have been recorded, but one of the most interesting ones concerns young Millie Cooper. As the story goes, Cooper’s Fort (near Boonville) was surrounded by American Indians, and Cooper’s father decided that someone needed to ride to neighboring Fort Hempstead for help. Since there were so few men at Cooper’s Fort at the time, it was felt that none of them could be spared, so young Cooper, only 15 years old, volunteered. Her father ordered the best horse in the fort to be saddled for her, and as she was about to leave, he asked if there was anything else she needed. “Only a spur, father,” she replied, and then galloped out of the fort. Riding through a hail of bullets and arrows, she disappeared in the distance as the American Indians renewed their attack on the fort. A fierce battle raged for several hours, but then a shout was heard and the besieged settlers were relieved to see a band of their fellows from Fort Hempstead led by Cooper coming to their aid. For her courage, she was considered one of the heroes of the war. Millie Cooper was born January 25, 1796 in Madison County Kentucky and died on October 10,1869.


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V i r g i n i a A l i c e C o t t e y

Educator, Founded Cottey College — VIRGINIA ALICE COTTEY was a woman of vision. Guided by the belief that women deserved the same education as men, she founded Cottey College in 1884 to educate women to be “knowledgeable, thinking, mature adults.” Virginia Alice Cottey selected Nevada, Missouri, as the site for her school. She opened the Vernon Seminary on September 8, 1884, in a two-story red brick building with 28 students from kindergarten through a two-year collegiate course. As time passed, Virginia Alice Cottey realized that she could not guide her college forever and she began to search for a group that could sustain her dream after she was no longer able to do so. In 1926, she accepted an invitation to join the P.E.O. Sisterhood, a philanthropic educational organization. As the organization’s educational purpose became clear to her, she realized that the ideals of the P.E.O. Sisterhood were the same ideals by which she guided her College. Deciding that P.E.O. and Cottey belonged together, she presented the College to the P.E.O. Sisterhood in 1927.

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P h o e b e C o u z i n s

Lawyer, Suffragist — PHOEBE COUZINS, A LAWYER AND SUFFRAGIST, was born on Sept. 8, 1842 in St. Louis. In 1869, Washington University Law School admitted Couzins, becoming one of the first schools in the country to offer a woman an education in jurisprudence. She graduated in 1871 and, in the course of her life, was admitted to the bar associations of Missouri, Arkansas, Utah and Kansas, and the Dakota Territory federal courts. She was the second woman in the United States to graduate from law school, the second admitted to a bar association and the third allowed to practice law nationwide. At her graduation celebration, she explained her motivation for earning a law degree, claiming to be spurred “solely by a desire to open new paths for women.” Couzins served as a delegate to the American Equal Rights Association convention held in St. Louis in October 1869. Susan B. Anthony was present, and after the convention, Couzins joined with Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to form the more radical National Woman’s Suffrage Association. She lectured extensively around the country and served as an associate delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1876. In the late 1890s, Couzins began to draw away from the suffrage movement. After her father’s death, she succeeded him in his position and become the first female U.S. marshal. Phoebe Couzins died in St. Louis Missouri on December 6, 1913.

Photograph provided by Missouri Historical Society — St. Louis


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Ann Covington

First Woman State Supreme Court Justice — A1963 GRADUATE OF DUKE University in Durham, N.C., Ann Covington’s first career goal was to become a college professor. Those plans changed after postponing graduate school 11 years to start a family and then discovering college teaching positions were scarce. As a backup plan for breaking into higher education, Covington decided to attend law school, and in 1968, she enrolled at the University of Missouri School of Law at Columbia. That decision ultimately led her to become the first woman appointed to the Missouri Court of Appeals in 1987. Subsequently she was first woman appointed to the Missouri Supreme Court in 1988. During her 12 years on the state’s highest court, Covington served as chief justice from 1993 to 1995. “She is universally respected for her intellect and legal abilities, and she performed the legal responsibilities of her judicial position with distinction. She constantly worked to improve the administration of justice and undertook causes when she was convinced of their merits, even though the causes were not always popular,” said Judge Patricia Breckenridge of the Missouri Court of Appeals, Western Division. Covington was a pioneer who opened the door for women to the highest echelon of the judiciary in Missouri.


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Dr. Jane Dunaway

One of Missouri’s First Female Physicians — THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI'S School of Medicine’s second woman graduate, Dr. Jane Dunaway, received her medical degree in 1905. Born in 1879, Dunaway grew up in Cedar County, Mo. as one of 14 children in a farm family. She moved to El Dorado Springs, Mo. to help her brother Louis fight an influenza outbreak. She operated a three-bed hospital in a downtown building. Dunaway’s focus shifted to psychiatry, and she joined the medical staff at State Hospital No. 2 in St. Joseph. After 30 years in psychiatry, she retired in 1960 at the age of 81.


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Hattie Farrington

Photographer — HATTIE FARRINGTON WAS BORN IN 1881 as Hattie Jane Hays. She graduated from high school at 16 and began teaching in Clarksburg, Mo. After several years of teaching, she decided to go back to school. She earned a degree in commerce from Clarksburg College in 1902. Although she then began teaching business courses at Clarksburg College, she resigned in December of that year to marry Frank Farrington, a physician. They moved to Greentop, Mo., near Kirksville, so he could start a practice and they could start a family. After Farrington’s girls were in school, she began spending more time on her own hobbies. She enjoyed the piano, photography and quilting. She even once taught herself how to play the clarinet since the town wanted to create an orchestra and nobody knew how to play one. Farrington had a habit of simply teaching herself whatever it was she was interested in doing. One of those skills was photography. In the early 20th century, photography tended to be a more formal endeavor than we think of it today. Very few women were photographers and it was quite rare to see unposed, casual images of family and friends. Farrington, however, used photography to capture the everyday joys of her life; her children playing, her husband riding his horse, or the family dog doing tricks. Her images give us a visual glimpse into the everyday life of a family in rural Missouri early in the 20th century.


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Sister St. John Fournier &

Sister Celestine Pommerel

Founded the St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf — THE WORK OF TEACHING THE DEAF has always been especially dear to the Sisters of St. Joseph, as it was the main reason Bishop Rosati had invited the Sisters from Lyons, France in 1836. Sisters St. John Fournier and Celestine Pommerel responded to the invitation and after taking a course at Ste. Etienne, came to Missouri and opened a school for the deaf in Carondelet in St. Louis County in 1837. One of the pupils who attended the school said that Mother Celestine was regarded by all who knew her as a saint. Mother Celestine later became the first superior general at the Mother House in Carondelet. Mother St. John Fournier became the founder of the congregation in Philadelphia, where the Sisters of St. Joseph continue to labor for the deaf. French techniques for teaching the deaf appeared to be the most advanced anywhere in Europe, one of the more favorable benefits of the Enlightenment that survived the French Revolution. Even Thomas Gallaudet, whose pioneer Hartford school opened in 1816, had studied under French tutors. Pommerel's and Fournier’s work in the founding of the St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf was an important step in education for the deaf and some of their techniques are still in use today.


Page 1 of 1Sister St. John Fournier & Sister Celestine Pommerel

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Grace Gardner, Ph.D.

Educator — GRACE GARDNER WAS BORN in 1916. She began her teaching career at Peace Valley, Mo., in 1936 after graduating as valedictorian from Aurora High School. At the end of that school term, she moved home and taught in the Aurora schools for the next nine years. However, from 1937 to 1940, she also attended Southwest Missouri State Teachers College (now Southwest Missouri State University – SMSU in Springfield) and received her bachelor’s degree. In 1949, she received a master’s degree in education from the University of Missouri and 10 years later, in 1959, a doctorate degree. In 1946, Gardner became employed by Southwest Missouri State University (SMSU) and taught in Greenwood Laboratory School, where she stayed until retirement in 1983. As a social studies teacher, she wanted her students to become involved in political and governmental structures. Gardner helped them achieve this through the Model United Nations and the Missouri Student Council. She helped with the Model UN for 14 years and participated in Missouri Student Council on local and state levels. She was also the Student Council advisor at Greenwood. Gardner served as the president of Springfield-Greene County League of Women Voters, Missouri State Teachers Association, United Nations Association Springfield Chapter, Community Teachers Association of SMSU and Senior Citizens County Tax Board, as well as many other organizations.


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Jerena Giffen

Journalist, Author — IT WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL IN ROLLA that Jerena Giffen began her journalism career as assistant editor of the school paper. When she enrolled at Drury College in Springfield, she was given the editorship of the student newspaper. While at Drury, Giffen also wrote news for two radio stations and worked as a part-time reporter for the United Press in Springfield. For her senior year, Giffen transferred to the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism, where she also worked for the United Press. After graduating, Giffen was hired in 1947 by United Press and was sent to Dallas. In 1948, she was transferred back to Jefferson City to cover the state legislative session. Two years later, Giffen became the first female bureau chief for a wire service in Jefferson City. She held the position until 1957 when she left to raise her family. In 1980, Giffen received her master’s degree in public administration and in 1989, received her doctorate degree in political science from the University of Missouri-Columbia. For the next several years, she taught at the University of Missouri in Columbia and Rolla. In 1993, she took a position as adjunct assistant professor at Lincoln University in Jefferson City. Giffen also has published several books including “The House on Hobo Hill,” “Plus Two for Jay Hill” and “First Ladies of Missouri: Their Homes and Their Families.” Most recently, she finished a book her husband began before he passed away called “Walks on Water: The Impact of Steamboats on the Lower Missouri River.” Giffen has won numerous awards and honors including Author of the Year by the Missouri Writer’s Guild. Her record of community involvement and public service is a long and distinguished one.


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Gwen Giles

First Female African American elected to Missouri Senate — THE DISTINCTION OF BECOMING the first Black woman elected to the Missouri State Senate belongs to Gwen Giles of St. Louis. Beginning in the 1960s, Giles promoted involvement of St. Louis religious leaders in the civil rights movement. She was a member of the Archdiocesan Commission on Human Rights. She was also the first woman and the first Black to hold the position of St. Louis City assessor, which she took after resigning from the Senate in 1968. In 1973, St. Louis Mayor John Poelker appointed her commissioner of human relations. In this position, she updated a city ordinance to protect women, the elderly and people with disabilities, and promoted passage of the 1976 Comprehensive Civil Rights Ordinance. Among Giles’s accomplishments was the appointment by President Jimmy Carter to a task force to assist in selecting talented women for positions in the federal government. She was a pioneer as well as a role model for women in generations to come. Giles was born in Atlanta, GA on May 14, 1932 and died on March 15, 1986.


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Rosemary Lucas Ginn United States Ambassador to Luxembourg — ROSEMARY LUCAS GINN was born on 28 August 1912, in Columbia, Missouri. She graduated from the University of Missouri in 1933 and subsequently received her law degree from the University of Missouri. She became involved with the Republican Party at the state and local levels in the 1940s and 1950s acting as secretary at the Missouri Republican Convention and as an alternate delegate at the Republican National Convention in 1956. She was named a permanent member of the Republican National Committee for Missouri in 1960 and was a member of its Executive Committee from 1962 to 1964. In addition she was elected president of the Federation of Republican Women's Clubs of Missouri from the years 1959 to 1961. From 1969 to 1972 Ginn served on the Delegates and Organizations Committee (DO Committee) of the Republican National Committee and was eventually elected its chairwoman. In 1972 Ginn was appointed to the Rules Committee of the Republican National Committee which was charged with reviewing the rules for the selection/election of vice-presidential candidates at national conventions and the process of choosing convention delegates. After flirting briefly with the thought of running for Congress in 1972, Ginn was named a member of the United States National Commission for UNESCO (USNC) and was involved in planning International Women's Year for that organization. She went to Paris as part of the U.S. Delegation at the 18th General Conference of UNESCO in 1974 and served as president of the USNC from 1975 to 1976. Late in 1976 Ginn was named U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg by President Gerald Ford. Ginn married Milton Stanley Ginn in 1934. They had two daughters, Nancy Bewick Almond and Sally Reuben Hood. Rosemary Lucas Ginn died Feb. 3, 2003 in Osage Beach, Missouri at age 90.


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Linda M. Godwin, Ph.D NASA Astronaut —

LINDA GODWIN'S HOMETOWN is Jackson, Missouri. She is married to Steven R. Nagel of Houston, Texas. They have two daughters. Dr. Godwin graduated from Jackson High School in Jackson, Missouri, received a bachelor of science degree in mathematics and physics from Southeast Missouri State, and a master of science degree and a doctorate in physics from the University of Missouri. While at the University of Missouri, she conducted research and authored and co-authored several scientific papers. Dr. Godwin joined NASA in 1980 and served as a flight controller and payloads officer in Mission Control for several Shuttle flights prior to being selected as an astronaut candidate in 1985. A veteran of four shuttle flights, Dr. Godwin has logged over 915 hours in space. She flew in space as a mission specialist on STS-37 (1991), which deployed the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. She was assigned to STS-59 as a payload commander. She then was a mission specialist on STS-76 in 1996 which docked to the Russian Space Station MIR. STS-108, which launched in December of 2001, was Dr. Godwin’s fourth Space Shuttle mission. The mission carried the crew to the International Space Station, and she participated in a spacewalk. Dr. Godwin’s technical assignments during her astronaut career have included working with flight software verification in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL), and coordinating mission development activities for the Inertial Upper Stage (IUS), deployable payloads, and Spacelab missions. She also has served as Chief of Astronaut Appearances, Chief of the Mission Development and Capcom Branches of the Astronaut Office, as the astronaut liaison to its Educational Working Group, Deputy Chief of the Astronaut Office, and as Acting Deputy Director, Flight Crew Operations Directorate. Dr. Godwin is currently serving as the Assistant to the Director for Exploration, Flight Crew Operations Directorate, at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.


Page 1 of 1Linda M. Godwin, Ph.D

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Catherine L. Hanaway

First Female Speaker of the Missouri House — CATHERINE L. HANAWAY, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, was sworn in on December 23, 2005 as the Presidentially appointed United States Attorney. Prior to being nominated by President Bush to become the 46th United States Attorney, Ms. Hanaway, 41, was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives in 1998, representing the 87th District, which encompasses part of St Louis County. In 2003, she was elected as the first woman Speaker of the Missouri House. Ms. Hanaway was named as one of the Missouri Lawyers of the Year by Missouri Lawyers Weekly and was recognized as one of the St. Louis Business Journal's "40 Under 40" in addition to being named by the Journal as a "Leader to Watch." Ms. Hanaway service to the bench and bar has been recognized by the Judicial Conference of Missouri and with the Missouri Bar Legislative Award. Her service to the community has been recognized in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004 with the Lewis &Clark Statesman Award from the St. Louis Regional Chamber & Growth Association. Ms. Hanaway earned her law degree from the Catholic University of America, where she graduated in the top 10% of her law school class, and worked in the law firm of Peper, Martin Jensen, Maichel & Hetlage. She currently resides in St. Louis with her Husband Christopher, Daughter Lucy and son Jack.


Page 1 of 1Catherine L. Hanaway

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Mildred Henry

Homemaker — HIGGERSON LANDING WAS A RIVERBOAT landing on the MississippiRiver in New Madrid County established shortly after the Civil War.Mildred Henry was born in that community 86 years ago. Her only education was obtained at Higgerson School, a one-room school elevated eight to 10 feet in the air to protect it from flooding. That school provided an eighth grade education for community children, served as the church on Sundays and provided refuge for several families when the Mississippi River flooded. The area was not a place where opportunities for women were abundant. During the 1900s, most of the forests in the area were cleared for the rich farmland that lay beneath. Timber harvests provided significant income and the area was flooded with new workers from the logging industry. Henry supplemented the family income by providing room and board to many of the loggers who worked the area. She never knew exactly how many people would be there for the breakfast, lunch and supper meals that she prepared. One of the many skills she developed was the ability to provide large quantities of food in very short periods. No one ever left her kitchen hungry.


Page 1 of 1Mildred Henry

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D r . R u t h K a u f f m a n

Physician — DR. RUTH KAUFFMAN BEGAN HER PREMEDICAL TRAINING in the shadow of World War II in a college in Logan, Utah. After losing her only brother to the war, she transferred to the University of Missouri – Columbia. She then attended medical school at Washington University in St. Louis, where she graduated in 1948. After medical school, she served her internship at St. Luke’s Hospital. Kauffman was put in the nurses’ dormitory. “They had never had a woman intern,” Kauffman said. She said there were times when that made a difference. “I could tell I was always being tested,” she said. Kauffman was offered a job in Versailles working with Dr. Aubrey Jackson Gunn at the Gunn Clinic. Since there were no specialists nearby, the doctors at the Gunn Clinic were often called upon to care for a variety of traumas. Kauffman spent time taking care of the elderly, and counseled women after childbirth when they were prone to depression. She volunteered at the Morgan County Mental Health Association in Versailles, served on the Morgan County Health Center Board of Directors, was president of the Versailles United Methodist Women and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Versailles Area Chamber of Commerce in 1999. Dr. Ruth Kauffman died on October 2, 2006.


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J a n e t L . K a v a n d i NASA Astronaut — DR. JANET KAVANDI is a three flight veteran who has logged over 33 days in space, traveling over 13.1 million miles in 535 Earth orbits. Born in Springfield, she graduated as Valedictorian from Carthage Senior High School with a Presidential Scholarship in 1977. She went on to graduate Magma Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemistry from Missouri Southern State College and earned a Master of Science Degree in Chemistry from the University of Missouri - Rolla and a Doctorate in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Washington - Seattle. Her doctoral dissertation resulted in two patents. Following graduation, Dr. Kavandi accepted a position at Eagle-Picher Industries in Joplin, and at Boeing Aerospace Company in Seattle, Washington. where she was involved with the Short Range Attack Missile II, Sea Lance and the Lightweight Exo-Atmospheric Projectile. as well as supporting several other programs. At NASA Dr. Kavandi was selected to supported payload integration for the International Space Station and served as a mission specialist on STS-91, the 9th and final Shuttle-Mir docking mission. She also worked as a spacecraft communicator in NASA’s Mission Control Center. On her second mission, she served aboard STS-99, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, which mapped more than 47 million miles of the Earth’s land surface to provide data for a highly accurate three-dimensional topographical map. Dr. Kavandi subsequently worked in the Robotics Branch, where she trained on both the shuttle and space station robotic manipulator systems. On her most recent mission, she served aboard STS-104/ISS Assembly Flight 7A on the 10th mission to the International Space Station. The shuttle crew installed the joint airlock “Quest” and conducted joint operations with the Expedition-2 crew. Following her last mission, Dr. Kavandi again served as lead for the Payloads and Habitability Branch, then as the Branch Chief for the International Space Station (ISS). In 2005, Dr. Kavandi accepted a position as Deputy Chief of the Astronaut Office, where she currently serves.


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M a r y P a x t o n K e e l e y Journalist — MARY PAXTON KEELEY WAS BORN June 2, 1886, in Independence, Mo. She started her college career at Hollins College in Virginia, then after spending a summer at the University of Chicago, she realized her interest in journalism. There was no journalism school at Chicago, so she came to the University of Missouri where a school of journalism was scheduled to open. “So, in the middle of the school year, in 1908, I was sitting on the doorstep waiting for this school of journalism to start,” she wrote. In 1910, she was the first female graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism. After graduation, she became the first female news reporter in Kansas City, where she accepted a position with the Kansas City Post. However, after only 15 months on the job, Keeley had an acute appendicitis and had to leave her position. After recuperating, she was ready to go back to work and looked to Walter Williams, founder of the university’s journalism school, for advice. He suggested she go back to school and get a degree in home economics as a specialty background for her journalism. She then spent several years working in rural areas of Missouri as a reporter, but after becoming sick again, she decided she would rather teach. In order to teach she needed a graduate degree so she went back to school once again and received her master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in 1928. From 1929 to 1952, she was a professor of journalism and creative writing at Christian College (now Columbia College) in Columbia. She was also active in the community and was a founding member of the Columbia Art League and Boone County Historical Society. On December 6, 1986, Mary Paxton Keeley passed away at the age of 100.


Page 1 of 1Mary Paxton Keeley

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Rose Kemp Women’s Advocate, Community Leader — ROSE KEMP OF KANSAS CITY was the regional administrator for Region VII of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau. She was responsible for policy development and implementation of Women’s Bureau and Department of Labor objectives and programs to enhance the status of working women in the four-state region. Kemp served in various leadership roles, promoting the interest of America’s working families. In 1995, she was an official Non-governmental Organizations (NGO) representative at the NGO Forum and the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, in Beijing, China. In January 1996, she was one of several women from across the country invited to the White House to brief officials on activities in local communities following the world conference. They were also asked to provide input on ways to implement the Platform for Action adopted by some 180 nations at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. Kemp provided assistance to the Women’s Employment Initiative in Craigavon, Northern Ireland, as well as to members of the Northern Ireland government and employers in the development of strategies for family-friendly policies for Northern Ireland’s working women. Kemp was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Distinguished Career Service Award for her public service and work in the U.S. Department of Labor. She served on a number of boards and advisory boards for organizations throughout Missouri and Kansas. Rose Kemp passed away on November 19, 2005, at the age of 72.


Page 1 of 1Rose Kemp

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Lorna Kemper

Founder of Girls Town — LORNA KEMPER WAS BORN IN 1895 and raised in Clinton, Mo. She received a bachelor’s degree in education from Macon Women’s College in Lynchburg, Va. and Pittsburgh State College in Kansas. Upon returning to Clinton, she became an active member of the community, especially in local and state women’s clubs. In 1950, as state president of the Missouri Federated Women’s Club, she conceived the idea of a home for neglected girls similar to Boys Town. Consequently, she founded Missouri Girls Town as a home for non-delinquent, neglected, abused and/or abandoned girls ages eight to 17. She wrote a book concerning her efforts to organize the home entitled “A Dream is born.” In 1966, Kemper received national recognition when elected as the vice president general of the national organization of the Daughters of the American Revolution, a position she held until 1969. She also served as the chaplain general between 1971 and 1974. Through the Missouri Girls Town, Kemper has changed the lives of countless girls and young women by providing them a place where they can be safe, get an education and learn how to be good citizens.


Page 1 of 1Lorna Kemper

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Virgie King

Educator — VIRGIE MAE HILTON WAS BORN Feb. 1, 1910, in the Clay Hill community. King graduated from Aurora Hill School in 1928. Shewas planning to attend Southwest Missouri Teachers’ College in Springfield, but while her parents encouraged her with moral support, they were unable to offer much in the way of financial support. That didn’t stop King. For four years, she worked for room and board while she attended college and earned her degree in education. King’s first teaching assignment was in Fairview, Mo., where she taught grades one through eight for one year. She then moved to Wilks School in Verona, Mo., for three years, where she also taught grades one through eight. King was an active member of the Missouri Association of School Librarians and served as president in 1961-62. She offered help and encouragement to so many in her lifetime. Virgie King passed away in February 2001.


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Emma Knell

First Republican Woman to serve in the Missouri House of Representatives — EMMA R. KNELL, A BUSINESSWOMAN and politician, was born in Moline, Ill. on Oct. 21, 1877, and moved with her family to southwest Missouri in the early 1880s. She received her education from Carthage public schools. After graduation, she enrolled in the National School of Embalming, which was not a common field for women at the time. She graduated the following year and in 1899, she became one of the first Missouri women to be licensed as an embalmer. Many years later, after having been active in the Republican Party, she became the first Republican woman elected to the Missouri General Assembly. She served as chairman of the Children’s Code Committee and as a member of the Appropriations, Official Salaries and Fees, and Roads and Highways committees. Among the bills she helped enact during her final term was one that created the Missouri State Highway Patrol. She retired from the legislature after completing her third term in 1932.


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M a r y L o n a

Hispanic Community Leader — MARY GAMEZ LONA WAS BORN on June 30, 1954, in Torreon, Coahuila, Mexico. She came to Kansas City at a very early age and spent most of her life in the metro area. In 1978, Lona graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Kansas at Lawrence. Lona and her husband then returned to Kansas City where their three sons were born. A biography of Lona describes her in the following way: ”Lona was a bright light for the entire community. Where she saw a need, she was there to find a way to fix the problem. Honesty, caring and compassion were a part of her. However, she had a steel backbone and a certain bluntness that got her to the heart of an issue so she could take action. She was a fierce and resolute fighter for all of us — Latino, black, white, young, old, women, the sick and dying.“ Professionally, she was the publisher of ”La Lista Latina, Hispanic Business Directory;“ the founder of La Lista Latina — Live and the Hispanic Consumer Trade Show; the director of the Westside Cabot Clinic; supervisor of Parents As Teachers; director of the Teen Pregnancy Program at Guadeloupe Center, and an anti-substance abuse counselor at Haskell American Indian College. Lona had foresight and a vision for the community, particularly the Hispanic community. She wanted Latinos to take their rightful role in the Kansas City area, especially in the economic arena.


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Elizabeth Martin

Pioneer Innkeeper — ELIZABETH GRAY MARTIN WAS BORN in Patrick County, Va., in 1826.She came to Versailles in 1853 with her husband Samuel and three of their children. It had taken them most of the summer, in a covered wagon drawn by a team of oxen, to reach their destination. It was here that they rented a log building and started a hotel. Many interesting events occurred during Martin’s hotel keeping days.She catered to the public and linked up with the comings and goings of several famous historical characters. Frank James’ signature is in the ledger in the museum. It said that Jesse James was also there with him. There were some lean years during the Civil War, but the Martin Hotel was frequently called upon to cater to both the Union and Confederate soldiers who came through Versailles. One of Martin’s most vivid recollections was of the time her husband Samuel was accused of being a Southern sympathizer. The sentence of death had been imposed, but their disabled daughter rescued her father. The little girl pleaded with the Union soldiers for his life. The Northern captain looked at the child and told her to go on home and to take her pa with her, since he figured that she needed him a whole lot more than the North did. Elizabeth Martin passed away in 1931 at the age of 105.


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Alise Martiny

First Female President of Labor Union — ALISE MARTINY OF KANSAS CITY has worked in the construction industry for the past 20 years. She began her endeavors after hearing a radio advertisement recruiting minorities and females into the construction industry. Martiny applied for the program and was accepted into the Kansas City Cement Masons Apprenticeship Program in 1980. Martiny successfully completed the program and worked as a journeyperson on hundreds of job sites. She earned the admiration and respect of her co-workers for being a hard worker and a team player. She began utilizing her knowledge and skill in the trades and obtained the position of the apprenticeship coordinator in 1993. After working six years in teaching our future workforce, she moved to the position of business representative. Martiny actively recruits women and minorities. She has held the positions of executive board member and vice president. Currently she holds the office of president of the Operative Plasterers’ and Cement Masons’ Local Union #518 in Kansas City. No other woman has ever been the president of that union. Martiny’s most recent achievements include being awarded NAWIC’s Wolverine Tradeswomen of the year in 1999 and The Missouri Women’s Council ”Woman of the Year“ for the year 2000. She also was appointed to serve on the State of Missouri Employment and Training Council.


Page 1 of 1Alise Martiny

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Dr. Caroline McGill

One of Missouri’s First Female Physicians — DR. CAROLINE McGILL was a classmate of Dr. Ruth Seevers. McGill may have been the University of Missouri’s School of Medicine’s first female faculty member, and taught anatomy at the University of Missouri – Columbia as early as 1905. During her time at the School of Medicine, McGill spent one summer studying pathology at the University of Chicago and was granted a fellowship for a summer of study at the Woods Hole Zoological Lab in Massachusetts, now the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.


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Olive Gilbreath McLorn

Author, Adventurer — OLIVE GILBREATH GRADUATED FROM La Plata High School in 1900.She then entered Wellesley College in Massachusetts, receiving abachelor and master’s degree from the University of Michigan.She taught English for two years at the University of Kansas. Long interested in Russia, she headed for that country, waiting in Peking, China for four months until permission was granted. In the fall of 1918, McLorn went back to Russia. There were Americans in Siberia giving help to the Russians, so she traveled on a Red Cross train as an interpreter for the doctors. Her first book, “Miss Amerikanka,” is a romance of unusual theme and flavor published in 1918. Her second book, “If To-Day Have No Tomorrow,” dealing with the Russian Revolution, is a masterpiece. As a foreign correspondent, she wrote for “Harper’s,” “Yale Review” and “Asia Magazine.” In 1934, at the age of 51, McLorn married her life-long friend Daniel David McLorn of Scotland. They made their home in the international settlement in Shanghai. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, they were interred in China by occupying Japanese forces. McLorn could have returned home but chose to stay with her husband. They spent two and a half years in a concentration camp near Shanghai and were released at the end of the war in 1945.


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V i r g i n i a M i n o r

Suffragist — VIRGINIA LOUISA MINOR WAS BORN ON on March 27, 1824, in Caroline County, Va. In 1845, her family moved to St. Louis, Mo.The Minors were avid supporters of the Union during the Civil War. At the close of the war, Minor and other women who had labored in support of the cause turned their energies toward securing rights for women. Both Minor and her husband worked actively for the suffrage cause in Missouri for the remainder of their lives. Minor is credited with being the first person to take a public stand for women’s suffrage in the state. In 1867, she circulated a petition to the state legislature asking that a proposed amendment to the state constitution permitting African American men to vote be extended to include women. This petition was overwhelmingly rejected by the state legislature. In 1872, Minor attempted to register to vote, and when denied this right, she and her husband filed a test case against the St. Louis registrar who had rejected her. After losing their case in the lower courts, the Minors appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. In 1874, the court ruled unanimously to uphold the lower courts, stating that citizenship for women did not necessarily include suffrage. Minor was a founding member of the Woman’s Suffrage Association in Missouri in 1876, and its first president.


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Agnes Moore

First Chief Clerk of Missouri House of Representatives — AGNES MOORE WAS BORN IN Ste. Genevieve, Mo., and educated in Ste. Genevieve, Festus and Terra Haute, Ind. She married James Moore in 1924. Moore was active in civic affairs and the past president of the Federated Women’s Club of Ste. Genevieve, Parent Teachers Association, an honorary member and director of Beta Sigma Phi sorority, and served for six years as chairwoman of the Ste. Genevieve County Aid for Crippled Children. Moore came from a family of Democrats and was the first woman elected to public office from Ste. Genevieve County. She was elected to the House of Representatives in 1956.


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Dr. Grace Scholz Mountjoy

One of Missouri’s First Female Physicians — DR. GRACE SCHOLZ MOUNTJOY graduated from the University of Missouri's School of Medicine in 1906 at the age of 25. She joined her father, a general practitioner in St. Louis, in 1913. She took over his practice and ran it for nearly 50 years. Mountjoy charged 50 cents for an office visit and $1 for a house call. At any hour of the day or night, she would have her son or husband escort her to a streetcar that would take her to patients’ homes. She stayed in St. Louis until her death in 1985 at the age of 97.


Page 1 of 1Dr. Grace Scholz Mountjoy

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Marie Watkins Oliver

Designer of Missouri State Flag —

‘TENACIOUS’ APPROPRIATELY DESCRIBES MANY Missouri women, but it is especially fitting for Marie Watkins Oliver of Cape Girardeau. As a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Oliver, born in Ray County in 1854, learned that Missouri had no official flag. So, she decided she should design one. However, actually getting the flag adopted by the state legislature was not such an easy task. The Oliver flag bill was introduced in the Missouri Senate in 1909, but it failed to pass. When the Capitol burned down in 1911, the flag was inside and was destroyed. Oliver recreated the flag and it finally became the official state flag in 1913. Cape Girardeau, where Oliver spent much of her adult life, adopted the slogan, “Cape Girardeau, Home of the Missouri State Flag.” Oliver’s home, where she died in 1944, is now on the National Register of Historic Places.


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Mayme Ousley

First Female Mayor in Missouri — MAYME OUSLEY WAS BORN in Edgar Springs, Mo., and as an adult she and her husband moved to St. James, Mo., in 1906. The Ousleys become prominent figures in the community and were active in many of the community organizations as well as fraternal, social and business clubs. They also were very active in local Missouri Republican politics. After encouragement from others, Ousley announced her candidacy for mayor of St. James in February 1921, less than two years after Missouri women received the right to vote in the 19th Amendment. She promised to draw a salary of only $1 a month. The citizens of St. James elected her as the first female mayor in Missouri on April 5, 1921. She would be reelected to the position again in 1939, 1941 and 1955. After being elected, Ousley vowed to literally clean up the city and the city hall, which included everything from cleaning and painting to building new offices for several city officials. She cleaned up the streets and sidewalks and ordered landlords to install indoor plumbing. Signs at the edge of town warned: ”Drive slow and see our beautiful city, drive fast and see our jail.“ The mayor, however, proved compassionate to the underprivileged and those needing advice and a helping hand. Being mayor was not the end of her striving for political office. She also ran unsuccessfully for several state offices including state representative and state senator.


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Sister St. John Fournier &

Sister Celestine Pommerel

Founded the St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf — THE WORK OF TEACHING THE DEAF has always been especially dear to the Sisters of St. Joseph, as it was the main reason Bishop Rosati had invited the Sisters from Lyons, France in 1836. Sisters St. John Fournier and Celestine Pommerel responded to the invitation and after taking a course at Ste. Etienne, came to Missouri and opened a school for the deaf in Carondelet in St. Louis County in 1837. One of the pupils who attended the school said that Mother Celestine was regarded by all who knew her as a saint. Mother Celestine later became the first superior general at the Mother House in Carondelet. Mother St. John Fournier became the founder of the congregation in Philadelphia, where the Sisters of St. Joseph continue to labor for the deaf. French techniques for teaching the deaf appeared to be the most advanced anywhere in Europe, one of the more favorable benefits of the Enlightenment that survived the French Revolution. Even Thomas Gallaudet, whose pioneer Hartford school opened in 1816, had studied under French tutors. Pommerel's and Fournier’s work in the founding of the St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf was an important step in education for the deaf and some of their techniques are still in use today.


Page 1 of 1Sister St. John Fournier & Sister Celestine Pommerel

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Marian Wright Powers

Opera Singer — MARIAN WRIGHT POWERS WAS BORN in Connersville, Ind., in 1880. Just a few years later, her family moved to Carthage to pursue the riches of the area’s mineral and stone industrial boom. Powers graduated from the Carthage Collegiate Institute in 1900, where she studied music. She performed solo concerts in the area, and performed in local musical theater productions until her marriage in 1903. After the birth of her daughter, Powers re-entered the music profession. She became a popular local and regional performer as she continued her studies in New York City and Paris. She was a well-known performer who performed with traveling symphonies from St. Louis, Kansas City and St. Paul when they toured the central states and Texas. Powers once remarked that she had ”married and buried half of Jasper County [Missouri]“by singing at hundreds of weddings and funerals. A coloratura soprano, ”Mame,“ as she was known to her family, had a varied repertoire including classical, opera, folk and popular songs, and performed special programs on seasonal or special subject themes. Her favorite recital program was a series of Civil War-era songs her mother had taught her. She performed them in a re-created Civil War ball gown, with period accessories handed down through her family.


Page 1 of 1Marian Wright Powers

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N e l l D o n n e l l y R e e d

Business Woman — ELLEN QUINLAN DONNELLY REED WAS the 12th of 13 children born into a Parsons, Kan. family. She married Paul Donnelly and moved to Kansas City, Mo. As a housewife, Reed was concerned with the lack of style of the ordinary housedress of the 1920s, so she created a smarter, more colorful style of dress for herself. After attracting a great deal of attention for her own dresses, Reed decided that all women should have the opportunity to share the more stylish clothes. She opened a small factory in 1919, the Donnelly Garment Co. in downtown Kansas City, for less than $1,500. Women paid what was considered to be a very high price, one dollar, for the new styles. Reed was an astute businesswoman who led her company through depressions, recessions, wars and battles with the federal government over regulations. She sought to create better working conditions for her employees. Her company was the first in Kansas City to pay for group hospitalization, provide welfare benefits and make educational opportunities available for workers and their children. She also had survived her own tribulations, including being kidnapped and held for ransom. U.S. Senator James A. Reed was instrumental in securing her release from the kidnappers. Two years after her release, she divorced Donnelly and married Reed.


Page 1 of 1Nell Donnelly Reed

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Z o e R e x r o a d

Educator, Author, Artist — BORN JAN. 24, 1917, in Bates, Mo., as Zora Marie Dalgetty, she received her elementary and high school education in Audrain, graduating as head of the senior high class. She received a scholarship to Southwest Baptist College in Bolivar where she attended only one year. In those days, she could teach in rural schools after that amount of schooling. Rexroad taught in rural schools for eight years, going to college in the evenings, summers and weekends. She received a bachelor and master’s degree from Central Missouri State College in Warrensburg. After leaving rural schools, Rexroad taught in Miami, Butler and Harrisonville schools. She has had numerous magazine articles published, and has written five books for the junior high level. In addition to being a successful author, Rexroad is also an artist and has paintings hanging in a number of Bates County businesses. “I like to paint. It fascinates me. Taking a plain white canvas and adding color to make a scene is fascinating,” she said. Over the years of teaching, painting and writing, Rexroad said she thought writing has been the most rewarding because of the response. She said children especially will write and say how much they like a book. Zoe Rexroad died on September 24, 2007 in Adrian, MO at the age of 90.


Page 1 of 1Zoe Rexroad

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Jessie Beard Rickly Artist — JESSIE RICKLY REMEMBERS always being interested in art, but not having many opportunities to learn in Leeper, Mo. Finally, in her late teens, she convinced her parents to let her go to St. Louis to begin her formal training and study at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts. Rickly was an active member of the St. Louis arts community from the 1920s through the 1960s, exhibiting her work, giving public lectures and promoting the arts. She was a founder and member of several artist groups, such as Independent Artists of St. Louis, New Hats, Missourians and the St. Louis Artists’ Guild, all of which were influential in bringing to the public and educating them about the contemporary styles of the times. However, probably her most substantial contribution to the arts at the time was in 1932 when she and Aimmee Schweig founded the Ste. Genevieve Artist Colony. Some of the country’s top artists, such as Thomas Hart Benton, spent time painting and teaching at the Ste. Genevieve colony. One of Rickly’s driving forces was the responsibility she felt as a professional artist to create an environment where artists met their artistic ambitions as well as their need for economic sustainability. Rickly won numerous awards throughout her career in local and regional exhibits and had a substantial impact on the arts in Missouri for many decades.


Page 1 of 1Jessie Beard Rickly

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Jessie Seburn Robinson

Educator — IN 1966, AN EVENT OCCURRED IN Aurora, Mo. that only a select few will ever experience. Jessie Seburn Robinson was honored by having a school named for her. She was one of the graduates in the first four-year graduation class from Aurora High School. Robinson began teaching in the Oklahoma Territory in 1902, and returned to teach at Franklin School in Aurora for 30 of her 45-year teaching career. Robinson is remembered by her former students as an exceptional teacher and for being a strict disciplinarian who tolerated no foolishness. However, she is remembered by her associates as a fun-loving person.


Page 1 of 1Jessie Seburn Robinson

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Dr. Helen Rohweder

Osteopathic Physician — DR. HELEN ROHWEDER PRACTICED Osteopathy in Mexico, Mo., from 1930 to 1977. She was born in 1895, and graduated from Tuscola, Ill. High School in 1914. She graduated from Illinois State University in Normal in 1917 and from Kirksville College of Osteopathy in 1929. She was a pioneer in her field, being one of the very few women osteopaths at that time, and typically worked six days a week. In addition, Rohweder was an accomplished artist and enjoyed sharing her love of flowers and art with others. She had several solo art exhibits around the area.


Page 1 of 1Dr. Helen Rohweder

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Hazelle Hedges Rollins Marionette Factory Owner — HAZELLE HEDGES BEGAN MAKING marionettes at the age of 22 and ultimately developed the only marionette factory in the United States and one of the largest in the world. After a summer in New York City with Tony Sarg, a famous marionette artist, Rollins established a small factory, Hazelle Marionettes, and made her first sale during the 1934 Christmas season. She even designed her own machinery for her factory in Kansas City, Mo. She instigated new characters on a regular basis including Mother Goose characters, Space Flyer, Sweet Sue, Buckaroo Bill and the Blue Fairy. She also introduced marionettes to help children understand other nationalities and races such as Senor Carlos, Rosita the Gypsy and Tony the Vendor. By 1962, Hazelle, Inc. was the world’s largest exclusive manufacture of marionettes. At the time the company was sold after 43 years of business, she had designed 300 puppets and held four patents. Kansas City Mayor H. Roe Bartle appointed her to the Women’s Kansas City Commission for International Relations in 1957. Secretary of the U.S. Treasury William Simon appointed Rollins as one of 25 national committee members to the U.S. Treasury Small Business Advisory Committee on Economic Policy in Washington D.C. in 1976.


Page 1 of 1Hazelle Hedges Rollins

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Nellie Tayloe Ross

First Female Governor — MISSOURI HAS NEVER HAD a woman governor. However, in 1925, a Missouri woman became governor of Wyoming. Nellie Tayloe Ross was born in St. Joseph, Mo. in 1876. Her husband, William Ross, became governor of Wyoming in 1922. When he died after serving only two years of his term, the Democrats nominated Nellie to run in his place. Her campaign was nonexistent. She remained in mourning, in the governor’s mansion but she won by 8,000 votes. While governor, she urged the legislature to continue shifting the tax burden to larger property owners; to improve mine safety regulations; to increase state investments for farm loans to struggling farmers; to restrict work hours for women as some progressive states had already done; and she urged the legislature to ratify the federal child labor amendment. She also called for a sound banking law, noting that 35 of the 120 banks in Wyoming had failed in the past year. Her Missouri heritage and her Southern roots were evident in her home. Wyoming House Speaker J.G. Underwood noted that, "in my experience, no governor has handled these duties with greater courtesy, with greater accuracy or with more ability." President Franklin Roosevelt, shortly after taking office, named her the first woman director of the United States Mint.


Page 1 of 1Nellie Tayloe Ross

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S u z a n n e S a u e r e s s i g

Missouri’s First Female Veterinarian — THE ONLY WOMAN GRADUATING Magna Cum Laude from Munich University in Germany in 1954, Saueressig, a newly licensed veterinarian, came to St. Louis in 1955. She was planning to study American veterinarian methods for one year. Forty-seven years later, Saueressig is chief of staff for the Humane Society of Missouri, a position she has held since 1965. Under her leadership, the veterinary clinic has become the largest veterinarian medical center in the state of Missouri outside the University of Missouri - Columbia. Today, the staff has grown to between 10 and 15 licensed veterinarians, and 50 veterinarian technicians and lay employees. The center handles over 80,000 animal patients and more than 17,000 surgical procedures a year. In 1955, when she began as staff clinician at the society, Saueressig was the first and only female veterinarian in Missouri. ”My boss at the time referred to me as ‘that foreign girl with the newfangled ideas.‘“ In the 1950s, the clinic was open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. with only two rooms and one ward for animals. There were only two veterinarians. Surgeries were performed on ”off-time,“ which meant either 6 a.m. or late at night. Saueressig was selected by the Women’s Veterinary Medical Association as the Outstanding Woman Veterinarian of 1971. One of her most popular endeavors was the weekly column she wrote for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, ”Ask the Pet Doctor,“ from 1979-1985.


Page 1 of 1Suzanne Saueressig

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Dr. Anna B. Searcy

One of Missouri’s First Female Physicians — ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO, Dr. Anna B. Searcy became the first woman to graduate from the University of Missouri's School of Medicine. That was 20 years before women could vote. Searcy practiced medicine in and around the small towns of Monroe County, Mo.


Page 1 of 1Dr. Anna B. Searcy

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Dr. Ruth Seevers

One of Missouri’s First Female Physicians — DR. RUTH SEEVERS, CLASS OF THE University of Missouri’s School of Medicine in 1906, used a two-horse buggy to make house calls in Osceola, Mo., where she practiced from 1906 to 1977. Alongside “Doc Ruth” through many of those years was Cub, a bulldog who toted her medicine box and guarded her during drunken celebrations following a baby’s birth. Years before she died at the age of 102, Seevers was considered a legend in Osceola and was known throughout Missouri as the oldest practicing female physician in the state.


Page 1 of 1Dr. Ruth Seevers

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Dorothy Heckmann Shrader

Author — DOROTHY HECKMANN SHRADER WAS BORN Dec. 3, 1913 in Hermann, Mo. She attended school in Hermann, living with her grandparents. She spent her summers living and working with her parents aboard her Uncle “Steamboat Bill” Heckmann’s boat, the Steamer John Heckmann. In her critically acclaimed “Steamboat Legacy,” published in 1993 and the first book of her Missouri River trilogy, Shrader told the poignant tale of her grandparent’s generation of steamboaters. In “Steamboat Treasures,” published in 1997, she traces the writings and career of her outspoken uncle, “Steamboat Bill Heckmann,” sometimes called the Mark Twain of the Missouri River. In the third of this series, “Steamboat Kid,” published in 2000, Shrader recalls what life was like for her growing up on the Missouri River. These books have won numerous honors since publication, including the Literary Award from the Missouri Library Association and the Donald B. Wright Award, a national prize for maritime journalism. Shrader received two degrees from the University of Missouri-Columbia, one in journalism in 1935 and one in education in 1947. She was principal of Wilson School for the Educably Retarded and founder of the Beloit Campus School for the Emotionally Disturbed in Ames, Iowa.


Page 1 of 1Dorothy Heckmann Shrader

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M e l l c e n e S m i t h

One of the first women elected to the Missouri House of Representatives — ONE OF THE FIRST TWO WOMEN elected to the Missouri House of Representatives, Democrat Mellcene Smith represented the second district of St. Louis in the 52nd General Assembly following the election in 1922. Smith served as a Red Cross volunteer, worked in a movement to establish local libraries and become an ardent supporter of Prohibition. She also worked for woman suffrage. While in the House of Representatives, Smith sponsored 11 bills. Six of them became laws, including House Bill 1, which made registration mandatory for voters in St. Louis County. She chaired the Committee on State Libraries and served on the Banks and Banking, the Children’s Code, and the Eleemosynary Institutions Committees.


Page 1 of 1Mellcene Smith

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Reva Stubblefield

Artist, Historian, Columnist — REVA THOMAS WAS BORN in 1898. At age 19, she moved to the Butler, Mo. area, where she lived out her days. She was married and gave birth to two sons. At age 60, Stubblefield took up painting. Her works, mostly of historical nature, won numerous blue ribbons at local art shows. Her unswerving determination and talent enabled her to excel in many fields, but what Stubblefield was remembered most for was her dedication and untiring efforts in connection with the Museum of Pioneer History in Butler, and as a widely known newspaper columnist. In 1961, she spearheaded the establishment of the museum in the former Bates County jail building. In the years that followed, Stubblefield served as curator and contributed untold hours of work toward seeking and displaying thousands of items of historical significance in the museum. In the mid 1960s, she began writing a weekly ”Historical Notes“ column for the ”Bates County Democrat.“ It continued in the subsequent years in the ”Bates County News Headliner“ and more recently in the new ”Xpress.“ Her colorful writing was known and respected nationwide.


Page 1 of 1Reva Stubblefield

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Sarah Sutterfield

Homemaker — SARAH THOMPSON SUTTERFIELD was a woman who represented many of the pioneer women in our history who were the backbone of families and communities throughout the state. Despite enduring difficult living conditions, lack of modern medical care, high infant mortality rates and a never-ending daily workload that required a great deal of physical labor, she was one of the women who kept her family together and functioning. She was born in southeast Missouri in 1874, just nine years after the Civil War. She married James Sutterfield in 1903 and moved to St. Louis. Due to financial difficulties, they returned to Reynolds County. Her formal education was sketchy. She bore nine children, only five of whom lived to adulthood. For the day-to-day life of the family and their large farm, it was Sutterfield who saw that things were done. Sutterfield’s daily life consisted of washing clothes outside on a washboard; drawing water from a well and heating it over an open fire; raising a huge garden; cooking and canning on a wood kitchen stove; making her own soap and bread; preserving foods to last the winter; filling the mattresses with new corn shucks every fall; feeding and taking care of all the people who dropped in; making the family’s clothes; and being ever watchful for the hazards of rural and pioneer life, such as snakebites, bedbugs, ringworm, boils, accidents and disease. She also had a maple sugar camp every early spring, boiling the syrup down and selling it and maple sugar cakes at the local store in Bunker.


Page 1 of 1Sarah Sutterfield

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Bess Truman

Wife of the 33rd President of the United States — BESS TRUMAN WAS BORN on February 13, 1885 in Independence, Missouri. She graduated from Independence High School in 1901 and later studied language and literature at Barstow, a girl’s finishing school in Kansas City, Missouri. In 1917, she bacame engaged to Harry S Truman. The Trumans were married in Independence on June 28, 1919. Their only child, Mary Margaret, was born on February 17, 1924. In 1934, the family moved to Washington D.C. Mrs. Truman became a member of the Congressional Club and the PEO Sisterhood. With the outbreak of World War II, she also became active in the H Street United Service Organization and in the Red Cross work of the Senate Wives Club. On April 12, 1945, Mrs. Truman became the country’s First Lady. She was considered one of the hardest-working of all the White House hostesses. While in the White House, she served as Honorary President of the Girl Scouts and the Washington Animal Rescue League. After President Truman’s death on December 26, 1972, Mrs. Truman continued to live in her home on Deleware Street in Independence, where she received visits from close friends and relatives as well as distinguished visitors from all over the world, who came to pay their respects. “Friends and acquaintances agree that loyalty and sincerity were the mainsprings of Mrs. Truman’s character,” one writer has observed. “She seldom thinks of the effect she is creating. She exists principally in her relationships with family and friends. To her, duty is a pleasant, everyday word.” Mrs. Truman died at her home on October 18, 1982 at the age of ninety-seven.


Page 1 of 1Bess Truman

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Sarah Lucille Turner

One of the first women elected to the Missouri House of Representatives — ONE OF THE FIRST TWO WOMEN in the Missouri House of Representatives, Democrat Sarah Lucille Turner won election to the 52nd General Assembly from the sixth district of Jackson County, Kansas City, in 1922. Turner was born on March 28, 1898, in Centralia, Ill. Later, the family moved to Kansas City, Mo. She worked during the day for Havens Structural Steel Company and attended evening classes at the Kansas City School of Law. She completed law studies in 1922. Turner did not plan to seek a political office until some of the men in her law class voiced objections to women holding office. The youngest member of the General Assembly, Turner expressed an interest in legislation for women and children. Five of her bills were passed. Others bills she introduced pertained to the employment of children, increased appropriations for the state reformatory farm for women, and the licensing for boarding homes for children. Her most notable legislation designated the hawthorn as the official state flower. Turner chaired the Children’s Code Committee, and she served as a member of the Civil and Criminal Procedure, Constitution Amendments and Criminal Jurisprudence, and the University and School of Mines committees. She favored better education facilities and increasing teachers’ salaries. Turner became the first woman to preside as the acting speaker of the House on March 16, 1923.


Page 1 of 1Sarah Lucille Turner

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Mary Sam Smith Ward

Military, Educator, Author — AN AUTHOR, EDUCATOR AND historian, Mary Sam Smith Ward, devoted her life and her talents to her family, her community, her state and her nation. A native of Clark, Mo., Ward was class valedictorian when she graduated from Middle Grove High School in Monroe County in 1929. She taught grade school and put herself through Northeast Missouri State Teacher’s College (now Truman State University) in Kirksville. She graduated in 1935 and from there propelled herself into an extraordinary life of teaching, research, writing and great service to others. With the outbreak of World War II and a call for women to serve in the armed forces, Ward applied for the first Officer Training Class in the brand new Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC). Of the more than 500 women who applied in St. Louis, she was one of only eight chosen and represented Randolph County. She successfully served, and ended up in Washington D.C. at the Pentagon, where she met and married Lt. Col. George B. Ward, Jr. Ward earned two master’s degrees from the University of Delaware, one in American studies in 1968 and the other in social studies in 1973. She wrote many articles for newspapers, magazines and scholarly journals and was the co-founder of the Delaware Press Women in 1977. She was also 1979 Delaware Mother of the Year. Ward was one of 27 outstanding women from around the United States named as ”Women of the Millennium“ by the National Federation of Press Women in September, 2000. This recognition was for her lifelong role as a leader who made a substantial contribution to the advancement of women in education, communications professions and to society at large.


Page 1 of 1Mary Sam Smith Ward

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M a r i a h W a t k i n s

Midwife – MARIAH SCALES WAS BORN about 1824. During the Civil War, she served as a nurse and was known to have kept very high standards in her profession. At that time, babies were born at home. There were no telephones. When a baby’s birth was imminent, someone was sent for ”Aunt Mariah.“ She arrived promptly always carrying her black ”doctor bag.“ She was always dressed in a black dress and hat with an immaculate white apron of crocheted lace tied around her waist. Watkins was a black woman who was highly respected as a very efficient midwife for two generations in Newton County. She is believed to have delivered more than 500 babies in Neosho. Her two most famous babies were artist Thomas Hart Benton and scientist George Washington Carver. Her influence in the life of George Washington Carver is well known. Carver came to Neosho to live with Aunt Mariah. She taught him homemaking skills of washing, ironing and cooking. He used these skills to earn food and lodging while he struggled for an education.


Page 1 of 1Mariah Watkins

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Betty Goshorn Weldon

Publisher, Saddlebred Horse Breeder — BETTY WELDON GREW UP WITH the smell of printer’s ink all around her with two generations of newspaper publishers behind her. When Weldon was five years old, her father made the move to what would always be her home state, no matter how far away she might be. He brought his wife and only child to Missouri, buying the daily “Jefferson City Tribune.” Today, Weldon is publisher and president of the News Tribune Co. When World War II decimated the reporter’s ranks at the “News Tribune,” Weldon crowded her four years of college at Mount Holyoke in Massachusetts into three, graduating summa cum laude in political science at the age of 20. For graduation, she asked her father for enough money to buy a show horse. Weldon ended up being one of the only two reporters on the “News Tribune” staff, and found herself at the age of 22 interviewing celebrities, being one of approximately 150 reporters covering the 1944 Democratic National Convention. In the fall, she attended President Roosevelt’s last press conference. At that press conference, Weldon scooped her competitors with the story that Harry Truman would be Roosevelt’s running mate. “I had an inside track,” she said. “He was from Missouri.” In 1954, Weldon became the first woman to own a television station when she established KRCG-TV in Jefferson City. Beyond the news industry, Weldon is also the owner of Callaway Hills Stable, where she has become know as one of the top horse breeders in the county. Her operation is the largest privately owned saddlebred breeding farm in the United States. Betty Weldon died on April 18, 2007 at the age of 85.


Page 1 of 1Betty Goshorn Weldon

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Laura Ingalls Wilder

Author — IN JULY 1894, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s young family packed its belongings in a wagon and headed from the Dakotas to the Missouri Ozarks, which they had learned about from advertising brochures and friends. They purchased a 40-acre farm a mile east of Mansfield that produced lumber, apples, strawberries, chickens and other products. Wilder began writing articles for the ”Missouri Ruralist,“ slowly at first, but by 1916, on a regular basis. Even though health problems, including a heart attack, eventually slowed her down, Wilder published her first book, ”Little House in the Big Woods,“ in 1932. By the time she finished her last one, ”These Happy Golden Years,“ 11 years later, she had become one of America’s best-loved children’s writers. Sometimes referred to as an untutored genius, Wilder had actually been preparing for the task of novel writing for two decades, publishing articles in farm papers and other outlets on topics relating to her own experiences as a housekeeper, farmer’s wife and community citizen in the Missouri Ozarks. Children around the world will always remember Wilder for her ”Little House on the Prairie“ books and the television show based on them.


Page 1 of 1Laura Ingalls Wilder

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Cathay Williams

Only Known Female Buffalo Soldier — FROM HER HUMBLE start in Missouri, Cathay Williams made her way into the record books of military history as the only known and documented female buffalo soldier. Williams was born a slave in Jackson County and moved to Jefferson City with her family and master as a small child. In 1862, as the Union soldiers moved through Jefferson City, several slaves, including Williams, were confiscated by the 8th Indiana Infantry as ”contraband“ and taken to Arkansas. While with the 8th Indiana Infantry, she worked as a cook and laundress. After the war was over, Williams found work as a cook at Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis. Not long after this, she decided she was going to join the army so that she could make her own way and not be dependent on others. On Nov. 15, 1866, she enlisted in the 38th Infantry, Company A as William Cathay, a man. She performed regular duties that others in the company did such as working garrison duty or guarding railroads. In an article about her in the St. Louis Times, Williams was described as ”tall and powerfully built.“ After serving almost two years, the post surgeon discovered she was a woman and she was discharged. She eventually worked her way out to Colorado hoping she would get a land bounty for her military service. It isn’t likely that she ever received one since records indicate that her pension claims were denied in 1891.


Page 1 of 1Cathay Williams

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Harriett Woods

First Female Lieutenant Governor of Missouri — HARRIETT WOODS devoted her life to public service and to the advancement of women in public decision-making. Her public service included eight years as a city council member in University City, Mo.; eight years as a Missouri state senator; and two years as a state transportation and highway commissioner. She was the first woman to serve on the highway commission as well as the first and only woman elected as lieutenant governor. Woods also served as the president of the National Women’s Caucus from 1991-1995. While a state senator and as lieutenant governor, she concentrated her efforts on assisting the elderly, minorities and the homeless. Before beginning her career in public office, Woods was a journalist serving as a newspaper reporter and then in a pioneering position as a television moderator and public affairs director for KPLR-TV in St. Louis. She later ran her own small business as an independent film producer. In 1989, she created the Institute for Policy Leadership at the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) to focus on the issues of affordable housing and homelessness and to improve the way legislators make decisions. She served on the board of the Sue Shear Institute for Women in Public Life at UMSL. Harriett Woods died on February 8, 2007, at the age of 79.


Page 1 of 1Harriett Woods

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J o s e p h i n e S i l o n e -

Y a t e s

Educator, First Black Woman Named Full Professor at Lincoln Institute — JOSEPHINE SILONE-YATES WAS BORN on Nov. 15, 1859, in New York. Her early education was attained in New York schools and the Institute of Colored Youth in Philadelphia. She graduated valedictorian of the Rogers High School class of 1877 in Newport, R.I. Yates attended the Rhode Island State Normal School in Providence and graduated in 1879. She later received a master’s degree from the National University of Illinois. From 1879-1889, Yates was head of the department of natural science at Lincoln Institute (now Lincoln University). She was the first woman to be named a full professor at the institution. She left Lincoln Institute to marry William Ward Yates in 1889. She served as president and treasurer of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs. Yates also served as president of the Missouri Association of Colored Women’s Clubs and was instrumental in establishing women’s clubs for African American women. In 1902, she was recalled by the president of Lincoln Institute to serve as the head of the department of English and history. Although she requested to resign due to illness in 1908, the Board of Regents did not accept her resignation. Yates chose to stay and became the advisor to women at Lincoln. She remained there until 1910, when she returned to Kansas City following the death of her husband. Yates died in September 1912.


Page 1 of 1Josephine Silone-Yates

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