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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Marie Dorion: Against All Odds

Posted on December 2, 2023 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

Everyone seems to remember the famous firsts: first man on the moon, first woman in space, first this, first that…. but how about the seconds? Those men and women who also accomplished an incredible feat but whose names are not famous.

Enter the story of Marie Dorion. If I put her in the same category as Sacajawea, you might have a vague idea of what she did, but you would not know the whole story.

In 1810, John Jacob Astor, the wealthiest person in America, sent an expedition out west to establish a fur trading post. Part of Astor’s incredible wealth was his fur empire. Not satisfied with how much he made, he yearned for more. And so, Astor met with President Thomas Jefferson to discuss the establishment of a trading emporium in the Pacific Northwest.

England, Russia, and Spain were already engaged in the fur trading business of the Northwest but without a permanent settlement. Astor planned to set up an outpost at the mouth of the Columbia River (present-day Oregon). He chose Wilson Hunt of New Jersey to lead an overland expedition following the same route Lewis and Clark followed in 1804. Then, he decided that Jonathan Thorn would simultaneously captain a seagoing route on the Tonquin to sail for the Pacific Northwest.

Like Lewis and Clark, Hunt found himself an interpreter, Pierre Dorion. Dorion insisted that his multi-lingual Native American wife, Marie, and their two small sons join the group.

Marie was pregnant when the expedition left the winter camp, 400 miles north of St. Louis, and began the spring trek in 1811. By May, Hunt decided to change the agreed-upon route and headed to an area in present-day South Dakota to obtain sufficient horses for the new overland trek. While in this location, Sacajawea and her husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, arrived with a rival trading party. It is plausible that Sacajawea and Marie would have met one another, even if they did not speak the same language.

By mid-July, Hunt had procured enough horses to set out. The two young Dorion boys were allowed to ride, but Marie, now almost four months pregnant, walked. Weeks went by, and the travel progressed. But by early October, when they reached the Wyoming territory, they encountered a large river (the Snake) and exchanged their horses for dugout canoes.

Traveling now by canoe, disaster struck on October 28 when one of the canoes smashed on the rocks in an attempt to run the rapids. One man was killed, and many supplies were swept downstream. Their food supply was running low, and winter was approaching.  They abandoned the canoes and struck out on foot through deep mountain snow. Marie was now seven months pregnant but kept pace with the expedition. The party was down to 32 white men, one pregnant Native woman with two small children, and three Native scouts. The few puny remaining horses would become their primary food source.

Marie gave birth in the Oregon territory in late December 1811, but the baby did not survive.

When the Hunt party finally reached the mouth of the Columbia River, the Tonquin had already arrived and helped to start the outpost they named Astoria.

Marie’s story might have ended there, but the War of 1812 broke out only a few months later. The threat of the British invading Astoria made the pioneers abandon the post and strike out for the interior.

Marie, Pierre, and the two boys left Astoria and eventually set up a trapping base camp along the Snake River. In January 1814, Pierre was killed by a hostile group of Shoshone, while Marie was able to escape with the two children. With nowhere else to go, Marie headed back toward Astoria. After a nine-day trek, she killed the horse and smoked the meat to feed herself and the children.

Realizing winter was near, she built a crude shelter and settled in. After almost two months, she set out again with the two children. They walked for 15 days and were fortunate to be found by a small camp of Walla Walla American Indians who took them in and fed them.

Eventually, Marie and the boys reached a fur outpost in the Washington territory. The years went by; she remarried twice, gave birth to three more children, and settled in the Willamette Valley of Oregon.

Marie died in September 1850 at the age of 65. She had been an interpreter, explorer, pioneer, community member, wife, and mother during her long life—certainly, a strong woman.

Thank you to Bill Hudgins, whose article On The Oregon Trail, American Spirit, November/December 2018, was the basis for my research on Marie. I referred to several geographic areas as territories to help you understand the locations.

Wishing everyone a joyous holiday season and peace on Earth for the new year.

~ Linda

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Johanna Bonger: Saving the Legacy of Vincent van Gogh

Posted on November 1, 2023 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

A few years back, while traveling in France, I stood at the foot of two tombstones: Vincent van Gogh and his brother Theodore van Gogh.

Little did I know that their fame and legacy were due to one strong woman – Johanna Bonger, Theodore’s widow.

THE BEGINNING

Born in Amsterdam in 1862, the fifth of seven children, Johanna grew up keeping an extensive journal of her life. While her sisters were groomed to become wives, Johanna earned enough credits in English to have the equivalent of a college degree. At some point, she taught English at a girls’ boarding school and ventured off to London to work at the British Museum for a while.

At about 25, Johanna’s older brother, Andries Bonger, introduced her to his art friend, Theo van Gogh. By all accounts, Theo was smitten with Johanna, but she was not particularly impressed with him.

The following year, Theo traveled to Amsterdam to try and court her.

It took a year and many letters back and forth, but Johanna fell in love with him. They married in 1889 and promptly moved to Paris, where he had started a career as an art dealer.

THEO AND HIS BROTHER VINCENT

With their marriage came the recognition that Theo was completely devoted to his brother, Vincent, and supported him financially. When Johanna gave birth to their child the following year, the little boy was named Vincent Willem van Gogh in honor of his uncle.

While Johanna and Theo were happy, Vincent van Gogh’s life had already begun to unravel. In December 1888, he had severed a substantial part of his left ear. Then, in July 1890, suffering from extreme depression, he shot himself in the chest and died two days later at the age of 37.

Theo went into substantial mourning, and Johanna began to worry that Theo’s mental health was being affected.

Theo steadily declined and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in December 1890. What Johanna did not and could not know was that Theo was suffering from late-stage neurosyphilis. Thankfully, he had not passed the disease on to her. Within a few weeks, Theo died at 33.

At age 28, Johanna was now left with only a small apartment in Paris and her infant son.

JOHANNA’S GIFT TO THE WORLD

However, she inherited over 200 of Vincent van Gogh’s paintings and all of Vincent and Theo’s letters. At the time, Vincent van Gogh’s artwork was completely worthless, and no art dealer was willing to take a chance on his unusual style. The Van Gogh family told her to burn the art and start her life over. One art dealer offered to buy Van Gogh’s canvases to scrape off all the paint and resell the blank canvas.

But Johanna was determined that Theo’s life had not been in vain. Theo had believed in Vincent and was convinced that one day, the world would see that Vincent’s art was visionary.

Johanna went to work. Using almost every last penny, she had many of the 200 paintings framed. Then she wrote to every art dealer in Paris, asking if they would be interested in showing some of Vincent van Gogh’s art. All of them said no.

Trying not to be discouraged, she bundled up two or three smaller paintings and went from gallery to gallery throughout Paris, showing the art with the hopes of selling some now and hopefully more later. Each gallery turned her down.

Running out of money, she returned to Holland and took much of Vincent’s art. She opened up a boardinghouse to support herself and display Vincent’s paintings.

She also worked as a translator to supplement her income, translating short stories from English and French into Dutch.

Dismissed by the art world, she nevertheless became Vincent’s relentless agent.

Finally, in 1892, she arranged the first formal exhibition of Vincent’s work. By 1914, she published a book of Theo and Vincent’s letters to each other.

Slowly but surely, Vincent’s artwork began to be exhibited throughout Holland and then in Germany and France. But Johanna did not stop; she worked until the end of her life to ensure that her son and grandson would continue with her work to showcase the brilliance of Vincent van Gogh and the legacy of her husband Theo in promoting his brother as an artist.

In June of 1973, the Van Gogh Museum opened in Amsterdam, Holland, and today contains the bulk of the artist’s work. His paintings are the most expensive on the art market today; even schoolchildren know his name.

Johanna van Gogh-Bonger died of Parkinson’s disease at 62 in 1925. But her extraordinary contribution to bringing Vincent van Gogh’s art to the public lives on.

To learn more about Johanna, read The Secret Life of Sunflowers by Marta Molnar or Jo van Gogh-Bonger by Hans Luijten.

I hope you enjoyed Johanna’s story. If you are not yet a follower of the Strong Women blog, please sign up on the right sidebar, and you will receive a monthly email with another Strong Woman story.

You can learn more about me on my website, www.lindasittig.com, and my five published books, Cut From Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, Counting Crows, B-52 DOWN! and Opening Closed Doors.

I am currently researching and writing my next book. The setting is WWII on the American home front. The protagonist is a woman working in a Georgia shipyard to help build the Liberty Ships to carry needed supplies to the soldiers overseas. At the same time, a family enemy stalks her every move.

~ Linda

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Jovita Idár: Fighting for Justice

Posted on October 2, 2023 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

I must admit that before this month, I had never heard of Jovita Idár. Nor did I know a Mexican-American Civil Rights Movement started in Texas back in 1911 and continues to this day.              

And I did not know that racial segregation of Mexican-Americans started in 1910.

As a history major in college, I am surprised and embarrassed that my educational training overlooked this facet of American history. Sure, I heard of Davy Crockett, but a Mexican-American woman fighting for human rights? No.               

I recently read this quote: ‘Authentic history, what really happened, often differs from what was recorded. It all depends on who is doing the recording’.

SO, I BRING YOU THE STORY OF JOVITA.

Jovita Idár was born in Laredo, Texas, in 1885. This was just 37 years after the end of the Mexican-American War and 40 years after the U.S. annexed Texas.

It might help to digress a bit here to record events important to the story. These events impacted the lives of Jovita and other Mexican-Americans living in Texas border towns.

As a part of Western Expansion (and perhaps the South’s hope that Texas would be admitted to the Union as a slave state), the United States government annexed the Mexican land of Texas in 1845. This set off the Mexican-American War lasting from 1846 – 1848. When Mexico lost the war, it also lost the land that today is California, Nevada, Utah, most of New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. Parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming were also deeded to the U.S. In exchange for all that territory, the U.S. government gifted Mexico the sum of $15,000,000.

Then, in 1910, The Mexican Revolution broke out against the 30-year dictatorship of the elitist Mexican government. Emigration from Mexico into the United States began to soar as Mexicans sought what they thought would be a better life in America.

However, they were met with segregation, unfair labor practices, economic and educational disparities, racial prejudice and violence.

THE BEGINNING OF HER ACTIVISM

Born into a middle-class family of eight children, Jovita grew up in a household where both her parents advocated for the human rights of Mexican Americans in South Texas. Jovita’s father was the owner/editor of the Spanish-language newspaper La Crónica. He ran articles exposing the oppressive conditions for Mexican-Americans in the border towns. Jovita’s mother was a firm believer in a woman’s right to vote and was politically active about her beliefs.

At the age of eighteen, Jovita earned a teaching certificate in 1903 and began a career of teaching impoverished Mexican-American children. She soon quit, dismayed at the deplorable conditions of no books, supplies, or adequate buildings for the children’s education.

She believed that she could bring about more change through journalism and joined her father’s newspaper staff.

Often writing about the racism in southern Texas, Jovita worked with her family to establish the first Mexican Congress in Laredo, Texas. The goal was to unify Mexican American citizens to fight the social injustices they were forced to live with.

As a recognized journalist, she turned her energies into community activism.

Within a month, she helped to establish La Liga Feminil Mexicaista, the League of Mexican Women. As President, Jovita aimed to secure an equal and bilingual education for the poor Mexican-American children of southern Texas.

Once the League of Mexican Women was on firm ground, Jovita decided to go to Mexico and volunteer as a nurse, tending wounded soldiers in the Mexican Revolution. By the time her father died in 1914, she had returned to Laredo and worked with her brothers to manage the continuing success of La Crónica.

In 1917, she married Bartolo Juarez and moved with him to San Antonio, Texas. Once there, she picked up again on her social activist goals. She helped establish a free kindergarten for Mexican-American children, and translated for Spanish-speaking patients at a local hospital.

HER LEGACY

Jovita Idár died in 1946, just shy of her 61st birthday. A strong proponent of women’s suffrage, she did not live long enough to see all Latina women gain the right to vote.

(In case this sounds confusing, the 19th Amendment of 1920 only gave voting rights to white women. Native American, Asian-American, Latina, and African-American women had to continue campaigning for additional decades to get their voting rights.)

But Jovita Idár died knowing she had spent her life helping women and children improve their lives. My favorite quote of hers is, “When you educate a woman, you educate the family.”

Jovita Idár has been recently honored, being chosen for the new 2023 American Women Quarters Series.

If you enjoyed Jovita’s story and are not yet a follower of this blog, please sign up on the right sidebar. You will receive an email once a month alerting you to a new posting for Strong Women in History.

You can find out more about me and my five novels by visiting my website, www.lindasittig.com.

I am now working on a new novel that takes place stateside in WWII. It is about the strong women who joined the war effort and helped to build the Liberty Ships.

~ Linda

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Betsy James Wyeth: Art Visionary

Posted on September 2, 2023 by lhsittig@verizon.net

By Linda Harris Sittig

I am always fascinated by accomplished women whose famous husbands often overshadowed their wives’ contributions to history.

Betsy James Wyeth meets that criterion.

You undoubtedly recognize her married surname: Wyeth. Her father-in-law was famed illustrator N.C. Wyeth. Her husband was Andrew Wyeth, and one of her sons is the artist Jamie Wyeth. Yet without Betsy, many of the Wyeth treasured paintings would never have been available to the American public.

IN THE BEGINNING

Betsy was the youngest of three siblings born in 1921 in East Aurora, New York.  She led a relatively normal childhood and vacationed with her family in Maine each summer. Then, during her teenage years, her family moved to Maine.

The Wyeth family, from Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, were also vacationing in Maine the summer Betsy turned eighteen.  Betsy met Andrew Wyeth, four years older than she, and within a year, the couple married.

They moved to Chadds Ford, and Betsy became Andrew’s muse, business partner, and confidant. A shy introvert, Betsy balanced his gregarious nature. She did not like being in the limelight and preferred working behind the scenes, embedding herself in promoting Andrew’s paintings.

Later in life, Andrew Wyeth said, “She made me into a painter I would not have been otherwise.”

CHADDS FORD AND MAINE

Often credited as the driving force behind Andrew’s commercial success, Betsy was also a preservationist of local architecture. She encouraged and collected pieces of architecture fashioned by local artists in Chadds Ford and the Wyeth summer home in Maine. She wrote and edited books about the Wyeth family and the extensive artwork of three generations of Wyeth art. In addition, she worked with filmmakers to help produce the award-winning documentary, “Andrew Wyeth Self Portrait,1995”.

Betsy freed Andrew to concentrate his energies on his paintings while she took over the business side of his career. She often offered suggestions for the titles of his paintings. She introduced him to a neighbor, Christina Olson, who became the subject of one of his most recognized paintings, Christina’s World. That painting still ranks among American history’s most widely reproduced art posters.

Betsy ensured that Andrew’s art became a commercial success and eventually bought him three small private islands in Maine where he could paint in total seclusion. It was on those islands that Andrew Wyeth painted some of his most iconic art. And it was in his studios in both Chadds Ford and Maine that Andrew painted his most realistic renditions of the buildings, landscapes, and people of his private worlds.

Betsy decorated their homes in stark detail to complement the surrounding landscape of their farm in Chadds Ford and their weathered home in Maine so that no clutter would interrupt the beauty of their surroundings. This stark interior design is often reminiscent in his paintings; however, like many artists, his large studio was always packed with canvases, frames, jars of paint, palettes, easels, tables overflowing with supplies, and collections of interesting objects scattered throughout.

Andrew Wyeth had an illustrious career in painting for over 44 years. When he died in 2009, Betsy donated his studio to the Brandywine Conservancy, which in the 1970s evolved into the Brandywine Conservancy and Museum of Art. Betsy was an early catalyst in helping to create the Brandywine Museum of Art, which was converted from an old grist mill and today houses the nation’s most extensive collection of Wyeth art.

BETSY’S LEGACY

Betsy was a creative force of her own. A testimony to this is the collection of Andrew’s work that she so carefully archived and documented for future generations to enjoy and bequeathed to the Brandywine Museum of Art.

And she did not restrict the donations to only Andrew’s art—many paintings of N.C. Wyeth and Jamie Wyeth are on display as well. This museum pays tribute to a unique niche of American art, thanks in part to the creative energy of Betsy James Wyeth.    

Betsy James Wyeth died in April 2020 at the age of 98. Andrew Wyeth’s Day Dream painting sold for 23 million dollars two years later. I’m sure Betsy was smiling.

Linda ~ I hope you enjoyed Betsy’s story. If you are not a follower of this blog, please sign up on the right sidebar for a once-a-month story to appear in your inbox.

I am busy on my next strong woman protagonist novel, set in WWII along the Georgia coast. In the meantime you can catch me on my website: https://www.lindasittig.com.

Enjoy September!

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Ruth Handler: Bringing Barbie to Life

Posted on August 1, 2023 by lhsittig@verizon.net

By Linda Harris Sittig

I know, I know. You might be thinking, “Barbie? Seriously?” But, yes, I am.

With the popular Barbie movie out and the Barbie doll still number one of the top ten best-selling toys of all time, I asked myself – “Who was this Ruth Handler who created Barbie?”

IN THE BEGINNING

Born the youngest of 10 children in 1916, Ruth Mosko Handler grew up in an immigrant Jewish family in Denver, Colorado, where perhaps she learned the pattern of a solid work ethic that would stay with her throughout her life.

Ruth married her high school sweetheart, Elliot Handler, in 1938, and they left for Los Angeles, California, where Elliot could study industrial design. Within a year, Elliot was manufacturing novelty goods made of the new plastic called Lucite. Ruth became the bookkeeper and office manager. In 1944, they branched out and designed costume jewelry made from Lucite.

THE BEGINNING OF MATTEL

One year later, in 1945, they joined forces with a good friend, Harold Matson, to form a new company to manufacture toys. Combining letters from Matson and Handler, the new company was named Mattel.

At first, they manufactured doll furniture and then musical toys. All products were assembled in the Mattel plant in Hawthorne, California.

Then the 1950s came along, and as the Mattel company grew, Ruth, now executive vice-president in charge of sales and management, began hiring more and more women. And the women she chose were from all races and various nationalities.

In 1955 Ruth convinced Elliott that they should take out a significant loan for mega-advertising. She chose the wildly popular Disney television show, the Mickey Mouse Club as the sole advertiser. With nationwide exposure, Mattel’s sales went from $5 to $14 million.

And this was all before Barbie.

THE INVENTION OF BARBIE

In early 1959, Ruth remembered how much their daughter Barbara had loved playing with paper dolls when she was young. Ruth conjured up images of Barbara cutting out the fashionable paper outfits and dressing the dolls up to interact with each other.

At this point, most American dolls were either baby dolls or made from soft materials. Very few, if any, were presented as teenage dolls with fashionable outfits you could buy and assemble a wardrobe.

And Ruth began to wonder…..what if?

She designed the new Mattel doll, named Barbie after her daughter, to be a doll girls would want to dress. Debuting at the March 1959 American Toy Fair in New York City, the original Barbie doll sold 351,000 copies in the first year of production.

Remember Disney? Barbie then became advertised on The Mickey Mouse Club show.

Two years later, Mattel invented the Ken doll, and Barbie and Ken soon accounted for a major proportion of the company’s sales.

AND LIFE WAS SWELL, UNTIL IT WASN’T

In 1970 Ruth was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a total mastectomy. Then in 1973, the SEC charged Mattel with issuing false financial statements. Ruth and Elliot resigned from Mattel in 1975, while the company sued the accounting firm Arthur Anderson for mismanagement.

Out of work for the first time since 1939, Ruth went into business with George Peyton to develop silicon breast prostheses for women like herself whose bodies had experienced the trauma of a mastectomy. Ruth stayed with the new company, Ruthton, until 1991. She campaigned in the media, made appearances in department stores, and shortly after starting the company, helped First Lady Betty Ford get fitted for a breast prosthesis.

In her lifetime Ruth Handler was the recipient of many awards.

And if you think back in time, Barbie was created in 1959, nine years after the first credit card was invented (the Diners Club Card). But it would take until 1974 before women in America could own a credit card in their name. Yes, twenty-four years after credit cards were established for men.

But what of Barbie?

THE LEGACY OF BARBIE

Don’t think of Barbie as only a pretty face… the Barbie doll of today is available in 176 different versions, representing 200 careers, nine body types, 35 skin tones, and 94 different hairstyles.

Ruth always said she wanted Barbie to be able to change with the times. And she did. By the 1960s, Barbie’s friend, Christy, was an African-American doll. By 2015 Barbie had given up wearing her signature high heels and now sports fashionable flats. In 2020 Barbie in a wheelchair, representing physically challenged women, premiered. And in 2023, the first Barbie with Downs Syndrome became available.

And what about Ken? He was initially designed as Barbie’s boyfriend and named after Ruth’s son. But the movie uses all the Kens to brilliantly showcase the absurdity of a society where one sex gets to make all the rules.

Like Strong Women everywhere – Barbie and the rest of us come in all skin tones, ethnic backgrounds, races, and religions. But what drives us is the passion to follow our dreams, even when obstacles are thrown in our path.

See the movie and enjoy the spirit of Ruth Handler. Thank you to Jennie Blumenthal and Eddy Delgado who both taught me about Ruth.

~ Linda

If you are not yet a follower of the Strong Women in History blog, please sign up on the right sidebar and once a month you’ll receive an email alerting you to a new story.

In the meantime, you can catch up with me on www.lindasittig.com to see my newest book, OPENING CLOSED DOORS: THE STORY OF JOSIE C. MURRAY and learn the story of the woman whose courage led to the desegregation of public libraries in Virginia back in the 1950s.

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Françoise Gilot: Strong Woman

Posted on July 1, 2023 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

I don’t usually profile a Strong Woman so soon after she has passed, but I am making an exception this month.

French artist Françoise Gilot died recently at 101, having led an extraordinary life. She became an accomplished painter and sculptor over her father’s vehement objections and wrote an internationally bestselling memoir about her years as Pablo Picasso’s mistress and muse.

Françoise was born in November 1921 and showed an early interest in art when most other children started school. Her strict father was determined she would become an exemplary student and had her tutored at home starting at age six, learning the fundamentals of Greek mythology. Her mother, a watercolor artist in her own right, countered by teaching Françoise art lessons.

By the time Françoise was a teenager, she was spending her free time visiting various art museums where she would study the paintings of the masters. Her father determined that she would become a lawyer and allowed her to matriculate with a degree from the Sorbonne in Paris, but then enrolled her in law school against her wishes.

Françoise spent a year in law school and dropped out to study art. Infuriated, her father forced her to enroll for a second year, and only after she failed her law exams did she gain the freedom to pursue her love of art.

Living in Paris, exhibiting her paintings and sculpting, she met Pablo Picasso one night in a restaurant. She was 21, and he was 61. I cannot say it was love at first sight, but Picasso became infatuated with her, and his strong magnetic personality and fame in the art world most undoubtedly attracted her.

She ended up living with him for ten years, giving him two children (Claude and Paloma) while he continued his artistic career of painting, making ceramics, and writing poetry.

And then, Françoise did the unthinkable; she left Picasso in 1953. Neither his first wife nor any previous mistresses had accomplished that. He was so enraged that he destroyed all her possessions in their shared home and attempted to sabotage her career by asking the galleries in Paris to refuse to exhibit her work.

But she kept painting.

In 1955 Françoise married fellow artist Luc Simon; however, the marriage was not destined to last. Picasso came to Françoise and told her that if she divorced Simon and remarried him, their children (Claude and Paloma) would become Picasso’s legitimate heirs.

Françoise went ahead with the divorce, only to learn that Picasso had recently married a second wife and had no intentions of making Françoise’s children his legitimate heirs.

So, in 1964, Françoise penned her memoir Life with Picasso, which sold over one million copies. Picasso did everything he could to stop its publication but to no avail. After the book’s publication, he abruptly stopped communicating with their children. Meanwhile, Françoise used the proceeds from the sales to mount a legal case for Claude and Paloma to claim legitimacy.

In 1969 while on a trip to California, Françoise met Jonas Salk, the medical pioneer of the polio vaccine. The two married in 1970 and continued to split their life between France and America until he died in 1995. While in America, Françoise exhibited her paintings at the Museum of Modern Art and designed costumes, stage sets, and masks for the Guggenheim Museum. She also taught art classes at the University of Southern California.

When Picasso died in 1973, his estate was worth the modern equivalent of 1.3 billion dollars. But it would not be until 1975 that Françoise’s longtime efforts came to fruition. In addition to the grandchildren of his one legitimate child, Paola, the grandchildren of his three children born out of wedlock became recognized by the courts as having a rightful claim to an inheritance.

And those heirs helped to establish Musée de Picasso in Paris, France.

Françoise continued to paint throughout her lifetime. In 2021 one of her paintings, Paloma à la Guitare, sold for 1.3 million at a Sotheby auction.

She may have started in Picasso’s shadow, but she emerged in the brilliant light of her own success.

Thank you to Susan Ewing of California who suggested I learn about Francoise.

If you enjoyed this month’s Strong Woman and are not yet a follower of the blog, please sign up on the right sidebar and you will receive notification once a month when the blog is posted.

I am busy right now marketing my newest book, OPENING CLOSED DOORS: THE STORY OF JOSIE C. MURRAY. It is the extraordinary story of a young African-American woman who back in 1957 forced the issue of segregation for the public libraries of Virginia. Written for 4th/5th grades, it is my hope to get it into every elementary library so the children of today will learn about the struggles we have gone through in America to ensure equality for all. It is available from bookstores and online. Here is the link to buy it from my website: https://www.lindasittig.com.

~ linda

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Josephine Diebitsch Peary: Arctic Explorer

Posted on June 1, 2023 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

I often find fascinating, strong women through their husbands.

Like Karin Bergöö, a talented textile artist married to Swedish painter Carl Larsson.  And Mileva Marić, a brilliant mathematician married to Albert Einstein (his first wife). Anne Morrow, a sensitive writer married to Charles Lindbergh.

So it was through her husband, Robert E. Peary, that I discovered Josephine Diebitsch. You may remember Robert Peary, credited with being the first man to reach the North Pole in 1909.

Born in May of 1863, amid the turmoil of the Civil War, Josephine spent her childhood in Washington, D.C. The oldest of four siblings and often a ringleader for their city adventures, the children frequently visited their father’s workplace, the Smithsonian Institution. Perhaps it was among the many exhibits that Josephine honed her curiosity about life elsewhere.

A tomboy as a young girl, she grew up to be a beautiful woman by all accounts, with a personality that made her feel at ease in multiple groups of people. This last trait would become her hallmark in her adventurous life with Robert Peary.

In 1882 after she graduated as valedictorian from business college, her father fell gravely ill, and Josephine took over his job at the Smithsonian. She stayed at the Smithsonian until 1886 when she became engaged to Peary.

Peary, a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, received orders shortly after the wedding to report to Philadelphia Naval Yard. While in Philadelphia, he began exploring options for his current fascination: Greenland. He wanted to be the man who figured out whether Greenland was an island or an extension peninsula of an Arctic continent.

In 1891, having received funding from the National Academy of Sciences, Peary and Josephine set out for Greenland. A five-man crew accompanied them, but Josephine would be the first white woman to travel on an Arctic exploration. Indeed, in 1891, women explorers were a rare species.

As adventurous as the trip sounded, Josephine quickly became the cook, the nurse, and a facilitator with the native Inuit people. The trip lasted almost a year, and several times Peary would go off on a side excursion and be out of communication until he returned. Josephine was left alone during those times, with only a handful of native Inuit for company. So she taught herself how to hunt and shoot. Once the expedition returned stateside, Peary began seeking funding for his next trip.

This time, Josephine arranged for a cook, a doctor, and a practical nurse. Josephine was seven months pregnant, the trip would last two years, and she intended to write a book about her experiences in the Arctic.

The baby, Marie, was born healthy, and Josephine and the baby flourished despite the long Arctic winter. Josephine worked on her writing that would later become her first book, My Arctic Journal, and her second book, The Snow Baby.

In the summer of 1894, a ship arrived in Greenland looking for the explorers. Even though Peary had stipulated no supplies for two years, reserves were accepted, and several crew members decided to return to the United States. Peary insisted that Josephine and the baby return as well.

Josephine reluctantly came home to Washington with her daughter. But then the reality that all the funding had been spent on the unexpected supply ship meant no money for a boat to retrieve Perry in the summer of 1895.

Although usually a private person, Josephine joined the speakers’ circuit. The president of the National Geographic Society agreed to give all proceeds from ticket sales of her talks toward financing Peary’s return ship. Soon, other venues offered the same. Josephine also used the royalties from her first book to help fund his rescue. The cost of this rescue was $10,000 – what would be well over $250,000 today.

Finally, in 1895 Peary was able to return to America. However, by 1898, he journeyed again to the Arctic, now looking for the elusive North Pole. This journey was slated for four years while Josephine remained home and wrote her second book, The Snow Baby.

After learning that Peary had taken an Inuit mistress and given her two children, Josephine decided it was time she found her husband. In 1900 with young Marie in tow, Josephine booked passage on a supply ship to rendezvous with the Peary camp.

However, travel was slow, and the ship became embedded in Arctic ice 200 miles south of the Peary camp. Josephine had no alternative but to winter aboard the boat with her seven-year-old daughter.

This ordeal would have been enough to break most women, but Josephine soldiered on, teaching Marie her school subjects daily and taking her daughter out onto the frozen landscape to explore.

In the spring of 1901Peary found the ship and reconciled with Josephine and Marie.

For the next eight years, Peary would leave on several Arctic expeditions, but by now, Josephine had two children and stayed behind with them.

Josephine Peary spent three winters and eight summers in the Arctic and wrote three books about her own Arctic exploits. This was at a time in history before anyone had automobiles, let alone go off exploring a wild frontier.

She became a notable speaker and was awarded the National Geographic Medal for her Arctic accomplishments later in life.

Peary claimed he reached the North Pole, 90 degrees north, in 1909. What made this feat all the more remarkable was that the exact spot was located in constantly shifting polar seas.

Would he have accomplished all his exploits without the help of Josephine? It is a question worth pondering.

Robert Peary died in 1920, and Josephine retired to Maine, dying in 1955. Both the Peary’s are buried side by side in Arlington National Cemetery.

Josephine’s story inspires me, once again affirming that every woman deserves to have her story told.

I am busy right now with speaking engagements about my newest book, OPENING CLOSED DOORS: THE STORY OF JOSIE C. MURRAY. Please visit my website, https://www.lindasittig.com, to learn more about the book and me.

~linda

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Josie Cook Murray: Unsung Hero of the Civil Rights Movement

Posted on May 1, 2023 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

Do you own a library card?

Have you ever walked into a library to use their materials?

Have you ever checked out a library book?

Like many Americans, you most likely answered YES to at least one of the preceding questions because public libraries are a gift to American communities.

But once upon a time, many public libraries weren’t so public. During the Jim Crow Era (1877 – 1964), many public libraries, especially in the South, were restricted to whites only.

It would take the courageous actions of a young African-American woman, Josie Cook Murray to ignite the spark that would eventually become part of the flame for Civil Rights.

THE BEGINNING

Born in 1920 in Purcellville, a small southern town in western Loudoun County, Virginia, Josie was one of five children born to Junius and Bertha Cook. Her grandparents were Joseph and Lena Cook, forward-thinking African-Americans who realized the importance of education and helped establish the Willing Workers Hall as a school for children of color.

Josie’s entire childhood was defined by segregation. Schools, restaurants, and even the town library were designated whites only. This meant African-Americans could only buy a take-out meal or ice cream from a window in the back of a restaurant. All schooling for children of color ended after seventh grade because the only high school in town was reserved for whites. And no African American ever set foot in the town library.

Josie and her extended family lived in a section of town called the Color Line. And when Josie finished seventh grade without the prospect of additional education, she asked her grandmother, Lena Mama, to teach her everything about sewing.

A quick and talented learner, Josie quickly moved from hemming skirts and pants to more complicated tasks like repurposing an old outfit into a new dress. At age twenty, she married Samuel Murray, a local upholsterer with a reputation for quality work. Together, they bought a house across the street from Josie’s mother and set up their combined business in an outdoor building on their property.

By her mid-thirties, Josie attracted Black and white clients from as far away as Washington D.C., and it would be one of those clients who would change Josie’s destiny.

In December of 1956, Mrs. Mabel Moore came to The Shop. She wanted Josie to make Austrian shades for Moore’s weekend home near Hillsboro. Josie agreed, but then Mrs. Moore explained that the pattern for the shades would be in a library book.

Josie must have felt disappointed, knowing that the library was whites only. However, she agreed to the task.

After talking it over with Sam, Josie and Sam decided to go to the library together after New Year’s. And they did. Dressed as if they were going to church, they proceeded up the front walk, opened the doors, and walked in.

Josie approached the circulation desk, but the librarian told them to leave because Negroes were prohibited in the library. Josie held her ground. Then the librarian told them to call the head of the Library Board. Sam walked over to the pay phone on the wall and called Mr. Emerick, who suggested he could check the book out for Josie.

But something must have snapped in Josie, and she refused his help. Together, Josie and Sam left the library and went home. Then Josie called Mrs. Moore and told her she could not take the job because she was not allowed in the library.

Mrs. Moore was surprised and asked Josie to ‘sit tight’ until tomorrow.

Mrs. Moore called back the next day, explaining that she had discussed the situation with her brother-in-law. They both felt that Josie and Sam had every right to check out a book from the public library.

When Josie asked who the brother-in-law was, Mrs. Moore answered. “Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States.

HISTORY IN THE MAKING

What happened next set off an unheralded uproar. The town became divided over the issue of the library being open to all. Oliver E. Stone, a lawyer from Washington D.C., took on the case pro bono, representing Josie and Sam.

For many weeks, Josie and Sam were the recipients of harassment, and just when they were ready to give up…….

Well, to find out how Josie’s story ends, you will need to read my new book, OPENING CLOSED DOORS: THE STORY OF JOSIE C. MURRAY.

The book will be released on May 10th and can be ordered from bookstores and online.

It is a privilege to bring Josie’s long overdue story to light. A profound thank you goes to Linda Jackson King, Josie’s niece, who collaborated with me on Josie’s story.

~ Linda

Posted in short biographies, strong women, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 12 Comments

Joan B. Mansfield: She Gave Away Her Fortune to Benefit Others

Posted on April 1, 2023 by lhsittig@verizon.net

By Linda Harris Sittig

You may not recognize Joan Beverly Mansfield, but you most likely have played a part in her life.

JOAN’S EARLY LIFE

Born in 1928 in Minnesota to a storekeeper father, and a mom who played the violin, Joan grew up during the Depression. Her early dreams included becoming a nurse or veterinarian; instead, she became an accomplished musician. The piano and the organ were her specialties. By age 15, she gave piano lessons to children, and by age 29, she played the organ nightly for Minneapolis’s highly successful Criterion restaurant.

During one of her sessions, her future husband watched her play. She was an attractive blonde with an outgoing personality. He was smitten, but Joan was already married.

Fast forward twelve years, and the two meet again. Sparks flew, Ray proposed, but Joan turned him down. However, Ray persisted. Six months later, both divorced their current spouses and married each other.

Not an auspicious way to start a marriage, but they stayed together for fifteen years until he died.

He, being Ray Kroc.

JOAN’S MARRIAGE

Yes, that Ray Kroc of McDonald’s. As you may know, he turned a small hamburger enterprise into one of the most lucrative restaurant chains ever. Not only was Ray Kroc an aggressive businessman, but he was also a heavy drinker.

Dismayed by his drinking, Joan Kroc started an alcohol education charity called Operation Cork (Kroc spelled backward). She started small, helping produce addiction treatment videos. This step began what would become her legacy – a philanthropist who funded charities to help people in need.

When Ray died in 1984, Joan became the largest shareholder in the McDonald’s corporation and inherited 500 million dollars. Yes, you read that correctly. 500 million dollars. More money than anyone could ever spend in a lifetime. A philanthropist may never have been Ray’s middle name, but Joan made it her goal to use his fortune to support worthy causes.  And boy, did she.

JOAN BECOMES A PHILANTHROPIST

Six months after Ray’s death, a gunman entered the McDonald’s in San Ysidro, California, and opened fire. Twenty-one people were killed. As Joan grieved the horrific event, she also went into action and established the San Ysidro Survivors Fund to help the families involved.

Two months later, she attended the National Women’s Conference for Prevention of Nuclear War and promptly dedicated 3 million dollars to supporting nuclear disarmament.

And she continued. Her only stipulation was that she would never give to a cause that approached her for money. For each cause she supported, she did so because of her belief that the organization to whom she was bequeathing money existed to benefit mankind.

Here are just a few of her gifts that made me smile:

3.3 million to the San Diego Zoo

1 million to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital

1 million to the American Red Cross.

60 million to the Ronald McDonald Children’s Charities

200 million to National Public Radio

10 million to the San Diego Opera

18.5 million to the San Diego Hospice

1 million to Special Olympics

3 million to the Catholic Diocese of San Diego for a homeless shelter

50 million to Notre Dame University for an Institute for Peace Studies

50 million to San Diego University for an Institute for Peace Studies

1.5 billion to the Salvation Army for building community centers

While Joan admittedly enjoyed beautiful clothes, jewelry, and traveling in her private jet, she earned the nickname of St. Joan of the Arches. In giving away her fortune, she helped thousands involved with animal welfare, homelessness, sick children, nuclear disarmament, and the arts. And just as she had made many of her contributions anonymously, she rarely drew attention to herself.

Near the end of her life, when at age 75, she had been diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer, Joan often took a drive and sat outside the Kroc Rolando Park Center in San Diego. It had been one of the first Salvation Army Community Centers she had sponsored. And it had grown and flourished, seeing an attendance in its first year of 400,000 people.

Joan sat in the car, quietly enjoying seeing families playing, learning, and growing together.

So, the next time you order an Egg McMuffin, Chicken McNuggets, or even a Quarter Pounder, think of Joan Kroc and how McDonald’s was never just about fast food.

Thank you to blog follower Ed Jahn who wrote to me and suggested I learn about Joan Kroc. I am so glad I did! If you have a woman I should research, please email me: linda@lindasittig.com.

ANNOUNCEMENTS!!

THIS MONTH MARKS THE BEGINNING OF MY TWELFTH YEAR OF WRITING STRONG WOMEN! WHICH CALCULATES TO STORIES OF 132 DIFFERENT STRONG WOMEN WHO DARED TO CHALLENGE THE RULES AND PERSEVERED TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THIS WORLD.

Stay tuned to next month when I have an exciting announcement to make concerning one of my favorite strong women of all times – Josie Murray.

Sign up on the right sidebar to become a blog follower and encourage at least one or two friends to do the same. Remember, “Every Woman Deserves To Have Her Story Told.”

~ Linda

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