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

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments

Eleanor Jackson Piel: Defender of the Downtrodden

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

by Linda Harris Sittig

Eleanor Jackson Piel might owe her amazing law career to 8 words uttered to her by an immature college boy who said, “You’re not smart enough to be a lawyer.”

Her reaction? She promptly applied to law school.

Born in 1920, Eleanor experienced prejudice against minorities at an early age when her mother told not to tell anyone she was Jewish. It didn’t seem fair. Her father was Jewish and she saw nothing wrong with that part of her heritage. From an early age she became aware of how prejudice and injustice can go hand in hand.

In college she studied journalism for three years at UCLA. Then in her senior year she decided to transfer to UC-Berkeley. It was at Berkeley that those 8 words changed her destiny. The year was 1940 and she was denied admittance to Berkeley Law because the dean told her that females always had nervous breakdowns.

Did that stop Eleanor? Absolutely not. She applied to law school at the University of Southern California. Not only was she accepted, she made the law review there and then transferred to Berkeley’s Law School after one year. Eleanore received her law degree in 1943.

After law school, Eleanor became a law clerk for Judge Louis Goodman in San Francisco. The following year Judge Goodman was asked to preside over a case in Humboldt County and he took Eleanor with him. The case was United States vs. Masaaki Kuwabara.

In this case 27 young men, born in America, but of Japanese ancestry had been arrested because they refused to sign up for the draft. All of them, and their families, had been taken from their homes after the tragedy of Pearl Harbor and incarcerated behind barbed wire at the Tule Lake Internment Camp. Even though they were all American citizens, they were held as prisoners.

When they received orders to register for the draft, they refused.

Eleanor was shocked that the 27 men were facing felony charges from their own country who had allegedly found these men to be disloyal to America based solely on their heritage. She urged Judge Goodman to find an impartial lawyer to represent the men. This event was the watershed that would define her.

in 1945 Eleanor took a job in Washington D.C. She quickly became dismayed with all the back room politics. By 1948 she had returned to California with the realization that the only law firm that would meet her high standards would be one she started herself. And she wanted to do criminal law.

For the several years she worked solo. Then at a party she met Gerard Piel, the publisher of Scientific American. They married in 1955 and moved to New York City where Eleanor reestablished her law practice.

Although best known for her criminal practice, Eleanor also represented many civil rights cases, like defending white teacher Sandra Adickes who had accompanied six Black students to a segregated lunch counter in Mississippi. Eleanor argued the case all the way to the Supreme Court and won.

One of her more famous cases was the Death Row Brothers. She represented the two high school dropouts who had been charged with a murder, even though there was no hard evidence to support the conviction. The prosecution’s case was plagued with so many errors that Eleanor was finally able to persuade a judge to issue a stay of execution. He agreed – 16 hours before the execution was scheduled. Five years later the brothers were released, still maintaining their innocence.

Eleanor went on to defend a convicted rapist and used DNA technology to prove his innocence, after the man had spent 17 years in prison for his supposed crime. She took on a gender discrimination suit of a 13 year old prodigy girl who was denied admission to Stuyvesant High School because of her gender. And later Eleanor represented 50 women professors at Albert Einstein College who all alleged that they were receiving less salary than their male counterparts.

Eleanor Piel didn’t always win, but she did always give her best try. She took cases well into her 90s, and died recently at the age of 102. May we all take a cue from her and follow our convictions with passion and perseverance.

Thank you to blog follower Rick Rice who suggested I learn Eleanor’s story. I am so glad I did!

Linda:)

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Fanny Eyal Ben-Ami: Tenacious Holocaust Heroine

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

by Linda Harris Sittig

January was Holocaust Remembrance Month, paying homage to the 11 million victims of the Holocaust. It was almost seventy-eight years ago, in 1945, the death camp of Auschwitz was liberated, and the world at large learned about the horrors of the concentration camps.

All of the stories of the Holocaust are emotional on so many levels, but every once in a while, a story emerges that graces us with courage, triumph, and hope. Fanny Ben-Ami is that story.

I rarely write about Strong Women who are still living, but Fanny’s story is so compelling that I chose her for this month’s Strong Woman.

BEFORE THE WAR

Born into a Jewish family in 1930 in Baden-Baden, Germany, Fanny was five years old when her parents and two younger sisters fled to Paris, France, due to Adolf Hitler’s increased power. When WWII broke out in September of 1939, Fanny’s father was promptly arrested by the French secret police. Eight months later, Fanny’s mother sent her three young daughters into hoped-for safety at Chateau de Chaumont, an orphanage aligned with the O.S.E. – Children’s Aid Society.

Under their protection, Fanny watched over her little sisters in the orphanage for three years and tried to cheer up the other children, all of whom missed their families.

Then in July of 1942, a villager alerted the Gestapo that Jewish children were being harbored in the orphanage. The children were quickly scattered to other safe havens inside Vichy, France.

The following Spring, Fanny and her sisters reunited briefly with their mother in Vichy. However, with the Gestapo drawing closer, the O.S.E. decided the children would be safer in the Swiss Alps. Holding her daughters’ hands, Madame Eyal tearfully told the children they would all be together again as she watched them board the bus bound for the train to Switzerland.

THE DANGEROUS JOURNEY

A seventeen-year-old girl was in charge of the children on their journey but panicked when, close to the border, Nazi soldiers boarded the train. She refused to go on. In an instant, Fanny led the children off the train and helped the group climb inside a postal railcar instead.

After the postal train, the children were discovered by French police, who imprisoned them for several days without food in the hopes that the children would give up the names of their parents. None of the children cooperated. The group numbered 28; the youngest child was four, and Fanny was only thirteen.

Fanny finally managed to smuggle the children out a bathroom window. Once in the village, she led them in line, all singing, posing as children on a camp excursion. When they reached the outskirts of the town, Fanny ran with the children into the forest. Knowing that Switzerland lay to the east, Fanny encouraged the children not to lose hope, even as they grew weaker due to a lack of enough food.

After several days, the group was suddenly only 5 km (3 miles) from the Swiss border. They were now close to freedom. They ran as fast as they could, dashing across a vast open meadow and helping each other through a break in the chain fence into the demilitarized zone. But Margalit, the youngest, had fallen behind. It was Fanny who ran back to retrieve the young child and carried her while Nazi soldiers fired at them.

As they finally made it to the freedom of Switzerland, Fanny collapsed on safe ground. All twenty-eight children, including her two sisters, were safe at last.

AFTER THE WAR

For the remaining years of the war, Fanny stayed in Switzerland, helping send messages to French Resistance members. After the war, Fanny learned that her mother had died in Auschwitz and her father in Lubin.

When the war ended in 1945, Fanny returned to France, working with an aunt in the fur business. In 1955 she went to Israel to visit her sisters Erica and Georgette. Once in Israel, Fanny felt as though she had come home. She met and fell in love with a musician, and they married and raised a family in the suburbs of Tel Aviv. Once her children were grown, Fanny became a watercolor artist and eventually a writer, penning her memoir of that dangerous journey so long ago. Her memoir is Le Journal de Fanny. In 2016 her book was made into a movie, Fanny’s Journey.

Still alive at this writing, Fanny has spoken to groups of children and adults in Europe and America. She is truthful that she never intended to be a heroine, she only wanted to save her sisters and herself, but then she couldn’t abandon the other children.

She ends every speaking engagement with this last sentence: “Be careful, it could all happen again.”

Sobering words for our time.

I hope you enjoyed Fanny’s story. If you are not yet a follower of this blog and would like to receive the blog once a month, sign up with your email on the right sidebar.

I am eagerly awaiting the debut of my newest book, a children’s book titled Opening Closed Doors, which will be available on May 9, 2023. It is the story of a strong woman, Josie Murray, whose courage forced the desegregation of public libraries in Virginia in 1957.

~ Linda

Posted in short biographies, strong women | Tagged , , | 16 Comments

Belle Jennings Benchley: Animal Rights Champion

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

by Linda Harris Sittig

Long before we had Hollywood stars campaigning for animal rights, there was Belle Jennings Benchley.

BEFORE THE ZOO

Born in August 1882 to a strait-laced Victorian family in rural Kansas, Belle’s future was mapped out to become a teacher, a wife, and a mother. The family moved to a different rural area outside of San Diego, California, when Belle was five years old, and she flourished in the school housed inside her house.

In 1906 she married Henry Benchley, and they had a son, Edward. The marriage, however, did not thrive; by 1925, she was a single mother.

Then, as the fates would intervene, a group of five forward-thinking men comprised the San Diego Zoological Society. Together they had gathered up a few abandoned circus animals to open a zoo with the primary goal of teaching children about wildlife. And they needed a bookkeeper.

Never mind that Belle had no experience or training in accounting; she somehow landed the job. And that event would change her life and American zoos forever.

In the 1920s, zoos worldwide had one main goal– to make money. Food was whatever was the cheapest to provide, and the life expectancy of a wild animal thrust into a zoo was abysmal – often less than a month. The welfare of the animals was a distant thought. Going to a zoo back then, you would have seen the animals kept in tight metal cages where the audience could jab objects at them.

BELLE AND THE ANIMALS

From the beginning, Belle became more than a bookkeeper. Day by day, she went cage by cage to learn the feeding procedures and upkeep of each creature inhabiting the still very small San Diego Zoo. She fielded phone calls from the public about the zoo, checked on the welfare of the animals each day, and began to make suggestions on how to improve the animals’ lives while in captivity.

As time passed, Belle assumed more and more duties at the zoo, and she never stopped making suggestions on how the animals could be treated better. She was the first to suggest they do away with cages entirely and build open-air habitats instead. This was unheard of in her day, and all the experts were aghast – think of the cost!

Within two years, Dr. Wegeforth, the head of the Zoological Society, named her as the executive secretary of the zoo while she acted as the full-time director. She was the first woman in the world to hold that kind of position. And Belle thoroughly used her title; she researched how the zoo could build open-air habitats surrounded by moats and feed the animals the same diet they ate in the wild. Then she hired a full-time zoo veterinarian to take care of the animals and set up an animal hospital on-site.  

Survival rates at the San Diego Zoo shot skyward, and Belle’s programs were instrumental in having successful zoo breeding and live births. Not stopping there, she also developed a zoo nursery so the female animals could safely give birth and have their offspring nurtured. She continued her discipline by walking the zoo at least once a day and inspecting how the animals were treated. Any zoo worker caught being cruel to an animal was fired on the spot.

THE GIRAFFES

Then came 1938, and the rest of America was still reeling from the Great Depression. Belle learned that there were two African giraffes that she could obtain for the San Diego Zoo. And back then, as now, giraffes were awe-inspiring creatures.

While her colleagues looked on, Belle arranged to have the giraffes shipped from Africa to New York and then hired a man with a specialized outfitted rig to drive the giraffes from New York to California. So many problems could have sabotaged the trip, but the two giraffes arrived at a heady celebration within the zoo gates.

After her much-heralded success with the giraffes, Belle instituted a school program where children were bused to the zoo for what today we would call a field trip. Once at the zoo, they were accompanied in groups to learn about the different animals, their native habitats, and how we, as humans, can protect animals from possible extinction.

And always, the visitors marveled how the animals would perk up when Belle approached a habitat. It was as if they could sense her extreme love for everyone. And she did care for every species, although she professed that the primates were her favorites.

Belle went on to write and publish informative publications to teach the public about the happenings at the zoo. She penned memoirs of her remarkable life and often appeared on radio and television to encourage visitors to see the latest exhibition. And for Belle, the animals’ welfare always trumped the visitors’ wishes.

Even throughout WWII, The San Diego Zoo flourished under Belle’s visionary leadership. In 1949 she became the first female president of the Zoological Society, but when she finally retired in 1953, she retained her simple nickname of The Zoo Lady. What had started as a small group of cast-off circus animals had become the bellwether of zoos worldwide.

HER LEGACY

Belle Jennings Benchley died in 1973, and on her gravestone is engraved, The Zoo Lady. At the top is the etching of a gorilla.

I learned about Belle from blog follower Mary Lou Muller who suggested I read West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge. The book is based on the 1938 adventure of bringing the giraffes to San Diego. After reading the book, I wanted to learn all I could about Belle Benchley and how her legacy was to transform the concept of zoos.

A few months ago, I found myself at the North Carolina State Zoo next to the open-air exhibit for giraffes. The next thing I knew, I had climbed a platform and fed Romaine lettuce to a 3,000-pound giraffe, who was delighted to reach out his enormous tongue and pluck the lettuce from my hand. It was an amazing experience, and now I know I owe it all to the vision of Belle Benchley.

I hope you enjoyed Belle’s story. Please pass this month’s blog on to friends who would also enjoy reading about another unusual Strong Woman. If you are not yet a follower, sign up with your email on the right sidebar, and you will automatically receive the blog once a month.

Right now, I am watching the birds at my back feeder and ready to research my next Strong Woman.

Wishing you the best in the new year and a happy, healthy 2023!

~ Linda

Posted in short biographies, strong women | Tagged , , | 22 Comments

Hedwig Kiesler: More than Just a Pretty Face

Posted on December 1, 2022 by lhsittig@verizon.net

By Linda Harris Sittig

Do you use Wifi or GPS, or a cell phone?

Then you should know the story of one strong woman whose research and inventions were the precursor to much of our day-to-day technology. But I bet the name Hedwig Kiesler is not familiar to you.

She did go by another name, one you might recognize, and she did become famous, but not for her brilliant mind.

Hedwig Kiesler was born in Vienna, Austria, in November 1914. She was an only child, adored by her father and criticized often by her mother. Much of her later interest in tinkering came from long walks with her father, who often pointed out objects in Vienna and explained to young Hedwig the technology behind them.

Hedwig might have grown up to become a serious scientist, but she was endowed with incredible beauty and a desire to act on stage. Because of her stunning looks, wavy dark hair, sultry green eyes, porcelain skin, and hourglass figure, by age 16, she had procured a part in a play in Vienna.  Within a few years, her beauty and acting set her on her life’s course.

But Europe was on the brink of turmoil in 1933 when Friedrich Mandl saw Hedwig performing in a play. He was smitten by her beauty and launched a one-person ploy to win her heart. Although he was older, he was also one of the wealthiest men in Austria. Her parents encouraged Hedwig to accept Mandl because of his power and wealth. Hedwig’s father hoped that Mandl would be able to take care of Hedwig as politics were becoming unstable due to the rise of both Adolf Hitler and Mussolini.

The marriage became a disaster due to Mandl’s obsessive desire for control and his mandate that Hedwig gives up the theater and devotes her entire time to being his wife.  Because he owned a lucrative munitions company, the Mandls often entertained the most powerful men in Austria, Germany, and Italy. Although miserable in her marriage, Hedwig decided to act as a dutiful wife while listening intently to the men complain about the failures in weaponry, especially the technical problems with submarines.

After the death of her father and her mother’s insistence that Hedwig learn to be a ‘proper wife,’ Hedwig takes a bold leap and escapes from her husband, fleeing first to Paris and then to London. While in London in 1937, she met the famous Hollywood movie producer Louis B. Mayer – head of MGM studios. He was on a talent-searching trip, and Hedwig was on a search of her own – a way to get to Hollywood.

Mr. Mayer, impressed with her outstanding beauty, offered her a job at $125.00 a week. She turned him down because she believed she was worth more. This is in the day when a loaf of bread only costs 9 cents. Hedwig then sold some of the jewelry from her marriage and booked a one-way ticket on the same ocean liner that Mr. Mayer was traveling back to the United States. By the end of that trip, Hedwig convinced him to offer her a more lucrative contract. He offered $500.00 a week, and this time she accepted.

Hedwig’s move to Hollywood was the escape and artistic opportunity she craved. And while Germany was beginning to succumb to the charisma of Adolf Hitler and Jews were facing the beginning of what would eventually become the Holocaust, Hedwig’s mother refused to leave her lifestyle in Austria.

Hedwig shot to fame after Mr. Mayer changed her name to Hedy Lamarr and cast her in films with famous co-stars like Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable, James Stewart, and William Powell, among others. Her ability to lose herself in her character made her performances outstanding and her beauty unforgettable. But Hedwig, now Hedy, needed more. She needed to make a difference in helping her fellow Europeans back home.

In 1940 German torpedoes sank a civilian transport ship, the SS City of Benares, carrying 90 children fleeing worn torn Britain for safety in Canada. Horrified and outraged, Hedy turned her inexhaustive energy to inventing a device that would enable radio communications from ship to torpedo to ‘hop’ and thereby eliminate the jamming of signals by the enemy. She drew upon her memory of tinkering with her father and the conversations of the Mandl’s dinner parties. Working tirelessly with musician George Antheil, Hedy and George did invent a radio frequency hopping system and were issued a U.S. patent number 2, 292, 387 on August 11, 1942.

Although they were unsuccessful in selling the technology to the United States Navy (who turned them down with the reputed comment that an invention by a woman would not be reliable), their invention led the way later for other scientists to develop Bluetooth and GPS technology.  

Hedy Lamarr went on to act in Hollywood in many famous films and was eventually voted into the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame in 2014 and earned a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. She would go on to marry six more times. Once her eyesight began to fail in the 1980s, she moved to Florida almost as a recluse and died in 2000 at age 85. Her estate at death was $3.3 million.

Austria issued a stamp in Hedy’s honor, and the face looks similar to the face of Wonder Woman. Perhaps because Hedy was a true wonder woman.

If you enjoyed Hedy’s story and would like to read more Strong Women in History stories, please sign up on the right sidebar. You will then receive the blog once a month.

Wishing you and yours a lovely holiday season and peace in the new year.

~ Linda

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Alice Guy-Blaché

Posted on November 1, 2022 by lhsittig@verizon.net

By Linda Harris Sittig

photo courtesy of Gerd Altmann with Pixabay

While my husband and I lived in rentals for 90 days this year, waiting for our new house to be finished, we watched films every night.

A lot of films.

We revisited old favorites and fascinating documentaries and tuned into new releases. And I did not pay much attention to the directors until it hit me that most names were male.

So, I searched to see if there had been any female directors in the early days of cinema. And that is how I stumbled across Alice Guy-Blaché.

The Young Alice

Born in Paris in 1873 after her parents escaped a smallpox epidemic in Chile, Alice grew up surrounded by books. When her parents decided to return to Chile, Alice went to live with her French grandmother.

Throughout her childhood, she lived in both Chile and France. But when her father died in1891, Alice suddenly needed to support her mother. She trained as a typist and, by 1894, was working for a French camera company. The company’s manager was Leon Gaumont, who became involved in France’s fledgling motion picture industry and chose Alice as his secretary.

The following year Gaumont invited Alice to accompany him to the Lumière event, the first demonstration in France of a filmed screen projection. Alice was fascinated but decided that a narrative film with a story would be more enjoyable.

In a bold move, she wrote a screenplay and convinced Gaumont to let her direct it on the screen. That movie, La Fée Au Choux (The Fairy of the Cabbages), earned Alice the fame of being considered the first filmmaker to develop narrative filmmaking systematically. And she was probably the only female director from 1896 to the turn of the twentieth century. Sadly, that first 1896 film of hers no longer exists.

Alice Begins Her Extraordinary Career

From 1896 – 1906, Alice became the head of the production for Gaumont’s company. She went on to direct, produce, or supervise approximately 600 silent films with him, each lasting anywhere from one minute to 30 minutes, but all were narrative dramas or comedies.

Then in 1907, Alice Guy resigned from her position with Gaumont and married a Gaumont employee, Herbert Blaché. Gaumont sent them to America to open an American arm of the Gaumont Production Company. And after a rocky start, the couple went to Flushing, Queens, New York, and helped launch the Gaumont Chronophone company to have Gaumont’s silent films distributed as licensed films.

Their most significant competitor was Thomas A. Edison.

In another bold move, in 1910, Alice decided to start her own company, Solax. She continued to make silent films using the Gaumont studio and distributing them through Gaumont. By 1912, Solax was making enough money that Alice built her own $100,000 studio for Solax in Fort Lee, New Jersey. It was the largest pre-Hollywood studio in America, and she became the first American woman to own a film production studio.

To give you some perspective on the $100,000, a loaf of bread in America in 1912 cost 7 cents.

Several of the Solax films that stand out today are the ones where the hero was a woman. However, Solax as a company only thrived financially for two years, and once the popularity of short films ceased, Alice and Herbert then worked as directors for other film companies.

In 1918 Alice almost died from the Spanish Flu, and Herbert moved her to California, mainly because he wanted to be a part of Hollywood. They divorced in 1920, but both continued to direct films. After Herbert died in 1953, Alice returned to France, where she lectured on filmmaking and continued to write scripts.

Alice’s Legacy

She directed, produced, or supervised about 1,000 films in her lifetime—an astonishing accomplishment. And even if you’ve never heard her name, she became a legend in filmmaking. So much so that Alfred Hitchcock often quoted her.

She died in New Jersey at age 94 and is buried in Mahwah, New Jersey.

However, in September 2019, Alice Guy-Blaché was included in The New York Times series titled “Overlooked No More.”

I love it!

The next time you watch a movie, pay attention to who directed it.

If you enjoyed this month’s blog and want to become a Strong Woman follower, sign up on the right sidebar with your email. You will be notified only once a month for each new blog post.

Meanwhile, you can read more about me on my website: www.strongwomeninhistory.com. And stay tuned. My newest book, Opening Closed Doors, should be out by the first of the year with a strong young woman you won’t forget.

~ Linda

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Virginia Estelle Randolph: Keeping the Dream Alive

Posted on October 1, 2022 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

Traditional One-Room Schoolhouse in Rural America, photo from Pixabay, Roy Harryman

In the early 1900s, Virginia E. Randolph’s dream was for every Black child in the South to get a decent education.

She was not the only one to hold fast to that dream. Today, the names of many educators from rural Black schools are only vaguely remembered in their small communities. And the one-room schoolhouses they ran during the Jim Crow Era of American history have also mostly disappeared.

The Rosenwald Schools

From 1917 to 1932, thousands of these one-room schools, the Rosenwald Schools, sought to provide at least an elementary education for Black children in the South. The Rosenwald Schools resulted from a unique collaboration between two visionary men. One man, a Jewish German immigrant, Julius Rosenwald, made his fortune establishing the Sears Roebuck Company.  The other was famed educator Booker T. Washington. Together they formed a foundation that allocated funding to develop over 5,300 schools serving over 700,000 Black students across the South.

The schools were staffed by teachers trained at historically Black colleges, but the supplies like chalkboards and maps were castaways from the segregated white schools. The buildings were often white clapboard and faced north or south so a substantial amount of sunshine could flow through the windows, providing light. Each front door was wide enough to accompany a passel of children dashing back in after recess held open by the teacher as they rang the bell for students to return to their seats.

And even though the Rosenwald schools continued operating into the 1950s when Brown vs. Board of Education struck down segregation in public schools, the Rosenwald Schools continued to function without electricity or indoor plumbing.

Now for Virginia D. Randolph.

The child of formerly enslaved people, Virginia Estelle Randolph, was born in Virginia in 1870. Her birth coincided with the formation of the public school system in Virginia, a segregated system where Black students could not attend schools with whites. At twenty-two, Virginia had completed her formal schooling and took a job teaching in Henrico County, Virginia. She taught at the one-room Mountain Road School. The building and grounds were unsightly, so Virginia whitewashed the school, planted flowers in the yard, and even bought gravel with her savings. She organized a Willing Worker Club and visited the community to encourage parents to support her efforts in improving the school. Next, she developed a unique teaching style that combined academic instruction with practical lessons in cooking, weaving, and gardening.

In 1908 the Superintendent of Schools in Henrico County approached the Board of the Jeanes Teaching Fund, asking that they supplement Virginia Randolph’s salary. Virginia then became the first Jeanes Supervisor Industrial Teacher and the supervisor of all the Black schools in her district. There were 20 Black schools in Henrico County, and for forty years, she traveled weekly to each of them to train teachers and build community support. As the success of her program grew, she also trained educators throughout Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia.

Not content for Black students to only have access to elementary education, Virginia began to champion for Black high schools to be built. In 1917, the Virginia Randolph Training Center (later called the Virginia Randolph High School) was established on Mountain Road, Glenn Allen, Virginia. The money to construct the school came from the Rosenwald Fund. 

Although Virginia never married or had children of her own, she cared for over 50 foster children in her lifetime. She retired from teaching in 1949 and passed in 1958 at age 88.

Throughout all the years of her life, she kept the dream alive.

Finding Virginia and Other Strong Women

~ People often ask me where I find my strong women. I keep my eyes and ears open. And I always stop at historical markers to read about the importance of that location. The markers are short history lessons in themselves. This was how I discovered the Rosenwald Schools.

https://www.historicrussellschool.org

Then I read that a former Rosenwald School was still standing in Durham County, North Carolina. A road trip ensued.

I stood in the yard of the Russell School and gazed up at the windows and the front door. I could almost hear the singing voices of students and imagine all the windows open to fresh air.  And I saluted the countless individuals like Virginia E. Randolph who worked tirelessly so that all children in America could become educated fairly.

If you enjoyed this month’s blog and are not yet a follower, please sign up on the right sidebar.  Although the blog is published only once a month, I am busy writing on other days. You can find my three published novels, Cut From Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, and Counting Crows, in bookstores, on Kindle, and online. My non-fiction book, B-52 DOWN, pays tribute to a five-person USAF crew, the community who searched for their downed plane, and the five wives who had to deal with the tragedy.

~ linda

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Pearl Kendrick and Grace Eldering: Saving Children’s Lives

Posted on September 1, 2022 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

While there is a current controversy over vaccinations, there was a time in our not-so-distant past when a vaccination could mean the difference between life and death for a young child.

EARLY HISTORY OF VACCINES

We currently think about the Covid vaccine, but vaccines have a much longer history. One of the earliest was Edward Jenner’s vaccine against smallpox in 1798. Louis Pasteur’s vaccine against rabies followed in 1885. Diphtheria, cholera, and typhoid vaccines came around the beginning of 1900. By the late 1920s, vaccines existed against tetanus and tuberculosis. And the list went on well into the 1950s when Jonas Salk developed the vaccine against polio.

If you look at the list of lifesaving vaccines and their inventors, you will notice that all the scientists were men.

Until Pearl Kendrick and Grace Eldering.

They spent their careers studying bacterial infections and one in particular, the Bordetella Pertussis, more familiarly known as whooping cough.

Many of us have had the DPT vaccine against Diphtheria, Pertussis, and Tetanus. But in the early 1930s, Pertussis killed almost 7,000 Americans a year – mostly young children and infants. And it was a horrible disease where the victim coughed violently, fought to breathe, gasping for breath, and desperately gulped air into their lungs, producing a barking type sound –whooping cough.

And there was no cure.

PEARL AND GRACE

Pearl Kendrick was born in 1890 in New York and attended college at Syracuse University and Columbia. Her main area of interest was the study of bacteriology. After college, she tried her hand at teaching but did not feel drawn to that as a career.

At the end of World War I (post-1918), significant strides in controlling infectious diseases were making medical leaps and bounds. As a result, state public health departments began searching for educated men and women with science degrees who could staff their labs. But most men with health science degrees took research positions at universities where the pay was more lucrative than in state public health departments.

Whom did that leave? Women with science backgrounds.

Pearl Kendrick applied and worked for the New York State Department of Health. Then before 1926, she was recruited to work for the Michigan State Department of Health, headed by visionary Cy Young. By 1926 he had named her director of the newly opened laboratory in Grand Rapids.

Pearl received a doctorate in Public Health from Johns Hopkins and returned to Grand Rapids with the singular goal of eradicating Pertussis, which was in full throttle at the time.

Grace Eldering was born in 1900 in Montana, and after college graduation, she took a job as a teacher. Like Pearl, Grace soon realized that a career in education held little appeal, and in 1928 she relocated to Michigan to work in the state laboratory in Lansing. After a year, she transferred to the laboratory in Grand Rapids and met Pearl Kendrick.

The two women became a workhorse duo working with a team of doctors, nurses, and other researchers. At first, their goal was to develop procedures to diagnose Pertussis and limit its contagious possibilities sooner and more quickly.

But then, in November 1932, their laboratory identified a Pertussis specimen. They worked day and night and, by January, had developed their first experimental Pertussis vaccine. Then came the months and years of clinical trials to prove the worthiness of the vaccine and eliminate any potential dangers. They conducted study after study but were always short on funds.

It took the help of Eleanor Roosevelt, who paid the laboratory in Grand Rapids a visit in 1936. Funding for additional staff soon came from the Federal Works Progress Administration, and by 1944 the American Medical Association added Kendrick and Eldering’s Pertussis vaccine to the list of recommended immunizations.

THEIR LEGACY

Deaths from this dreaded childhood disease dropped dramatically. Where Pertussis once claimed 7,000 lives in one year, the statistics showed only ten deaths in the early 1970s.

Today approximately 85 percent of children worldwide now receive the Pertussis vaccine, usually in the combo of a DPT shot.

Neither Pearl Kendrick nor Grace Eldering became famous for their remarkable achievement. They used their scientific knowledge gained from their Johns Hopkins doctorates plus all their years in the field to continue researching how to eradicate infectious diseases.

Neither woman married, and they continued their professional and personal relationship until Pearl died in 1980. They had lived quiet lives, content with the knowledge that their efforts had saved thousands of children.

Unfortunately, Pertussis isn’t dead. It has again raised its ugly head in areas where people decline to take advantage of the vaccine.

 I am indebted to fellow writer Richard Conniff, whose excellent March 2022 Smithsonian Magazine article prompted my curiosity to research Pearl and Grace for Strong Women’s status. Here is the link to his article: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/unsung-heroes-ended-deadly-plague-180979547/. That article is excerpted from Conniff’s upcoming book, Ending Epidemics: A History of Escape from Contagion.

If you enjoyed learning about Pearl Kendrick and Grace Eldering and are not yet a follower of this blog, please sign up on the right sidebar. My Strong Women in History stories are published on the first of each month.

You can also find my novels about Strong Women and Strong Men in local bookstores and online. Cut From Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, Counting Crows, and B-29 DOWN. I am working now on a new novel set during World War II. Find updates on my website: www.lindasittig.com

~ Linda

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