Helen Augusta Blanchard: She Sewed the Future

Posted on October 1, 2024 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

BEFORE I START THIS MONTH’S STORY, I WANT TO PAY TRIBUTE TO ALL THE FIRST RESPONDERS WHO ARE STILL HELPING THE VICTIMS OF HURRICANE HELENE.

I grew up in an era when many women still sewed clothes for themselves and their children. My mother’s Singer Sewing Machine sat in the corner of the bedroom she shared with my father, and while growing up, I never recognized her talents.

As a teenager, I only wanted outfits from the popular store in town and had little appreciation that my mother often designed her dresses from real Irish linen. I was clueless that my mother actually enjoyed sewing. Who’d want to sew at home when you could take the bus to the Garden State Plaza to shop? I never thought about the fact that ready-made clothing hadn’t always existed in America. It wasn’t until 1905 that well-known department stores offered this gift to the modern shopper.

For that, we have to thank Helen Augusta Blanchard.

According to an excellent article by Bill Hudgins in American Spirit, May/June 2018 (https://archive.org/details/american-spirit-magazine-vol-152-no-3-may-jun-2018/page/6/mode/2up), various men dating back to the mid-1700s dabbled with sewing ideas. They looked for ways to improve needles, thread spools, and lock stitches—all of which would prove crucial to the invention of the sewing machine in years to come.

By the mid-1800s, Isaac Singer had succeeded in promoting his sewing machine and making it available to homemakers. When the sewing machine entered the commercial market, it revolutionized the ready-to-wear industry, thanks to the inventions of others, including Helen Augusta Blanchard.

HELEN’S BACKGROUND

Helen was born in 1840 in Portland, Maine, into a family of means. However, there is no indication that she was ever schooled in the subjects that led to her interest in engineering.

Her father lost the family savings in the financial panic of 1866, forcing them to sell their home and relocate to Boston. Once there, Helen began concentrating on inventions that would improve sewing machines.

In 1873, she borrowed money to file a patent for her most famous invention, the buttonhole stitch. This invention also incorporated the zigzag stitch, enabling garment workers to mass-produce clothing. By 1882, Helen had moved to Philadelphia and opened her own companies, the Blanchard Overseaming Co. and the Blanchard Hosiery Co. Her inventions helped commercial sewing prosper.

At age 50, she bought back the family home in Maine. Not content to retire, she moved to New York City and continued with her inventions. She filed for 28 patents, 22 of which were for improving sewing machine parts. One of her non-sewing patents was for a mechanical pencil sharpener. In 1901, Helen moved back to the family home in Maine and continued to file for more patents until 1916, when she suffered a stroke.

HELEN’S LEGACY

Helen died in 1922 at age 81, never having married or raised a family, but she had helped revolutionize the sewing machine and the ready-made clothing industry. In 2006, she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Her 1873 zig-zag machine resides in the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

I’m sure my mother appreciated all of Helen’s efforts.

If you enjoyed this month’s Strong Women in History story and are not yet a follower…please sign up on the right sidebar. Once a month, you will receive another Strong Women blog.

I am working on my next novel as my passion for strong women’s stories grows. It is set at the home front of World War II, where thousands of American women worked in government shipyards to build the Liberty Ships. Stay tuned!

~ Linda

www.lindasittig.com

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Nellie Tayloe Ross: How The Governor Wore Heels

Posted on September 1, 2024 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

As I write this in late August for the September blog, I am well aware that 104 years ago, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was adopted, giving American women the right to vote. *

Then, four years later, a woman was voted in to become the first female governor in America.

That woman was Nellie Tayloe Ross, Governor of Wyoming.

NELLIE’S BACKGROUND STORY

Nellie Tayloe was born in 1876 in St. Joseph, Missouri. Her mother’s family had owned a large plantation before the Civil War but never recovered from the war’s devastation. Nellie’s father took up farming but only managed to make ends meet by selling off parcels of the plantation. With only a modest bankroll, he moved the family to Kansas and opened a small grocery store. That did not succeed either.

Finally, her father moved the family to Omaha, Nebraska. There, Nellie gave piano lessons and saved enough money to get two years of schooling to become a teacher.

Her teaching experience was in ethnic pockets of city neighborhoods.  By age 21, she had learned that money was never guaranteed and that large organizations like the Omaha Public Schools were run by people who pushed to get things done.

During the summer of 1900, while Nellie was visiting cousins in Tennessee, she met an attractive lawyer, William Ross. They became enamored of each other and continued to correspond after Nellie returned to Nebraska. A year later, William Ross relocated to Cheyenne, Wyoming, partly for health reasons and partly because he had become interested in politics. With his progressive beliefs, he believed he had a better chance in Wyoming than in Tennessee.

The following year, Nellie married William and moved to Cheyenne. Four children were quickly born in succession, and William began to run for public office – but with little success.

By 1920, women had been granted the right to vote, and a progressive agenda helped land William in the Governor’s Mansion in 1922. His career was short-lived, however, when he died just two years later from complications from an appendectomy.

Nellie was suddenly a widow with four children to raise alone.

NELLIE GETS INVOLVED IN POLITICS

In the years since she moved to Cheyenne, she had become involved with the Cheyenne Women’s Club, where women met to discuss culture and politics. As the Governor’s wife, she was often asked to speak on social policies.

Wyoming was fertile ground for having a woman governor. In 1869, the state had already given full voting rights to its women; it would take Congress another 51 years to reach the same conclusion.

After William’s death, and with a new election just months away, the Democratic Party of Wyoming approached Nellie and asked her to consider running to fill in her husband’s seat.

Her brother and her friends tried to dissuade her. Wyoming was a solidly Republican state, and the governor’s job was more suited for a man.

But Nellie needed a way to support her children; truthfully, she relished the idea of becoming governor. It would continue to give her the lifestyle she liked and the opportunity to influence the progressive laws of loans for farmers and ranchers, budgets for school systems, laws protecting women in industrial jobs, and laws protecting child labor.

She won by a margin of 8,000 votes.

She finished out the term and ran again in 1926. However, her staunch adherence to Prohibition cost her votes, and she lost that election.

As Wyoming’s governor, she had become a sought-after speaker and a well-known Democrat. She parlayed those skills by joining the speakers’ circuit, earning enough money to care for her children.

LIFE AFTER THE GOVERNORSHIP

In 1928, she was briefly considered for the Democratic vice President slot, but she became the Director of the Women’s Division of the National Democratic Committee instead. Her main goal was to help Franklin D. Roosevelt’s campaign. When he became President in 1933, he made her Director of the U.S. Mint—a job she loved and continued to hold for the next 20 years, retiring at age 77.

She spent her remaining years staying active in Washington, DC.

Although her term as Governor of Wyoming was short-lived, Nellie paved the way for other women to enter state politics. Today, in 2024, there are currently 13 women serving as governors.

As we head toward November, I urge everyone, especially every woman 18 years and older, to vote. The women who preceded us fought for generations to give us this right, and it should not be taken lightly.

Your vote influences the laws that will be written, the policies that will be implemented, and decisions that will affect the lives of every American.

You can bet that Nellie Tayloe Ross voted in presidential elections from 1920 through 1976. She passed the following year at 101.

*On a note about women gaining the vote in 1920, it gave only white women the right to vote. Minority women and women of color would still have to fight for that right until August 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law.

If you enjoyed learning about Nellie Tayloe Ross, please sign up on the right side of the blog to become a follower of Strong Women. Each month, you’ll receive the blog in an email. I’ll be voting in the November election, but in the meantime, I am working on my next novel. This book will be about the women who built the Liberty Ships in WWII.

~ Linda

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Elizabeth Van Lew & Antonia Ford: The Spies Next Door

Posted on August 1, 2024 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

While I research and write about Strong Women, I am always touched by how they follow their convictions even when it means trading a safe lifestyle to pursue their goals.

And this surely was the case with Elizabeth Van Lew and Antonia Ford.

ELIZABETH VAN LEW

Elizabeth was born in Richmond in 1818 but pursued an education in her mother’s hometown of Philadelphia, PA., at a Quaker school. It was there that she developed strong anti-slavery sentiments.

Upon returning to Richmond, presumably to become part of the upper-class society, Elizabeth planned a different future for herself.

When the Civil War broke out, Elizabeth and her mother arranged to visit several Union prisoners in Libby Prison. They brought baskets of food, clothing, and other needed provisions. While visiting with the prisoners, they gathered information on the Confederate Army. Upon returning home, they were able to relay the most important information to Union officers.

It did not take long before Elizabeth established a solid spy network within the Confederate capitol. In order to escape suspicion, she invited one of the Confederate prison wardens to become a boarder in her home. At the same time, she aided several prisoners in Libby Prison to escape.

When the war was over, President Ulysses S. Grant awarded her for her unwavering courage toward the Union cause, and Richmond society completely ostracized her.

Because she had spent her family’s money to support the spy ring, Elizabeth and her mother needed financial help. She asked the Federal Government for a war pension but was denied.

Later, Grant appointed her as the Postmaster of Richmond, VA, and while that did nothing to endear her to fellow Southerners, it did bring her an income.

Elizabeth died at age 81 and is buried in Richmond, VA.

Even today, her name is often heralded by northern records but branded as a traitor by Southerners.

ANTONIA FORD

Antonia Ford was also born in the South, in Fairfax County, VA. She, however, was a devout Confederate who, at the age of 23, started paying attention to the overheard conversations of the Union soldiers stationed near her home.

She played the part of a proper young Southern woman who couldn’t possibly be smart enough to pass on any information. But boy, did she.

A regular schedule was set with Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart, who wrote out a commission for her as an honorary aide de camp. She continued spying for the South until she was suspected of colluding with Mosby’s Rangers, a famous Confederate partisan ranger group known for lightning-quick raids.

The federal government sent a female operative to Fairfax to act as a new ‘friend’ to Antonia. That new friend discovered the papers signed by J.E.B. Stuart attesting to Antonia as a Confederate supporter.

She was promptly arrested and sent to the Old Capital Prison in Washington, D.C. – at age 25.

Antonia spent seven grueling months in the Capital Prison before her release. Unfortunately, her health had gone into rapid decline, and she never fully recovered. By age 33, she died and was buried in Washington, D.C.

THEIR UNUSAL LEGACIES

While there is no record that Elizabeth and Antonia ever met, there is an interesting side note about their lives.

Antonia Ford married, and her son Joseph Willard would go on to become a future Lieutenant Governor of Virginia.

Elizabeth Van Lew did not marry, but Elizabeth Draper, a former slave who was granted freedom and worked as a paid employee for the Van Lew family, would go on to give birth to a daughter. That child grew up to become the famous civil rights activist Maggie Lena Walker.

Strong Women leave echoes behind.

Thank you to blog follower and fellow historian Nancy Spannaus for suggesting Elizabeth Van Lew as a Strong Woman, and then I found Antonia Walker, too. Nancy’s blog: www.americansystemnow.com.

If you enjoyed learning about Elizabeth Van Lew and Antonia Ford, please sign up on the right sidebar of this blog to become a follower of Strong Women. The blog will be delivered to your inbox once a month.

My website, www.lindasittig.com, helps you learn more about me, and shows my published books, which all feature strong women of the past. My books are available online and in standalone bookstores.

Let’s salute August as a Strong Women month. It was on August 26, 1920, that the 19th Amendment became law, giving women in the United States the right to vote. My mother’s generation cast the first vote.

I do need to clarify that only white women were awarded this privilege. It wouldn’t be until:

            1952 Asian American women could vote

            1962 Native American women could vote

            1965 African American women could vote

            1975 that all language minority citizens, including Latinx, could vote

Voting is a privilege and a hard-won privilege for all American women. Please remember that on November 5th and cast your vote for the candidate that would best support women.

~ Linda

Posted in strong women, Uncategorized | Tagged | 1 Comment

Margaret Chase Smith: Not Holding Back

Posted on July 1, 2024 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

What if you lived during our history when political events tore the nation apart (not referring to now), and ugly rumors and aspirations ruined careers and lives?

Would you have the courage to speak up? Would you denounce the politicians who had become almost demigods? Would you have the courage to say what many others were thinking, knowing that your actions could ruin your career and perhaps jeopardize your family?

Would you point out a grievous wrong that was occurring?

Several references come to my mind: the Holocaust, the lynching of the Jim Crow era, Wounded Knee, and Stalin’s purges, to name a few.

And while I would like to think I’d be brave enough to speak up, I can’t say for sure what I would do.

MARGARET CHASE SMITH

            But I do know that Margaret Chase Smith spoke up with unwavering courage and made her voice heard.

            Born in a small town in Maine in 1897, she was the oldest of six children. Her family was neither rich nor famous. Her father was the local barber, and her mother worked in a shoe factory.

            Between them, Margaret’s parents bestowed upon her the ethos of a strong work ethic, and she started her first job at age twelve, after school at the town’s five-and-dime store.

Following high school graduation, she took a short-term job teaching in a one-room school. Eventually, she applied for a job with the local newspaper and was hired as the circulation manager. During her tenure with the paper, she was exposed to regional politics and quickly became involved with various women’s groups.

Eleven years later, Margaret married the paper’s owner, Clyde Smith. He was 21 years older and supported her efforts to become involved with the Maine Republican State Committee.

Clyde was elected in 1936 as a U.S. Representative from Maine’s Second Congressional District, and they moved to Washington, D. C.  Margaret became his secretary, helping him with his research and his speeches.

However, in 1940, Clyde suffered a major heart attack. He counseled Margaret to run for his seat in the fall of the upcoming elections. Clyde died a few months later, and a special election was held to fill his unexpired term.

Margaret won the election, thus becoming the first woman from Maine to become elected to Congress. In the following regular election, she won again for the full two-year term.

MARGARET ENTERS POLITICS

Over the next eight years, Margaret won again and again.

During WWII, Margaret developed a keen interest in national and military security. Believing in the strength of women in the military, Margaret worked on the legislation that led to the formation of the WAVES program and the legislation that gave women permanent status in the military following WWII.

Margaret served on many committees during her terms in the House. Then, in 1947, when the Republican Senator from Maine announced his retirement, Margaret threw her hat into the ring and ran for a position in the Senate.

She won and became the first woman in America to serve in both houses of Congress.

And then came the year 1950.

Margaret had already voiced disapproval of how fellow Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy was conducting an anti-Communist witch hunt in America, destroying the reputations and careers of people he assumed might be Communists.

HER DISPLAY OF COURAGE

On June 1, 1950, Margaret stood up on the Senate floor and delivered a fifteen-minute speech titled “Declaration of Conscience”.

I read it. Wow.

While she unabashedly condemned McCarthy without actually referring to him by name, she called out her fellow Senate members, saying, “I don’t want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the four horsemen of calumny—fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear.”  

McCarthy rebounded by immediately removing her from the Subcommittee on Investigations and gave her seat to a Senator from California – Richard Nixon.

And try as he might to silence Margaret, he often referred to her as Snow White and the Senators who backed her as the Seven Dwarfs…. Margaret kept her Senate seat and, by 1952, was mentioned as a possible candidate for Vice President of the United States.

I could go on and on. She garnered numerous awards in her lifetime and even campaigned to become President. She finally left the Senate in 1973 but became a visiting university professor for several years.

Margaret died at the age of 96, having moved back to the small town in Maine where her story had started.

HER LEGACY

My favorite quote of hers:

“If I am to be remembered in history, it will not be because of legislative accomplishments, but for an act I took as a legislator in the U.S. Senate when on June 1, 1950, I spoke … in condemnation of McCarthyism.”

Would we have been that brave?

Strong Women define the word COURAGE.

If you are not yet a follower of this blog, join the over 1300 followers from 64 countries by signing up on the right side bar. Once a month you will receive an email alert for the blog.

My books on Strong Women are available online and in stores. Cut From Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, Counting Crows, B-52 DOWN, and Opening Closed Doors: the Story of Josie Murray. I am currently working on my next novel, set in WWII in Georgia.

~ Linda

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Louise Whitfield: Her Husband’s Trusted Confidant

Posted on June 1, 2024 by lhsittig@verizon.net

By Linda Harris Sittig

It seems that several Strong Women of History were married to famous men and became their husbands’ confidants. I’m thinking of Abigail Smith Adams, who was married to President John Adams, and Edith Bolling Wilson, the wife of President Woodrow Wilson.

Then, I read about Louise Whitfield, a name I had never heard before, who had a tremendous impact on American history and philanthropy.

Her husband, a titan industrialist, readily admitted that he consulted with her frequently about his business ideas. She became not only his confidant but also his intellectual partner.

However, the conversation that would change history was when he asked Louise her opinion on what he should do with his vast wealth. At that time, he was the richest man in America; by 1901, he would become the richest man in the world.

I think her answer went somewhat along these lines, “You should build libraries, Andrew.”

Louise Whitfield Becomes Mrs. Andrew Carnegie

By now, you know that Louise Whitfield became Mrs. Andrew Carnegie, and yes, she suggested he start his philanthropic endeavor by building free libraries all over America.

And together, they did just that.

Church libraries and subscription libraries had existed since the colonial period, but they were not accessible to all Americans. By the mid-1800s, approximately 1500 libraries, mostly in cities, existed in America.

In 1888, Andrew and Louise set out to build libraries that all Americans could enjoy.

Louise grew up in New York City in a family of means, but Andrew grew up poor, working as a bobbin boy in a textile factory outside of Pittsburgh, PA. There was a local library, but the subscription cost was $2.00, something Andrew could not afford. Perhaps this memory spurred him to follow Louise’s suggestion of building free public libraries.

The Carnegie Libraries

When Andrew was the President of Carnegie Steel, and after he sold it to J.P. Morgan, he and Louise oversaw the building of 2,509 libraries in the U.S. and across the world. Louise advocated for educational equality and worked with Andrew to ensure that all the libraries would be built with open stacks to encourage browsing – a practice today we may have assumed always existed.

The last library was built in 1919. Carnegie’s only stipulation was that each town receiving the library commit to its upkeep and operation.

Over three decades, Andrew and Louise gave $60 million of their fortune to the building of the Carnegie Libraries. During their marriage, they gave over $350 million to philanthropic causes.

Their Story

Louise first met Andrew through her father, a successful textile merchant in New York. She was 23, and Andrew Carnegie was 45, rich and famous. They became acquaintances and then friends, sharing their mutual enjoyment of riding horses.

Louise told Andrew she had no intention of marrying a wealthy man; instead, she wanted to marry a man she could help become successful.

Seven years later, they married.

Despite their available wealth, they chose a small private ceremony with family and friends in her father’s home. Unusual for the time, Louise signed a pre-nuptial agreement renouncing any claims to Andrew’s fortune. In return, he gifted her stocks and bonds that would allow her an independent income.

Almost from the start, Andrew looked to Louise for inspiration. On their honeymoon, she talked with him about setting up a great music hall in New York City that would be available for all New Yorkers to enjoy.

That became the impetus for Carnegie Hall, and Andrew would be its sole financial supporter until he died in 1919.

They built libraries, supported charities, and set up the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the first philanthropic organization of its kind. This became an incentive for other millionaires to fund philanthropic organizations.

After Andrew died, Louise continued to serve on the board of the Carnegie Corporation, helping to oversee its fund distribution.

Andrew Carnegie might have been the wealthiest man in the world, giving away almost 7 billion dollars in today’s money. Still, it was his wife, Louise, of whom he said, “I can’t imagine myself without Lou’s guardianship.”

Her opinions were so significant that she wound up helping oversee one of the most enormous fortunes in America, but making sure the wealth benefited others.

The Libraries That Were Not Open to All

Before I conclude this story, I want to point out that although the Carnegies intended for their libraries to be open to all Americans, it did not happen exactly that way.

During the Jim Crow period of American history, starting in the 1870s and lasting into the 1960s, many libraries in southern states, including Carnegie Libraries, became designated for whites only. It would take the Civil Rights Movement and the bravery of several African Americans to challenge the segregation of American libraries.

If you would like to read about the young woman whose courage helped to force the desegregation of public libraries in Virginia, please check out my book Opening Closed Doors: The Story of Josie Murray. I think you will be surprised by Josie’s story and find yourself cheering for her integrity.

~ Linda

If you are not yet a follower of this blog, please sign up using the right sidebar. Once a month, you will receive an email about the next Strong Woman. There are followers in 64 countries😊

www.lindasittig.com

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Lida Dutton, Lizzie Dutton, and Sarah Steer: Champions of the First Amendment

Posted on May 1, 2024 by lhsittig@verizon.net

By Linda Harris Sittig

This month, one hundred sixty years ago, three young women from the tiny hamlet of Waterford, Virginia, exercised their right to freedom of the press by publishing an underground newspaper.

The year was 1864, and the United States had completed the third year of the Civil War. Sarah and Lizzie were in their 20s, and Lida was only nineteen. All three were Quakers, and as such, their families sided with the ideals of the Union, even though they lived in Confederate territory.

Waterford was a small, predominantly Quaker farming village about 50 miles west of Washington, D.C. The 1860 census recorded 999 residents. The Meeting, to which many residents belonged, stood united in its beliefs, forbidding the ownership of enslaved people. Although Virginia voted to secede from the Union, the Quakers of Waterford remained steadfast in their support of it.

This is not to say that Confederate patriotism did not exist in the Village; it did among other residents.

As of June 1, 1861, the United States Postmaster General suspended all mail delivery in states that had joined the Confederacy. Letters, newspapers, and written communication rapidly ceased. Three years later, in late April of 1864, Lida, Lizzie, and Sarah met in the Dutton home and drafted the first issue of what would become The Waterford News.

The paper was four pages long and featured patriotic editorials, poetry, riddles, local news, and bits of humor to cheer the weary reader. Its price was 10 cents, and the proceeds were sent to the U.S. Sanitary Commission, a non-government organization that provided Union troops with medical care.

Copies of their newspaper needed to be smuggled north across the Potomac River to be printed by The Baltimore American, for it would have been impossible for the girls to distribute the pro-Union paper from their homes.

It is not surprising that they devised a newspaper, as all three girls were quite literate, according to the Quaker tradition of equal education for girls and boys. But they must have realized the danger of publishing an underground newspaper.

Copies of The Waterford News traveled north, and Horace Greeley, publisher of the New York Tribune, praised their efforts. One of its eight issues made its way to the White House to President Abraham Lincoln.

The girls wrote about life in Waterford and the deprivations of war that had touched every family. They mentioned the few stores, defunct due to the war, and how residents relied on what they could grow to feed their families.

In late November of 1864, Union General Ulysses Grant authorized a crushing raid on Waterford and western Loudoun County. Union soldiers were ordered to burn barns and fields and kill or take livestock in an attempt to deny Confederate troops any means of sustenance. For the residents of this part of Virginia, the raid meant devastation to Confederate as well as Union supporters. Starvation does not choose sides.

Once the war was over, it would take Waterford (and countless other southern towns and villages) years to recover from the overwhelming destruction of lives from a country that had fought against itself.

And, whether you favor the Confederate or Union point of view, the importance of Lida Dutton, Lizzie Dutton, and Sarah Steer is that they followed their convictions of publishing news and leaving a detailed account of life in a small southern town engulfed by the atrocities of war.

Thank you to John Divine, Meredith Bean McMath, Bronwyn Souders, John Souders, and the Waterford Foundation, from whose work I was able to research and write this month’s blog. A special thank you goes to the women of the Waterford Book Club, who suggested Lida, Lizzie, and Sarah as this month’s Strong Women.

And, just in case you may be wondering about any attachment I might have to Waterford, it is where I was married 51 years ago, in a small brick church that survived the Civil War.

~ Linda

If you have not yet followed my Strong Women blog, join readers from 64 countries and sign up using the right sidebar. Once a month, you will receive an email alerting you to a new story. To learn more about me and my published books, visit my website: www.lindasittig.com.

Cut From Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, Counting Crows, B-52 DOWN, and Opening Closed Doors.

My current in progress is a WWII story about Rory Sullivan and the women who built the Liberty Ships, which carried cargo to our soldiers overseas.

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Vivian Bullwinkel: Testifying to a Massacre

Posted on April 1, 2024 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig and Elinor Florence

This month’s blog on Strong Women was co-written by me and Elinor Florence, a Canadian blogger, author, and advocate of remembering strong women. We both are in awe of the dedication and bravery of military nurses.

In 1942, after a bullet from a Japanese machine gun tore through her body, Australian nurse Vivian Bullwinkel floated face down in the sea and feigned death. She was the sole survivor of the Bangka Island Massacre, in which 22 Red Cross  nurses were forced to wade into the ocean at gunpoint and then shot in the back.

The Early Years

Vivian Bullwinkel was born on December 18, 1915, in the small town of Kapunda in South Australia, to George and Eva Bullwinkel. She had one brother, John. Vivian excelled at sports and acquired the nickname “Bully,” which stuck throughout her life.

Vivian trained as a nurse and midwife in New South Wales and worked in several locations before volunteering with the Australian Army Nursing Service. “I felt if my friends were willing to go and fight for their country, then they deserved the best care we could give them,” she said in a later interview.

Vivian Arrives in Malaysia

In September 1941, Vivian sailed for Singapore. After a few weeks, she was assigned to the 13th Australian General Hospital in Johor Bahru, a large city at the southern tip of the Malaysian Peninsula. Here, she nursed Australian servicemen who contracted tropical diseases or were injured in accidents.

In December 1941, just days before Vivian’s twenty-sixth birthday, the unthinkable happened. Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and declared war on the Allies. Immediately, Japanese troops invaded Malaysia and began their advance southward.

Soon afterward,  the 13th Australian General Hospital staff and patients were ordered to leave Johor Bahru and seek sanctuary on the nearby island of Singapore, in the mistaken belief that Singapore could never be conquered.

After arriving in Singapore, the Australian nurses transformed a school into a makeshift hospital. Here, they were engaged in trauma nursing, caring for soldiers who suffered the most terrible wounds while the enemy continued its inexorable advance.

Soon, Singapore was under attack. The girls (most of them still in their twenties) were under continual bombing from Japanese aircraft, knowing that a direct hit to the hospital was imminent.

Fleeing the Enemy

As Singapore faced certain defeat, and with most ships commandeered for the war effort, a search began for seaworthy vessels to evacuate civilians, nurses, and wounded men.

Vivian was among the last 65 nurses and 265 terrified men, women, and children to board the final boat to depart from Singapore, a small steamship called the SS Vyner Brooke. By the time the ship finished boarding its passengers on February 12, night had fallen, and as they left shore, Vivian could see huge fires burning along the Singapore coastline.

The following day, the captain valiantly tried to conceal his ship behind various islands. Of the 47 ships that fled during those last chaotic days before the fall of Singapore, only five made it to safety. The captain made a dash for freedom during the night and sailed into the Bangka Strait. However, it was impossible to hide in broad daylight. At 2 p.m. on February 14, the ship was attacked by enemy aircraft and received three direct bomb hits.

The captain ordered to abandon ship, with civilians going over the side first. Then, the Japanese aircraft returned, firing at the lifeboats and people swimming in the water. Vivian made it to the beach on nearby Bangka Island by holding onto the side of a lifeboat. The exhausted survivors continued to drift ashore throughout the night and the next day.

By the morning of February 16, around 80 survivors were gathered on Radji Beach, including wounded men, civilians, and just 22 of the 65 Australian nurses who left Singapore on the SS Vyner Brooke.

No Choice but to Surrender

The survivors sent out a small search party and located a local village, but the villagers were terrified of Japanese reprisal and urged them to surrender. However, the survivors decided to wait on the beach and hope for rescue.

That night, the survivors watched a fierce gun battle at sea, and soon, another lifeboat arrived, carrying about 20 British soldiers. Although they found a freshwater spring at the end of the beach, there was no food, and the children were crying with hunger. A group of civilians made the difficult decision to set off to the nearby town of Muntok and surrender to Japanese troops. The nurses, British soldiers, and wounded men waited on the beach with the expectation that the Japanese would take them prisoner.

Nurses Massacred in Cold Blood

Vivian recalled sitting quietly on the beach when a party of Japanese troops arrived and ordered the soldiers to march at gunpoint out of sight behind a headland. A few minutes later, the Japanese returned, cleaning their bloodied bayonets.

She now realized that all hope was lost.

The young nurses were motioned to walk out into the sea, still wearing their khaki uniforms and the Red Cross armbands that should have protected them. With them was an elderly British woman who had refused to leave with the other civilians. The women did as instructed bravely and calmly. None of them cried out or attempted to run away.

As the women were waist-deep in water, facing the horizon, the Japanese opened fire.

According to Vivian: “They just swept up and down the line, and the girls fell…”

Vivian was at the end of the line. A bullet struck her above her left hip, knocking her into the sea. She held her breath and remained motionless as the current carried her back to shore, surrounded by the floating bodies of her friends.

After the Japanese left the beach, Vivian dragged herself out of the water and staggered into the jungle, where she lay down and lost consciousness. The bullet had passed through her body, narrowly missing her vital organs. When she woke at dawn, hot and thirsty, she spotted Japanese soldiers on the beach and remained in hiding until they had gone. As she cautiously made her way to the freshwater spring on the beach, Vivian heard an English voice call out! It was a British soldier, Private Patrick Kingsley, who was badly wounded but had also survived the attack.

Twelve Days in the Jungle

Vivian and Kingsley then shared a terrifying 12 days and nights in the jungle while she tended to his severe wounds, making bandages out of whatever she could find.

Neither would have survived without help from some local women. When Vivian went to the nearest village to beg for food, the village headman sent her away. As she walked along the path, a local woman beckoned to her and quietly handed over rice, fish, and vegetables. Each time she returned to the village; the women secretly gave Vivian food.

Finally, Vivian broke the news to her companion that their only chance of survival lay in surrender. He asked her to wait one more day, as he wanted to spend his 39th birthday as a free man.

By then, Kingsley could barely walk but was determined to accompany Vivian to their fate. Leaning on each other for support, they hobbled out of the jungle. Vivian carried her water bottle over her hip to disguise her wound and the telltale bullet hole in her uniform.

After they surrendered, Kingsley was put into the men’s camp at Muntok. Too badly injured to survive, he died a few days later.

Vivian Survives Years in Prison

At the women’s prison camp, Vivian was overjoyed to find another group of 24 Australian nurses from the SS Vyner Brooke. They had failed to make it to Radji Beach and had landed on another part of the island, where they were captured.

For the next 3.5 years in the Palembang prison camp, Vivian kept her story a dark secret, knowing that she would be killed if her Japanese captors were aware that she had observed the war crime. She was determined to bear witness to the massacre so that her fellow nurses would never be forgotten.

Of the original group of 65 nurses on board the ship, only 24 returned home to Australia. Twenty-one were massacred, and 36 drowned after the ship sank. Conditions in the camp were so appalling that another eight of Vivian’s fellow nurses died of malnutrition and disease before the war ended.

After the War

Vivian retired from the Australian Army in 1947 with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. That same year, she gave evidence of her horrific experiences at the Tokyo War Crimes Commission trials so the world would know what really happened to the men and women on Bangka Island.

Vivian went on to a distinguished career. She became a pioneer in the nursing profession, devoted to improving the welfare of nurses. Vivian served on the council of the Australian War Memorial and later as president of the Australian College of Nursing.

She never forgot those local Malaysian women who had fed her and Kingsley. In their honor, she set up a program for women from that region to train as nurses in Australia.

And, she continued to be an active voice for veterans throughout her life.

Vivian was awarded the Order of Australia and the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for her bravery. She was also awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal, the highest medal in the world for nurses.

Although history has largely forgotten the women and children who were interned in Japanese prison camps, there are those of us who vow to keep the memory of strong women alive.

Thank you so much, Elinor Florence for being an advocate for strong women everywhere and a supporter of StrongWomenInHistory.com. Together, we are keeping these stories alive. You can follow Elinor’s wonderful newsletter, Letters From Windermere by contacting her: florenceelinor@gmail.com.

If you are not yet a follower of my blog, please sign up on the right side bar to receive one email a month about Strong Women.

You can find out more about me on my website www.lindasittig.com and how to order any of my published books. Currently I am writing a WWII novel about the American women who helped to build the liberty ships that carried supplies to our soldiers in Europe.

And… HAPPY BIRTHDAY BLOG! StrongWomenInHistory.com is now entering its 13th year!

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Mollie Burkhart: Worth an Academy Award

Posted on March 3, 2024 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

You may not recognize Molly Burkhart’s name unless you have read the book or seen the movie Killers of the Flower Moon.

She was, perhaps, the only survivor of the Osage Murders that continued from 1918 – 1931. During those years, sixty or more of the Osage people were murdered for their headrights, where each tribal member was guaranteed an equal share of the lucrative oil payments from their land.

Mollie was the only survivor of the ones targeted to be killed.

THE OSAGE NATION

To understand the impact of her life, let me digress a bit to fill you in on the history of her people. According to archaeologists and tribal lore, the Osage lived in the Ohio River Valley thousands of years ago. Then, around 200 to 400 A.D., they began migrating down the Ohio River into modern-day Kentucky. By 1000 A.D., they lived in modern-day St. Louis, Missouri.

Due to wars with the Iroquois or possibly searching for better agricultural land, several clans and tribes split off from the original large group. By 1300 A.D., the leading group of the Osage (People of the Middle Waters) started migrating west.

By the nineteenth century, the American government forced the Osage into Indian Territory, which is today Oklahoma. Then, in 1897, oil was discovered on their lands. Because they had shrewdly retained communal mineral rights, the tribe became wealthy.

Very wealthy.

Each person in the tribe could inherit the headrights of their family. Consequently, many white men married Osage women, possibly with the intent of inheriting the family headrights if the wife died.

BACK TO MOLLIE

Mollie was born into the Osage Nation in December 1886 to James Kyle and Lizzie Kyle, living in Indian Territory. She inherited her parents’ headrights, but the government declared she needed a legal guardian to oversee her finances. When she turned thirty, she met Ernest Burkhart, the nephew of William ‘King’ Hale, a local rancher who had managed to leverage vast amounts of funds from shady insurance claims. Ernest was Mollie’s chauffeur.

Mollie and Ernest married a year later, and Ernest legally became a part of Mollie’s family and was entitled to inherit her headrights if she passed on.  It was at this point that an increasing number of Osage Indians were suddenly found dead, either by supposed accidents or a strange ‘wasting illness” tied to their diabetes.

The deaths became more personal when it happened to Mollie’s entire family. First, it was her sister Minnie who died of the wasting illness, later suspected of being poisoned. Then, her sister Anna was found shot to death outside of town. Next, her mother suddenly fell ill and passed. Her sister Reta died soon afterward in an explosion that leveled her home.

Then Mollie fell ill. While her husband, Ernest Burkhart, gave her daily injections for her diabetes, she became sicker and sicker. When both Ernest and his uncle William Hale were finally arrested for the murders of Mollie’s family and others, Mollie was transferred to a hospital. She immediately began to get well due to overcoming the presence of poison from all her previous injections at the hand of her husband.

Whether Ernest knew that the injections contained poison or not has never been established. But, if Mollie had died, Ernest would have inherited her headrights, and then if Ernest died…. William Hale would possibly have been able to secure them for himself.

THE OUTCOME

As it was, the Osage Murders was the first big case for the newly established Federal Bureau of Investigation.

When both William Hale and Ernest Burkhart were found guilty of their involvement in the murders, Mollie divorced Ernest, but not before she suffered hurtful gossip from tribal members. Two years later, Mollie married John Cobb and petitioned the courts to relinquish her from legal guardianship. She won the case.

Starting over, but now with complete control of her money, Mollie Burkhart Cobb continued her life on the Osage reservation with her two remaining children, her health restored, and her headrights intact.

Like many other violent times, younger generations are unaware of the stories. Sometimes, it takes a book or a movie to bring back the characters who lived through such turbulent times – characters like Mollie Burkhart.

Thanks to Jennie Blumenthal, who suggested Mollie for a Strong Women feature. If you know of a woman who lived with integrity and whose legacy inspires others, please send me her name. linda@lindasittig.com.

I will celebrate March as National Women’s History Month by embarking on a research trip for my current WIP (Work in Progress). This will be the story of the women who built the Liberty Ships in WWII – a story many people do not know.

Please sign up on the right sidebar to follow Strong Women and receive the monthly blog in your email. Then, encourage friends to do the same. In the meantime, you can find my books featuring strong women in bookstores and online: Cut From Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, Counting Crows, B-52 DOWN, and Opening Closed Doors.

~ Linda

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Alice Hamilton: the Woman Who May Have Saved Your Life

Posted on February 1, 2024 by lhsittig@verizon.net

By Linda Harris Sittig

OK, raise your hand if you have ever worn a mask over your nose and mouth.

I am hoping for 100% participation. Covid 19, anyone?

But did you ever stop to wonder whose idea it was that we should wear masks in a medical pandemic?

Go back to 1905 and meet Alice Hamilton.

THE EARLY YEARS

Born in 1869 as one of four sisters and a brother, Alice was home-schooled and, by her teenage years, had decided to become a doctor.  This was a lofty goal, considering that at this time in American history, very few women had been admitted to medical school.

But, like many strong women, she persevered and was finally accepted at the University of Michigan Medical School. After graduating in 1893, she completed internships at the Minneapolis Hospital for Women and Children and the New England Hospital for Women and Children.

Alice might have chosen to go into a medical practice, but her current interest resided in research. Off she went to Europe to study bacteriology at universities in Germany. Even in Europe, she was an anomaly and sometimes had to sneak into university lectures reserved for male doctors.

By 1897, Alice had returned stateside and completed post-degree studies at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland.

Already interested in women’s rights and social justice, she relocated to Chicago and moved into the Hull House, a settlement house run by social activist Jane Addams.

THE CHICAGO YEARS

Her residency in the Hull House changed her life, and she ministered to neighborhood health needs there for the next twenty years. Understanding that poor women had little access to good health care, Alice witnessed firsthand how susceptible those women were to the diseases of city life and how factory work was rife with the spread of infectious diseases.

Working on a hypothesis in 1905 that airborne particles caused many factory diseases, Alice pulled several factory workers and had them blow their noses into Petri dishes. Then she tested their mucus and found almost every sample contained streptococcus bacteria. Concluding that respiratory diseases were transmitted from one sick person to others via droplets in the air, Alice began a campaign that all surgeons wear masks while in surgery to prevent catching or spreading respiratory germs.

The hospitals in Illinois that first adopted this practice saw their respiratory rates drop dramatically. Later, in 1918, when the Spanish Flu entered pandemic proportions, face masks were adopted on a national level to help curb the progression of the disease.

Alice had opened a well-baby clinic at the Hull House, but the mothers insisted on talking about their sick husbands who worked in nearby factories and all had the same symptoms. Alice began to suspect lead and mercury poisoning.

The factory owners, however, were opposed to her theory and altered their workplace data to minimize how much lead and mercury the workers were exposed to.

Alice then took some factory workers out after hours for a couple of beers. Once she gained their confidence, she asked them to sneak factory samples. All the samples she tested contained poisonous amounts of the metals.

Launching a statewide Illinois investigation in 1910, the U.S. Department of Labor concurred that dozens of factory operations had led to lead poisoning of the workers. Within a year, Illinois was one of the states that passed a Workers Compensation Law. A national law was passed a year or so later.

She had taken on industrial diseases and industrial toxins – what next?

THE HARVARD YEARS

In 1919, Harvard University instituted a new Occupational Health curriculum and asked Alice if she would join the school as an assistant professor, lecturing in this department.

There were a few caveats: she could not apply for tenure nor walk with the other (male) professors at graduation and would not qualify for free football tickets. Ahem.

However, Alice Hamilton was now officially the first female professor at Harvard. After retiring from Harvard in 1935, she was recruited as a medical consultant to the U.S. Division of Labor Standards.

THE LEGACY

She died in 1971 at 101, still championing women’s rights and workplace safety, improving community health standards, and living just long enough to see the inauguration of OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration).

Of all my research into Alice’s life, my favorite was the gentleman who asked her in the early 1900s, “But who will darn the socks if we let women become bacteriologists?” Her answer was not recorded, but I envision her arching an eyebrow and replying, “Yes, who indeed?”

In this winter of 2024, whenever you might travel, as you put on a face mask, please whisper – “Thank you, Alice.”

And thank you to blog follower Donna Haarz, who alerted me to Alice’s story.

If you are not yet a follower of Strong Women, please sign up on the right sidebar and encourage your friends to become followers, too.

You can learn more about me on my website: https://www.lindasittig.com. All of my books, Cut From Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, Counting Crows, B-52 DOWN, and Opening Closed Doors are available in bookstores or online.

I am currently working on a novel about the women who built the Liberty Ships in WWII. Stay tuned:)

linda:)

Posted in short biographies, women who made a difference | 10 Comments

Andrée Geulen and Ida Sterno: Angels of Mercy

Posted on January 1, 2024 by lhsittig@verizon.net

By Linda Harris Sittig

As we start another year and a worldwide wish for peace, I want to share with you the story of two remarkable, strong women: Andrée Geulen and Ida Sterno.

Their story starts in 1942 in Brussels, Belgium, with the Nazi military occupation in its second year. All Jews must wear a yellow Star of David on their coats, jackets, sweaters, etc., for instant recognition.

Andrée teaches in a private boarding school that also takes in day students. When the children enter the classroom, she suggests everyone remove their outer garments and put them in the coat closet. Then she has everyone don an apron. After the children comply and take their seats, it is hard to distinguish the Jewish children from the non-Jewish ones.

Under the watchful eye of the sympathetic headmistress Odile Ovart, Andrée is taken aside and introduced to a fellow teacher and Jewish activist named Ida Sterno. Madame Ovart explains that Ida works with a Belgian resistance group, the Committee for the Defense of Jews. This organization locates Jewish children in danger of deportation and transports them into hiding. The school itself is a safe harbor for twelve Jewish students. Madame Ovart then explains how Andrée, a non-Jew, can help.

Just a few months later, the boarding school is raided by the Gestapo. The twelve Jewish children are deported, and both Odile and her husband, Remy, are arrested. The Ovarts will later die in a concentration camp.

Andrée and Ida are now a team working with several other women of the CDJ. Their primary mission is to find safe harbors where Jewish children can be relocated. They quickly discover that the most emotional part of their job is to convince Jewish parents that their children would be safer living in a Catholic convent or on a rural farm with a surrogate family.

No parent wants to be parted from their children. When those parents beg to be given the address of where their children will be, Andrée and Ida have to stipulate that doing so would only compromise the safety of the children.

On several occasions, Andrée and Ida just missed being detected by Nazi soldiers. But because Andrée looks Aryan, the soldiers assume she is taking children on an outing when she is really chaperoning a group on their way to relocation.

Andrée and Ida maintain a complicated series of five separate notebooks that list each child in hiding by a code. Their real name, their new name, their actual address, their hidden address, and the names of their parents are all embedded in the code.

Ida Sterno was Jewish, and eventually, the Nazis were tipped off, and Ida was arrested. She was taken to a prison-like facility and tortured for four months, but she never gave up one child’s name or her compatriots in the CDJ.

Ida was finally freed when the Allies liberated Belgium, but the months of torture left her health compromised, and she died in 1964 at the age of 62.

Andrée lived to the age of 100, having died recently in 2022. In 1989, she was recognized by Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Center as ‘righteous among the nations’ for her heroic efforts. 

At the end of WWII, when the Allies liberated Europe, almost 3,000 Belgian Jewish children had safely survived the Holocaust, thanks to the efforts of the CDJ. Some children were reunited with extended family members, and others were adopted by their surrogate families. Sadly, many parents perished in the concentration camps.

But both Ida and Andrée reconnected through the years with many of the children they had rescued.                  

This story gives me hope that even in the face of pure evil, there are those human souls whose compassion transcends the political turmoil of the time.

Thank you to Rebecca Connolly, whose upcoming book, Hidden Yellow Stars, tipped me off to the story of Andrée and Ida. Shadow Mountain Publishing is publishing Hidden Yellow Stars and the book will be available in stores and online in early March.

If you enjoyed this month’s Strong Woman blog, please sign up on the right sidebar to become a follower. Once a month, you will receive a new story about a woman who should have become more famous.

I wish everyone peace, prosperity, and good health in the new year, and remember that even one person’s efforts can help to change history.

~ Linda

www.lindasittig.com

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