The 120 Strong Women I Know

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

by Linda Harris Sittig

Back in April 2012, I wrote these words:

Welcome to my blog – Strong Women in History. My name is Linda Harris Sittig, and if you have found your way here, you are most likely also intrigued by the many fascinating women in history whose lives made a difference. I have always been fascinated by the women who dared to be different, those who courageously stood up for what they believed, faced adversarial opponents, and who forged ahead to do something unique with their lives. Join me on the first of every month as I pay tribute to a Strong Woman in History.

In the previous year, I had made two life-changing discoveries.

  1. I had finished reading the biography of Cleopatra only to discover that old high school textbooks and Hollywood had warped my entire view of her. Instead, I learned that she was a truly accomplished woman who spoke eight languages, was well versed in military tactics, and believed in the importance of literacy for her people. Not exactly Elizabeth Taylor, who had portrayed her in the movie version.
  2. I had also discovered an ancestor, Ellen Canavan, who in 1861 had envisioned a better cloth for soldiers’ uniforms. No one took her seriously, so she partnered with a local factory owner, James Nolan, who was my great-grandfather. Together they created a strong cloth of combined wool and cotton for soldiers’ uniforms and sold the fabric to the U.S. government just as the Civil War exploded. Ellen, however, died a few years later and all the credit and the fortune went to my great-grandfather, who buried her with only his name for identification.

Armed with indignation over Cleopatra and Ellen Canavan, I set out to create a blog that would pay tribute to strong women. I started with Cleopatra but then decided to focus on strong women from history who should have become famous (like Ellen Canavan) but whose accounts had been forgotten.

Over the past ten years, I have profiled 120 women whose stories I brought back to life. I have tried to include women from multiple races, religions, nationalities, and locations worldwide.

It takes me approximately 5 – 6 hours per woman to research, write the first draft, edit, find a graphic, and create the WordPress blog. Some of the women’s stories have been easier to write than others, but each woman has left me with a renewed aspiration to do my part in making this a better world.

You can search the blog on the right sidebar to find previous stories, but here is a sampling of some of my favorites.

Sigridur Tomasdottir of Iceland was still a young woman in 1900 when she devoted her life to preserving the Gullfoss Waterfall from being bought by foreign investors for industrial use of hydroelectric power. Today, the Gullfoss Waterfall is one of Iceland’s most prominent tourist attractions.

Cicely Saunders of England became a doctor in 1957 and focused her energies on working with terminally ill patients. Ten years later, she opened the first public Hospice program and operated the program until her death at eighty-seven. Today, there are Hospice programs on every inhabitable continent.

Ka’ahumanu of Hawaii was one of King Kamehameha’s wives, who in the early 1800s bravely broke the taboo system that kept women subservient in the Hawaiian culture. The taboo system had lasted for over 1,500 years.

Josie Murray, in 1957, challenged the unwritten rule of segregation in her small southern town of Purcellville, Virginia, when she marched into the town library to check out a book. Denied access because of her race, Josie and her husband Sam worked with a lawyer to sue for the right to use a public library. Today all public libraries in the United States are open to everyone.

Edyth Fox was an energetic young woman who had worked for President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington D.C. But in 1954, she was a young mother of two boys and diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Refusing to let the disease ruin her life, Edyth became heavily involved with community activities for the next 40 years, earning the accolade of Multiple Sclerosis Mother of the Year.

Irena Sandler of Poland was a social worker in 1939 when the Nazi Army invaded her homeland. She immediately joined an underground network that worked to orchestrate escapes for hundreds of Jewish children trapped in the Warsaw ghetto. As each child escaped, Irena wrote their name on a scrap of paper and put it in a jar. By the end of WWII, Irena had multiple jars buried in a friend’s garden. Her effort was to keep the children’s names alive and hopefully be reunited with family.

Karin Bergöö was one of Sweden’s premier textile artists from the early 1900s. However, her art and her life were overshadowed by her famous husband, Carl Larsson, who is still one of the most well-known Swedish painters. However, if you visit an IKEA store, you will see what is known as ‘new Swedish design,’ the art style that Karin Bergöö Larsson started over 100 years ago.

And there were so many more…

Katie Hall Underwood, Emily Roebling, Margaret Sanger, Katherine Johnson, Susan Koerner, and hundreds more.

But perhaps my favorite was Isabelle Romée. I found her name while on a trip to France in a small, off-the-way museum in the countryside. If anyone deserves the Mother of the Year award, it would be Isabelle. Living in the 1400s, she spent most of her life trying to prove that her daughter had not practiced witchcraft. She petitioned the Vatican year in and year out to investigate her daughter’s case, but she died before learning that not only was her daughter exonerated, she became a saint. Isabelle’s daughter was Joan of Arc.

I salute Strong Women everywhere. In my writing room, I have this quote framed:

Here’s to strong women. May we know them. May we be them. May we raise them.

Happy birthday, blog! Onto year eleven!

~ Linda

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The Couney Family: Giving Preemies a Chance to Live

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

By Linda Harris Sittig

You’ve heard the adage, “It takes a village.” But sometimes, it takes just one family to make a profound difference. This month’s blog is not about a strong woman; it is about her family – the Couney Family of Brooklyn, New York.

And as in most good stories, the backstory sets the foundation.

THE BACK STORY

In the nineteenth century, babies born prematurely were considered genetic weaklings and often did not thrive. The mortality rate worldwide was high for children born 3-4 weeks early and weighing less than 5 pounds.

But in the mid-1850s, a French gynecologist named Dr. Etienne Tarnier started using special incubators to help premature babies survive.

By 1880 several research reports in France were extolling the virtues of incubators, even though medical authorities viewed the practice as quackery. Sixteen years later, Dr. Pierre Budin used the incubators with even greater success. In 1896 he gained permission to showcase six incubators, with preemies, to the World’s Fair in Berlin.

Martin Couney stared at the incubators at that exposition, impressed that people would pay to see such tiny babies lying in glass cribs. Two years later, Martin Couney immigrated to America, with dreams in his head of saving babies and making money.

CONEY ISLAND

Martin settled on Coney Island, New York, the most famous vacationland in America. It was known for its amusement parks, seaside bathing, and a 2.7-mile long Boardwalk. Coney Island attracted several thousand visitors every year.  Scraping together all the money he could find, Couney convinced the owners of Luna Park to let him set up an exhibit on the Boardwalk, where people could pay to see tiny babies.

Martin opened his incubator facility in 1903, and at just 10 cents a ticket, viewers flocked to his modest setup, called All the World Loves a Baby.

At first, he found only a few families willing to take a chance to save their premature babies’ lives. Martin did not charge the parents even a cent because he planned on the income generated from ticket sales to cover the cost of running the facility.

1904

The year 1904 was significant. Martin had by then hired a staff of six professional nurses, four registered and two wet nurses who rotated on a 24-hour schedule. In addition, he paid two local doctors to visit the facility daily. An early proponent of the importance of breastfeeding, Martin was adamant that the wet nurses stay as healthy as possible. They were immediately fired if caught smoking, drinking, or eating hot dogs (!). He was also an early proponent of the positive effect of babies being held, and every day each preemie was cuddled and gently rocked by a nurse.

It was also the year he fell in love with one of the professional nurses, Annabelle Segner. Marrying after a short courtship, Annabelle and Martin quickly became a team. Together they handled the intake of each preemie. The infant was immediately given a sponge bath, rubbed down with alcohol, swaddled, and given a small drop of brandy (if the baby was big enough to swallow) before being placed in a glass incubator kept at 96 degrees.

The facility was immaculate, the staff wore starched uniforms, and the babies were fed on a regular two-hour feeding schedule.

And to their credit, the Couneys took any preemie brought to them regardless of race, religion, or social class. And although it cost $15.00 (about $400 today) per incubator for the medical care, parents were never charged. Martin had been right. The entrance fee to the exhibit covered all the operating costs, good wages for the staff, and enough left for the Couney’s to open a second exhibit.

Then in 1907, Annabelle went into labor six weeks early and delivered a baby girl weighing only three pounds. They named her Hildegard.

BABY HILDEGARD

Annabelle and Martin immediately put Hildegard into their program. As each week went by, their baby daughter flourished and grew up to become a nurse at the facility. And although they hired barkers to stand outside the entrance to entice the crowd, the family considered their operation a small hospital, not a sideshow. In reality, it was a functioning neonatal intensive care unit.

I want to share that one of the Incubator Baby barkers was a clean-shaven, good-looking young man named Archie. Archie Leach worked for the Couney family for two years. But you would know him by his Hollywood name, Cary Grant.

SUMMARY

Annabelle died in 1936, and after Cornell Hospital opened the first New York premature Infant Station in 1943, Martin and Hildegard closed the Coney Island facility.

Today, of course, it would be considered unethical to house preemies in a public exhibit. But if you could talk to any parents whose preemie survived because of the Couney’s, I doubt they had any regrets.

Today, 1 in 10 babies born in America is premature. But thank goodness we have neonatal hospital facilities in all 50 states.

But from 1903 to 1943, the Couney family took in over 8,000 babies and boasted an 85% survival rate.

It took a family’s efforts to save thousands of preemie lives.

~ If you enjoyed this month’s Strong Women story, please sign up to follow the blog (on the right-hand side of the page). Then share the blog with friends.

You can always catch up with me on my website www.lindasittig.com. Right now, I am working on my fourth novel celebrating another unsung strong women in history. Happy Women’s History Month!

Linda😊

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Vera Cooper Rubin: Persistent Star Tracker

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

By Linda Harris Sittig

As a child, I was always fascinated by the stars. But unlike Vera Rubin, I never considered the possibility of studying them. The best I have done is put an app, The Night Sky, on my smartphone.

But Vera Rubin went way beyond my celestial interests. She became one of the premier American astronomers whose work changed our knowledge of the universe.

Never heard of her? That is why I am bringing you her story.

The Early Years

Born in Philadelphia in 1928 to Jewish immigrants, Vera showed a keen curiosity even as a child. When Vera was ten, the family moved to Washington D.C., and she slept facing a north window. One night she awoke to discover that the stars had moved! Wondering about this revelation, she decided she needed a telescope.

So, she convinced her father to help her build one. Crudely fashioned out of an industrial cardboard tube, Vera marveled at what she found in the inky darkness of the night sky.

Encouraged by her parents, she excelled at school and won a scholarship to attend prestigious Vassar College. Her high school physics teacher commented that she would probably be okay if she didn’t try to study science.

Wow, did she prove him wrong! She graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1948 from Vassar–the only astronomy major in her graduating class. Next, she applied to Princeton University for graduate school but was denied due to her gender.

Hmm. Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar but can’t get into Princeton because she is female.

She married Robert Rubin, whom she met during a summer job at the Naval Research Laboratory, and joined him at graduate school at Cornell University.

While at Cornell, she completed her master’s thesis and became pregnant with her first child. Before the baby’s birth, Vera planned to talk about her research to the American Astronomical Society. But her advisor suggested that since she was heavily pregnant, he could present her research instead.

She declined his offer and gave a ten-minute talk on the velocity distribution of the galaxies. The members of the Society were polite but somewhat skeptical of her data, even though Vera had studied the motions of 109 separate galaxies. She had already observed firsthand the deviations of how those galaxies move apart from one another.

Vera, now 23 with a degree in Astronomy from Vassar and a Master of Science from Cornell, became a new mother. For the next 18 months, she stayed home, taking her baby to the park and reading Astrophysical Journal while he napped.

But she wasn’t content. In 1952, with her husband’s encouragement, she applied for a Ph.D. in Astronomy from Georgetown University. Classes were twice a week, at night. Fortunately, Vera’s mother took care of the baby.

The Working Years

Now armed with a Ph.D., she continued her research on galaxies. In 1954 she submitted her doctorate research which concluded that galaxies were clumped together rather than randomly distributed in the universe. She sent the work to the Astrophysical Journal for publication, but her paper was rejected. Once again undeterred, she published her findings instead in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It wasn’t long afterward that Georgetown offered Vera a research spot which eventually led to a teaching position she kept for ten years.

In 1962 Vera and six of her graduate students worked together on a paper. Their research centered on if cataloged stars could determine the rotation curve for stars distant from the center of our galaxy.

Once again, she submitted the paper to the Astrophysical Journal. This time the editor agreed to publish the work, BUT without giving the names of the student researchers. Vera replied that she would then withdraw the paper. The editor finally changed his mind, and the report was published.

In 1964 Bob took a sabbatical and, with their four children in tow, Vera and Bob headed to San Diego, California. Once there, she worked with Margaret and Geoffrey Burbidge, two renowned astronomers. Together, they took her to observatories in Arizona and Texas. Vera remembered most of that year because Margaret Burbidge inspired her to continue pursuing science.

A year later and back home in Washington D.C., Vera was invited by noted astronomer Allan Sandage to visit the Palomar Mountain 200-inch telescope. This site had previously been ‘off limits’ to female scientists.

She was thrilled. This was the same telescope that Fritz Zwicky had used in 1933 when he made his startling discovery that later would be identified as ‘black matter’ in space.

However, on her first day at the Palomar, Vera noticed there was only one bathroom, labeled MEN. The next day she arrived with a cutout silhouette of a woman and pasted it next to the sign for MEN. It was probably the first time a woman scientist had created a unisex bathroom.

In 1965 Vera joined the Carnegie Institution of Washington and met the man who would become her long-term collaborator, Kent Ford. Together, they worked on the controversial subject of galaxy clusters with Ford’s creation of an image tube spectrograph.

Now able to see astronomical objects previously too dim to analyze, Vera turned her research focus to study the rotation of the outer reaches of the galaxies. She found that the stars in the outmost regions of galaxies were moving as quickly as those in the center of the galaxy.

Previously, the accepted belief was that in a spiral galaxy like ours, the Milky Way, the core has the highest concentration of stars. However, when the stars of the outer region were traveling as quickly as the stars of the inner part, there had to be a reason. The only explanation for these flat rotation curves had to be a tremendous amount of unseen black matter in the outer regions. Vera’s initial calculations showed that almost 90 percent of galactic mass was invisible to us. (Today, scientists accept that 84 percent is the accepted calculation.)

The stars that we see are from the inner regions of our galaxy, and most of the mass of our universe is hidden from our view. And this, according to the scientific community, is one of the most significant paradigm shifts in astrophysics. It is known as the Rubin-Ford Effect.

Her STEM Legacy

Looking back over Vera’s legacy, I found that she wrote books, published over 150 scientific papers, and garnered many awards. And she became an associate editor for the Astrophysical Journal – yes, the same publication that had rejected her research paper in 1954.

In 1993 Vera Rubin was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the second woman astronomer in its ranks. And presently, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is being constructed on a mountain in Chile to focus on the dark matter of space.

She has an asteroid named after her, a ridge on Mars is called the Vera Rubin Ridge, and an American satellite launched in 2020 carries her name.

While 218 people have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics since 1901, only four have been women. And Vera Rubin was not one.

Since she died in 2016 at 88, a Nobel Prize will never be hers. And while that accolade would have been deserving, Vera often said her life goal was to encourage other women to enter scientific fields.

Vera was a scientist and an activist in gender equality. She lived her life with fierce persistence, undeterred by criticism, and her passion for understanding the stars reached a worldwide audience.

All four of her children earned Ph.D.s in the natural sciences or math.

I hope you enjoyed Vera Rubin’s inspirational story. This month’s blog was longer than usual, because I consulted numerous scientific publications about Vera’s life.  And I upped my learning curve! Thank you to Symmetry Magazine: Dimension of Particle Physics, Astronomy.com, Physics World, National Science Foundation, and Cosmic Horizons: Astronomy at the Cutting Edge for their published information on Vera Rubin.

Please share this month’s blog to encourage STEM education for girls. Science, Technology, Engineering, Math.

~ Linda

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Mary Martin Sloop, M.D.: Unstoppable Children’s Crusader

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

By Linda Harris Sittig

Mary Martin Sloop’s impressive career had a rocky start.

Her Early Life

Born in Davidson, North Carolina, in 1873, Mary had the good fortune that her father believed in education for women, perhaps because he was a professor at Davidson College.

After having finished her public schooling in town, Mary soon turned fifteen. Her mother intended for Mary to attend a finishing school and thus prepare for the life of a social lady.

But her father overruled, and Mary set off for Statesville Female College for Women (now Mitchell Community College).

When she graduated three years later, she found her mother had become a total invalid. Mary did not hesitate but gave up any immediate plans for her secret dream – becoming a medical missionary. She remained at home instead for the next 12 years taking care of her mother and taking some pre-med classes at Davidson College. A tutor came to the house to teach her.

Mary’s Quest to Become a Doctor

Mary promptly enrolled in the North Carolina Medical College when her mother passed. The first two years would be spent at Davidson, and the remaining two years would be at Charlotte, North Carolina.

However, after her first year at Davidson, a major problem occurred. Women students were not allowed to participate in anatomy classes. It was deemed improper for a young woman to gaze upon the cadavers (dead bodies).

Without the anatomy course, Mary could not receive a medical diploma.

She began searching for women’s medical colleges in other states.

At this same time, she met a handsome student, Eustace Sloop, also studying to become a doctor. However, he was three years along in his studies, and Mary had applied to transfer to the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

While in Philadelphia, Eustace and Mary corresponded weekly, and he came up to Pennsylvania to visit her on several occasions.

When she graduated after her internship at the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston, she accepted her first real job as a doctor. She became the first female physician at Agnes Scott College in Georgia.

By this time, Eustace Sloop had established a practice in rural western Carolina in Plumtree’s tiny hamlet. Their engagement quickly turned into plans for marriage, and on July 2, 1908, Eustace and Mary married.

Coming to the Mountains of western North Carolina

Although she now realized that she would not become an overseas medical missionary, Mary decided that her talents would be needed just as much in the rural highlands of southern Appalachia.

How right she was.

However, additional obstacles occurred once more.

Because Eustace and Mary were not from the mountains, they were considered outlanders. (Yes, that was an actual saying back then). And because they were outlanders, the locals did not trust their medical advice.

Then, one night a young man was brought to their house with a ruptured appendix. Mary and Eustace rigged up equipment to sterilize their surgical supplies with no hospital or electric lights. They lit kerosene lanterns and placed the patient on a sturdy board. The operation took longer than they had hoped, and they fervently prayed that the man would survive.

He did, and with his recovery, the Sloops gained the villagers’ trust.

The need for a doctor in the Linville Valley of western North Carolina grew more urgent each year. Mary and Eustace found themselves riding hours up in the hollows to treat patients. Finally, they decided to move east to Crossnore, where their practice would be more centralized.

Moving to Crossnore, North Carolina

They established their Crossnore practice in December 1911 and stayed for the next forty-eight years.

Life as a pioneer doctor changed once again when Mary realized that in addition to sorely needed medical care, the children of the mountains were in critical need of a stable education.

So, she decided to build a school.

In 1913 Mary wrote to the State Education Department at Raleigh to learn how to receive funding to build a school.

The first hurdle required having a certain number of pupils who would all attend for a requisite number of months.

Back then, mountain children only went for four months of the year; the rest of the time, they were needed at home for planting, tending, and harvesting food. Then there was also the problem of how many children walked several miles to get to Crossnore, and in bad weather, they would stay home.

At first, Mary set her eyes on the old Sunday School room. She envisioned it as a full-time school with pupils attending Monday through Friday.

Even with some funding toward supplies, Raleigh could not supply workers. Undaunted, Mary found a local boy who attended carpentry school at Berea College and hired him to organize the menfolk to construct a school building.

Trees were cut down from the forests, dragged to a local sawmill, and made into lumber. Then the townspeople had to be convinced that a good school would benefit everyone.

It took a while to get everything functioning correctly, but the school grew in size, and three rooms with three teachers were soon needed to accommodate all the children who came.

And those early years weren’t easy ones. Mary continued to help Eustace with his practice, functioning as the additional doctor. She oversaw the school’s day-to-day operations and gave birth to their two children.

She battled problems with moonshiners, families who wanted their girls to quit school young so they could get married, and winters that were so frigid the children had to wear their coats and gloves all day inside the classrooms.

But through it all, Mary Martin Sloop persevered.

Together, Mary and Eustace managed to open a local hospital and increased the original one-class schoolroom into a schoolhouse complex of twenty buildings on over 250 acres. In 1924, the #DaughtersoftheAmericanRevolution stepped in and pledged their support to help provide an education of nine months, culminating in an eleventh-grade education. The D.A.R. still lends support to modern-day Crossnore School.

Mary continued her role in the school until 1959. She died three years later at the age of ninety – living only one year longer than Eustace.

Both her children were educated. Her daughter became a doctor, and her son became a dentist. And both of them returned to Crossnore to take up the reins and carry on Mary’s legacy.

Strong Women cause ripples across generations.

Thank you to blog follower Tina Dunn who sent me Mary’s story. If you would like to read Mary’s full memoir, read Miracle in the Hills, c. 1953.

Please sign up on the right sidebar to become a follower of Strong Women, and in the meantime, you can find my books Cut From Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, Counting Crows, and B-52 DOWN! in local bookstores and online.

I hope to see my newest book, Opening Closed Doors, a story about the desegregation of Virginia’s public libraries, debut in late spring.

I am wishing you a healthy, happy, and prosperous new year in 2022.

~ Linda

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Virginia Hall: the Invisible Spy

Posted on December 1, 2021 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

Some humans are flashy and command attention.

Other humans exude confidence and attract attention.

And some humans pass by primarily unnoticed, almost like they were invisible.

When you decide to become a spy in WWII, willing to join the French Resistance, you want to be in the third category.

And Virginia Hall became an expert in being invisible, even though she had a wooden leg. The appendage placed her in the ‘disabled persons’ category, and no enemy expects a disabled person to be a master spy.

Here is her extraordinary story.

Born in 1906 to a well-to-do family in Baltimore, Maryland, she was the adventurous type even at a young age. She excelled in school and learned to speak multiple languages. In 1931 Virginia decided to further her studies in Europe and, while on a bird hunting expedition, sustained an accidental gunshot wound to her left foot. Gangrene set in, and the leg had to be amputated from the knee down.

An artificial leg might have stopped certain people from pursuing an active life, but not Virginia.

In 1933 she procured a job as a consular clerk at the American Embassy in Poland.  She excelled in the position and applied to become a diplomat with the U.S. Foreign Service.

She was denied, time and time again, because very few women were admitted to the Foreign Service in the 1930s, and she was considered disabled. She wrote to President Roosevelt, a disabled person, to plead her case, but her letters remained unanswered.

She quit the Department of State in 1939, still a consular clerk.

Denied the job of her dreams because of her prosthetic leg, she then applied to the newly created British Special Operations Executive, and they trained her extensively in various resistance operational techniques. In 1941 Virginia received orders from the SOE to infiltrate Vichy France posing as an American journalist working for the New York Post. She based her operations in Lyon, volunteered to drive ambulances for the French Army by day, and helped develop a complex of spy networks by night.

Adept with multiple languages, Virginia enlisted the help of Germaine Guérin, a woman who ran a successful brothel, whose clients tallied among high-ranking Nazi officers.

Germaine then passed on military secrets to Virginia that her ‘girls’ had learned from their clients.

Virginia quickly learned the advantage of appearing ‘invisible,’ and she discarded any of her fashionable clothes in exchange for non-descript garments. She often changed outfits multiple times in a day, depending on what her activities would entail.

She continued courageous and often outrageous maneuvers against the German Army, who referred to her as the limping lady.

Not one to claim the spotlight, Virginia helped choreograph the escape of numerous Allied airmen who had crashed in France. She arranged for their trek over the Pyrenees Mountains into neutral Spain and then on to England.

But perhaps her most daring exploit was when she coordinated the escape of 12 French Resistance agents held in the notorious Mauzac Prison. Enlisting the aid of a visiting wife, Virginia succeeded in having sardines in a tin brought to one of the prisoners. He then fashioned a key from the can, which allowed him to escape with the other 11 men.

In November of 1942, Virginia learned through intelligence sources that the Nazis were planning to invade Vichy France in Lyon, and she realized the perils she would face.

Without telling her plans to anyone, she enlisted a guide to help her walk the 7,500-foot pass in the Pyrenees to Spain. Together they covered almost 50 miles in two days. And remember, Virginia walked with a wooden leg.

Arrested in Spain and then freed by the American Embassy, she continued her SOE work in Madrid before leaving for England in 1943. By then, the SOE feared that her identity had been compromised and adamantly refused to put her back in France.

Once again, Virginia applied elsewhere. This time to the American Office of Strategic Services, better known as the OSS.

She was hired, helped to change her appearance and identity, and sent back to France to help train new resistance groups called Maquis who would support the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944. That would be D-Day.

After WWII ended, Virginia traveled back to Lyon, where she learned that her friend, Germaine Géurin, had been arrested and sent to a concentration camp but had survived.

Most of her other friends and contacts were not so lucky.

In 1945 General William Joseph Donovan of the OSS personally awarded Virginia with a Distinguished Service Cross to recognize her efforts in France; the only civilian woman to receive this award in World WWII.

In 1947 Virginia decided to stay in the United States and promptly applied to join the Central Intelligence Agency. She became one of the first women to be hired by the CIA, and several of her intelligence maneuvers are still taught in modern-day classes.

She eventually retired with her husband, Paul Goillot, to Barnesville, Maryland. Virginia died at the age of 76 and is buried in Pikesville, Maryland.

Invisible? Hardly. A strong, viable woman indeed.

Thank you to blog follower Jim Race for sending me the idea for Virginia’s story.

If you enjoyed Virginia’s story and would like to read about more Strong Women, please sign up on the right sidebar to become a follower of Strong Women.

And if you would like to know about the books I have written, Cut From Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, Counting Crows and B-52 DOWN! please call your local bookstore and ask for a copy or go online. Amazon carries my books in both print and Kindle.

While I work on my newest book, featuring an unforgettable Strong Woman, I wish everyone a happy, healthy, and blessed Holiday Season.

~ Linda

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Ann Goldman Cohen: Perseverence Was Her Key to Survival

Posted on November 2, 2021 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

Strong women don’t always live extraordinary lives, but they often live during extraordinary times.

Like Ann Goldman Cohen.

Annie was born on December 5, 1885. That, in and of itself, is not extraordinary until you learn that she was born as a refugee on Gotland Island, Sweden. Her parents had been offered asylum after fleeing the pogroms of the Ukraine, where Jews were unfairly targeted.

Annie’s parents, Sophie and Moishe Goldman, left behind everything they knew and clung to the hope of a future free of fear for their children. In Annie’s youngest childhood years, she undoubtedly heard frightening stories about the Bolshevik’s treatment of the Jews.

In 1891 Annie’s family of seven (parents + five children) left Sweden for passage to the United States, where they hoped to start a new life. They traveled first to Liverpool, England, then to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and finally landed in southwest Virginia in a spot named Pocahontas.

It seems to have been a strange landing spot since they were the only Jewish family in town. However, they could take up residence on a small farm, and since Jews could not own land in the Ukraine, the Virginia farm was their first measure of success in the new country.

Moishe had been a rabbi, but with no other Jewish families around, he took the first job he could find. He became a ragman going door to door to retrieve rags that would later be washed, dried, and resold as fabric scraps. In addition, he farmed the land.

Annie begins her school life in America, where her family is solidly entrenched in the Jewish culture, but where Annie has no Jewish friends.

Moishe perseveres and becomes a successful junk dealer, and the family moves to Roanoke, where they can finally join a synagogue.

Annie also perseveres, studies hard in school, and begins to realize the importance of education.

In 1904 Annie met and fell in love with Hyman Cohen. Although he was Jewish, he only operated a local saloon, and both Sophie and Moishe wanted better for their daughter.

Undeterred, Hyman worked hard and changed the saloon into the Lynhaven Kitchen, specializing in oysters. The restaurant became quite popular, and Hyman earned permission to marry Annie.

At age 19, Annie became Mrs. Hyman Cohen and the head cashier of the Lynhaven Kitchen Restaurant.

Children quickly followed, but fate would soon test Annie’s mettle as heartbreaks also occurred.

Their firstborn child, Solomon, dies at the age of 3 months. Then, two daughters are born in successive years, Esther and Blanche.

At age 25, Annie develops appendicitis. Because she also has a rheumatic heart, she travels to Baltimore, where a Jewish physician can perform the appendectomy. Back home in Roanoke, a nursemaid takes care of Esther and Blanche, and the girls go outside to play.

The weather was hot. The girls were dressed in light cotton dresses and tossed a ball to each other. The ball rolled out onto the new asphalt road, and Esther, age 5, ran into the street to retrieve it. Running across the freshly laid tar caused a spark to ignite, and her dress caught fire. She did not survive. It was a tragedy that pierced the entire family, and Annie blamed herself for going to Baltimore.

But as with other strong women, Annie picked herself up and continued to add another child to the family, Danny. Within the next four years, Annie gives birth to twins. The boy baby fails to thrive and dies at six weeks, and the girl, Gertrude, survives.

Annie has lost three children but adds the last children to her family with two more boys, Sammy and Michael.

As her husband’s restaurant prospers, Annie uses their money to supplement the children’s education. Three sets of encyclopedias in the home broaden their knowledge, and Annie provides them with classical music lessons. By the end of 1928, she has placed Blanche, Danny, and Gertrude in college.

And then the Great Stock Market crash of 1929 wipes out every penny of Annie and Hyman’s savings, and the restaurant goes under, and they lose their house as well.

Annie writes to her brother in Chicago with the creditors closing in and not knowing what else to do. She sends Hyman ahead to the city to see if he can get a job, and she procures a truck. With the driver’s help, they load whatever furniture and keepsakes will fit in the back and set out for Chicago.

Annie and Hyman and their two youngest sons, Sammy and Michael, lived in a one-room Chicago tenement apartment. Annie’s brother is in the wrecking business, where he collects the salvage from razed buildings. At 12 and 13, Michael and Sammy work for their uncle instead of attending school, and Hyman takes a job with the wrecking business as well.

Not one to complain or be bitter, Annie had started life as a refuge baby, then became an American immigrant, and finally a businesswoman in partnership with her husband. She had buried three children, had risen to a solidly middle-class American life, and then plunged into bankruptcy.

By age 49, she paid the consummate price when her heart stopped beating.

You may be wondering why I chose her for my strong woman this month. I did because of the legacy she left behind.

Her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren all inherited her can-do attitude. They learned to surmount their obstacles in life and became doctors, lawyers, engineers, rabbis, artists, movie producers, firefighters, railroad executives, and prosperous farmers.

Today, all four granddaughters carry Annie’s name, keeping her legacy and her spirit alive.

Thank you to blog follower Ann Paciulli for sharing Annie’s story with me.

If you enjoyed Annie’s story and are not yet a follower of this monthly blog, please sign up on the right sidebar.

Until next month, you can catch me on my website www.lindasittig.com. Or find my novels and books at local bookstores and on Amazon.  Cut From Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, Counting Crows, and B-52 Down! They all feature strong women😉

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Florence Owens Thompson and Sharbat Gula: Profiles in Courage

Posted on October 1, 2021 by lhsittig@verizon.net

By Linda Harris Sittig

Florence Thompson image from New York Public Library. Photographer: Dorothea Lange

Sharbat Gula image from Global Student Square. Photographer: Steve McCurry

You may not recognize their names, but their photos were two of the most famous published in the twentieth century.

The two women hailed from different continents, different ethnic backgrounds, and varied in time 50 years apart: yet, as refugees, their courage and perseverance bind them to each other.

Depression Era photographer Dorothea Lange took Florence’s picture (on left) and published it in 1936 in a San Francisco area newspaper. Ms. Lange had taken the photo in a pea-pickers camp in California and wanted to show the plight of the out-of-work, impoverished migrant workers.

In the iconic photo, Florence is 33 years old, although she appears to be much older. Perhaps the acute anxiety etched on her face shows how a human can age before their time when living in extreme poverty.

In 1984, photographer Steve McCurry took Sharbat’s photo (on right) on an assignment to document the plight of Afghan people living in Pakistan refugee camps after fleeing their homeland in the early 1980s. The photo was chosen as a National Geographic cover for their magazine, thus allowing the world to see young Sharbat.

Sharbat was an orphan, approximately 12 years old in her famous photo, although she, too, appears to be older.

Florence was a full-blooded Cherokee from Oklahoma who left the Dust Bowl disaster of the 1920s with her husband and children in tow and made their way west to California, picking crops for pennies a day.

Sharbat fled from Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan War of guerilla fighting lasting nine years from 1980 – 1989. Since Sharbat was born in 1973, she spent a significant amount of her young life living as a refugee.

Florence fled to escape the ravages of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl, and Sharbat fled her home to escape the ravages of war-torn Afghanistan.

Like all refugees, Florence and Sharbat fled with only the possessions they could carry and left behind the once stable life they knew. And also, like all refugees, every day was a day of questions: would there be enough food, would they be safe in this location, and what would the future bring?

Florence was photographed with three of her children, although she had a total of six. Sharbat was photographed as a 12-year-old girl, although she would eventually grow up, marry, raise four children and return to Afghanistan.

Education was scarce for both Florence and Sharbat, yet both women have left an indelible mark on history. Why?

Because when one looks at their photos, what immediately strikes the viewer is the haunting image of resilience.

Both women, in tattered clothes, have the worn look of adversity tinged with courage. Although there is no quoted caption, both women could be saying, “Yes, I am afraid for myself, but I will survive.”

Both Florence and Sharbat did indeed survive economic poverty, health issues, and uncertain futures.

Florence died at age 80, and as of this writing, Sharbat is still alive.

What both women gave unconsciously to the world was an image of undeniable strength, courage in the face of adversity, and a will that carried them beyond the history of the harrowing experiences thrust upon them.

They are a salute to refugees everywhere.

Two Strong Women.

If you enjoyed Florence and Sharbat’s story and would like to become a follower of this monthly blog, please sign up on the right sidebar.

You can also catch me on Twitter @LHsittig, or my web page LINDASITTIG.COM, or find my books in stand-alone bookstores and on Amazon. CUT FROM STRONG CLOTH, LAST CURTAIN CALL, COUNTING CROWS, and B-52 DOWN!

~ linda:)

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DorisMarie McCormick, Diane Peedin, Fay Payne, Gene Townley, and Carol Wooten: Strong Women Forced by Fate

Posted on September 1, 2021 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

What bound these five women together was their courage in the face of an appalling shared tragedy, a tragedy that befell their husbands and altered the life of each family.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is B52-Down-front-cover-only-715x1024.jpg

The Beginning

All of their husbands worked together at Turner Air Force Base in Albany, Georgia.

Well, worked, might just underplay their jobs. This five-man crew played a crucial part in the Strategic Air Command of the United States Air Force in the Chrome Dome Operation of the 1960s during America’s Cold War with Russia.

The men worked as a well-oiled team, flying massive B-52 bombers on 24-hour runs, circling near Russian airspace in the event that the United States would be attacked by Russian missiles. While their husbands were together on these 24-hour runs three times a month, their families continued with their lives on an Air Force Base.

The Women

DorisMarie hailed from California, Fay from Oklahoma, Diane from North Carolina, Gene from Alabama, and Carol from South Dakota.

At age 39, DorisMarie was the tallest wife, over 6 feet. She loved to cook Mexican food and had hopes of becoming a graphic artist. But then she met Tom McCormick near the end of WWII and swapped her artistic dreams for the life of a military pilot’s wife.

Fay, at 42, was the oldest of the five wives. She had been enrolled in secretarial school in Tulsa when she met Bob Payne. They soon discovered they had a shared love for dancing, and she won him over with her delicious home-baked cherry pies.

Diane, at 29, was the fashionista of the group. She had been voted Best All-Around Girl in her senior year in a North Carolina high school. She loved clothes and met Mack Peedin while still in school and then quit college to marry him. Marrying an Air Force co-pilot sounded exciting. She had no idea of the dangers her husband would face.

Gene, age 39, grew up in Alabama, where the tradition of entertaining guests can be considered an art. Gene perfected her reputation by concocting delectable peanut butter milkshakes that both guests and husband Robert Townley loved.

Carol, at age 23, was the youngest of the five and the only wife in the small group not married to an officer. Carol met her future husband, Melvin Wooten, at a roller-skating rink when she was still in high school. Blonde and petite, Carol’s life quickly centered on marriage and then on children.

DorisMarie was the mother of two boys, Fay was the mother of two boys and a daughter, Diane had one son, Gene had two sons, and Carol had a son and two daughters. All five women had lived on various Air Force bases when they found themselves together in 1963 at Turner Air Field in Georgia.

The Turning Point

The turning point in their lives started on January 12, 1964.

It was a balmy Sunday in Albany, Georgia. All of their husbands had the day off, and then the phones rang. A B-52 bomber in Westover Air Force Base in Chicopee, Massachusetts, needed to be ferried back to Albany for repairs. A five-man crew was necessary for the retrieval flight.

One by the one, the five husbands, Major Tom McCormick, Captain Mack Peedin, Major Bob Payne, Major Robert Townley, and Tech Sergeant Melvin Wooten, suited up, kissed their wives goodbye and flew up to Massachusetts.

The return flight was supposed to be routine, but it didn’t turn out that way.

Leaving Massachusetts at 12:30 am, the crew made it as far as Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, when they encountered an unexpected blizzard, later called the blizzard of the century. Their plane collided with 167 mile-an-hour winds, and the rear tail and back wings sheared off. This force threw the aircraft (traveling at 500 mph) into Negative G, and it spiraled, then flipped upside down.

The men had no choice but to eject. At 30,000 feet. Into a howling blizzard. With ground temperatures below zero. And with 3-4 feet of snow already on the ground.

One by one, they ejected, only to find themselves landing and then stranded in the roughest terrain of the area, in the mountains of Garrett County, western Maryland. It would have been helpful had they landed near each other. But as fate would have it, each man touched down approximately 2 miles away from anyone else. Two miles in deep snow in zero visibility and the blizzard still raging.

By 5:00 am the Base Commander at Turner visited each wife and alerted her with the assumption that the plane had crashed and the five men listed as missing.

One can only imagine the emotions of each wife as she waited, clinging to a desperate hope that her husband might somehow, miraculously be found alive.

Each of the women had neighbors who came and sat with them while awaiting the news. None of the women had family nearby other than their children. While DorisMarie and Gene had older children, Fay, Diane, and Carol had young children.

And the five wives would not know at the time that a combination of 1,000 volunteers – locals of Garrett and Allegany Counties plus military, were trekking the mountains trying to locate and rescue the downed men.

The Aftermath

By the end of the five-day search for survivors, some of the five wives became widows, and others would experience survivors’ guilt.

To read the entire story with the memorable crash and rescue efforts, look for my newest book, B-52 DOWN! Available now from your favorite book store, or can be ordered through Amazon at www.amazon.com/dp/1940553105.

The first six people who respond to today’s blog by emailing me LHsittig@verizon.net, will receive a link to a complimentary Kindle copy of B-52 DOWN!

And, if you have not yet signed up to become a follower of this blog, please enter your email on the right sidebar. Join with over 1200 other people who enjoy the monthly stories of Strong Women.

~ linda

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Mamie “Peanut” Johnson: Pitching Her Way Forward

Posted on August 1, 2021 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

Photo courtesy of Capri23auto, Pixabay.com

“Take me out to the ballgame, take me out to the crowd…”

A strong woman and outstanding baseball player, Mamie Belton (Johnson) was born in 1935, Ridgeway, South Carolina. Her mother soon moved them to Washington D.C. to live with Mamie’s grandmother. By age eight, Mamie lived with an aunt and uncle in New Jersey and played pick-up baseball games. Fashioning baseballs from rocks, twine, and tape, she started playing the game that would define her life by playing with the neighborhood boys.

If those boys scoffed at first by having a girl on their team, they quickly changed their tune when Mamie proved to be an excellent pitcher.

IN THE BEGINNING

In New Jersey, she found herself the only girl and the only African-American on a local team. It did not detour her from her determination to become one of the best players. She played throughout her childhood on whatever team was available.

After graduating from high school, she relocated back to Washington D.C. and joined the St. Cyprian recreational team. At 17, she and another friend went to the tryouts in Alexandria, Virginia, for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. And they may have been the best candidates, but the organization refused to allow Mamie or her friend even to try out. The All-American Girls Pro Team was all-white.

Disappointed but undaunted, Mamie continued to play at St. Cyprians.

THE NEGRO LEAGUE

Then, in 1953 a scout saw Mamie dominate in a lineup of male baseball players. He approached her after the game and urged her to try out for the Negro League team that had launched the career of Hank Aaron. He had no qualms about her being a female; she was just that good.

It was during this time in her life that she earned the nickname “Peanut” Johnson.

Mamie was on the pitcher mound when a player from the other team swaggered up to the plate and sneered loudly, “why that girl’s no bigger than a peanut.” She promptly struck him out, and her nickname became legend; the strong woman no bigger than a peanut.

Clocking in at just under 5’4″ and weighing less than 100 pounds, Mamie “Peanut” Johnson was a force to behold.  

She signed with the Indianapolis Clowns, alongside Toni Stone and Connie Morgan, to play in the Negro League. They were the only three females playing in a league of men. Mamie became the only female pitcher in the League and played with the Indianapolis Clowns for the next two years. During that time, she allegedly had a 33-8 win-loss pitching record and a batting average of .262 – .284.

But it was her ability as a right-handed pitcher that cemented her definition in the annals of baseball. Taking lessons from no other than Satchel Paige, she developed a hard fastball and a curveball, screwball, and knuckleball.

LIFE CHANGES

Then, at the age of 19, she answered a different call and left the world of the Negro Leagues to take care of her young son, Charles Johnson. She earned a nursing degree from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University and started what would become a 30-year nursing career at Sibley Hospital in Washington, D.C.

Although Mamie Johnson only had two years as a professional baseball player, she has been the subject of books and articles, fetes, and awards. She was a guest of the Clintons in the White House in 1999 and inducted into the Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City and the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

Streets have been named in her honor, Little League baseball fields carry her name, and even Hollywood gave her a cameo reference. Remember the scene in A League of Their Own, when a Black woman picks up the loose ball that fell in the stands and throws it back to Geena Davis? That woman would have been Mamie Johnson.

After watching the 2020 Olympics from Tokyo and all the outstanding athletes that competed, I am thinking of Mamie Johnson, one of her era’s most talented female athletes.

Not only a strong right arm but one Strong Woman.

“Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack….”

If you enjoyed Mamie’s story and would like to get vignettes of other Strong Women once a month, please sign up on the right sidebar of the blog.

You can also catch me on FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram, and my webpage www.LindaSittig.com. I have a new book coming out in August, and you’ll get a chance to hear about the five women I feature in B-52 DOWN! The Night the Bombs Fell from the Sky when you read my September blog post.

~ Linda

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Katie Walker, Vigilant Keeper of the Light

Posted on July 1, 2021 by lhsittig@verizon.net

By Linda Harris Sittig

Katie’s Story

When petite Katie Gortler Walker followed her husband up the stairs to their new home, she peered at her surroundings with dismay.

No matter which way she looked, her gaze fell upon water. Their new home was a lighthouse built on a rocky ledge, surrounded by Upper New York Bay. The closest community was a mile over the water to Staten Island, New York.

The year was 1885, and Katie and her husband were no strangers to being lightkeepers. They had previously tended the Sandy Hook Lighthouse in New Jersey. But at Sandy Hook, Katie had a garden and neighbors. Here at Robbins Reef, the only neighbors were the seagulls. The prospect of living in total isolation while tending a lighthouse was enough to make Katie wonder if their marriage would survive.

Then only a year after her husband John brought Katie to Robbins Reef, he died from complications of pneumonia.

But Katie was a strong woman, a powerful woman. At age 44, faced with the prospect of being an unemployed widow, Katie decided to stay at the lighthouse. In addition to the duties involved with the light, Katie had to row her children to school each morning on Staten Island and returned for them each afternoon.

Katie had been assisting John as the keeper of the light, and she continued to tend the lighthouse for four more years in an unofficial capacity. After her husband’s death, the keeper position at Robbins Reef was offered to multiple men, but all declined. Katie was finally hired, officially, at a salary of $600 per year.

Lighthouses in American History

Lighthouses had existed in America since the early 1700s but were tended mainly by men.

By the mid-1800s, the women who did become ‘keepers of the light’ were usually widows or daughters of keepers. Data suggests that they were primarily middle-aged (in their 40s) and able to read and write. All of them were physically strong, and for the most part, their salaries were equal to that of male keepers.

They had to be strong because daily chores involved keeping the light in working condition and any needed repairs to the living quarters, tower, and grounds. At night, the keep would climb the steep stairs, light the kerosene light, and maintain a vigil, winding the mechanism for the rotating lens once every five hours. Of course, for the lamp to stay lighted, the keeper also had to haul large quantities of oil. That meant hauling the oil up however many steps as necessary to reach the top—often 200 or more.

Then the heavy lens had to be cleaned daily and the wicks trimmed and brass polished. Katie extinguished the massive lamp each morning at dawn. And if by chance the night contained dense fog, then Katie would climb back down to the basement of the light and start the generator to operate the fog horn. And during her long career, she witnessed the progression from kerosene lamps to oil, and finally to electricity.

At dawn, after extinguishing the lamp, she would draw blinds to protect the Fresnel Lens from the direct sunlight and then retreat to her living quarters until it was time to rise with the children to get them to school. She often grabbed a nap after lunch to sustain herself for the mile-long row to retrieve the children and the evening ahead of tending the light.

The manual labor for women keepers was often accompanied by penetrating isolation, depending upon the lighthouse location. For Katie Walker, in the middle of New York Bay, that meant very few visitors.

Rescues

Then, there were the rescues.

Lightkeepers often rowed out to sea, even in a storm, to save the lives of any persons whose boat had capsized. Over her 33 years of tending the Robbins Reef Light, Katie accomplished 55 rescues.

Katie continued in her job until 1919, being one of the 142 women who had been granted official lighthouse keeper status between 1830 and 1947, with a mandatory retirement age of 71. Their names and backgrounds are as varied as the lighthouse locations where they lived. And although all of them were required to keep daily log books, very few of those have survived, so we don’t know the personal recollections of their lives.

Katie retired to Staten Island at age 73, with the Robbins Reef Light permanently in her view. She spent the last years of her life often walking to the shore, listening to the seagulls, and feeling the water spray on her face. She passed away at age 83 and is buried in Ocean View Cemetery.

The next time I see a lighthouse, I will think of Katie Walker and her 141 sisters who dedicated their lives to providing safe passage in the middle of the night to those who venture upon the rolling waters.

Strong Women

If you enjoyed Katie’s story and are not yet a follower of this blog, please sign up on the right. And if you want to read a book on women lightkeepers, look for Mind the Light, Katie by Mary Louise Clifford and J. Candace Clifford.

As I work on my next book about strong women, you can also catch me on my webpage at https://www.lindasittig.com, Twitter @LHsittig, Instagram at LHsittig, and Facebook as Linda Sittig.

My novels about strong women can be found in bookstores as well as online. Cut From Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, and Counting Crows. By August, my newest book, B-52 Down!, should also be available.

~ Linda

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