Welcome to the virtual exhibit page for Ossining Women’s History Month 2025!
While the installation at the Ossining Public Library (53 Croton Avenue) is no longer on display, the entire exhibit will live on this blog in perpetuity.
Who are these women?
These are all remarkable women local to Ossining who made a big impact in shaping our community and our world. Some are national figures. Some have local streets, schools or parks named after them. And some just did their work quietly. But all have accomplishments that deserve to be recognized and shared.
What will you see?
This is a retooling and enlargement of last year’s exhibit presented at the Bethany Arts Community, with expanded biographies and four more fascinating women included.
These women represent all facets of American life – art, religion, science, politics, military service, activism, and philanthropy. Those with a higher profile in life offer more images and material. Others avoided the limelight (either on purpose or through circumstance) and less is known about them, but this exhibit will help uncover and celebrate all of their remarkable stories.
To learn more about each woman featured, simply click on their names below and you’ll be quickly directed to a page with their detailed biography, including photos and links to further enrich their extraordinary stories.
Enjoy!
Caroline Ranald Curvan Ossining Town Historian & Exhibit Curator
Writer Activist Abolitionist Prison reformer ***Local Connection: Matron of Mt. Pleasant Women’s Prison (aka Sing Sing Prison)***
In a society that portrayed the ideal woman as submissive, pure, and fragile, Eliza W. Farnham created her own concepts of female identity. Her theories and actions, occasionally contradictory, offered alternatives to women who felt confined by the limited roles prescribed by their culture. As Catherine M. Sedgwick, a contemporary writer and friend wrote of her “She has physical strength and endurance, sound sense and philanthropy . . . [and] the nerves to explore alone the seven circles of Dante’s Hell.”
Born in Rensselaerville, New York, Eliza Burhans’s early childhood was marked by the death of her mother and abandonment by her father. Growing up with harsh foster parents, she became a self-sufficient, quiet autodidact, reading anything and everything she could get her hands on.
At 15, an uncle would retrieve her from the foster home, reunite her with her siblings and arrange for her to go to school. By 21, she had married an idealistic Illinois lawyer, Thomas Jefferson Farnham, and set off with him to explore the American West.
Eliza would have three sons in four years, though only one would survive childhood. Thomas and Eliza would write up their observations of the West — he would become a popular travel writer of the day, and she would publish her memoir, Life in Prairie Land, in 1846.
In 1840, the Farnhams returned east and settled near Poughkeepsie, New York, where Eliza became deeply involved in the intellectual and reform movements of the day. An early feminist who believed that women were superior to men, Eliza wrote articles in local magazines against women’s suffrage, believing that women could have a much greater impact as mothers and decision makers in the home. (However, in their 1887 History of Woman Suffrage, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony would write that Eliza’s attitudes evolved and that she ultimately saw the necessity of and supported women’s suffrage.)
Eliza also became interested in prison reform at the time, and in 1844 sought and was appointed to the position of Matron of the Mt. Pleasant Female Prison, at the time infamous for its chaos, rioting and escapes, to prove that kindness was a more effective method of governance than brutality.
The Mt. Pleasant Female Prison, built in 1839, was a department of Mount Pleasant State Prison (today’s Sing Sing) Courtesy of the Ossining Historical Society and Museum
She instituted daily schooling in the prison chapel and started a small library that allowed each woman to take a book to her cell to read (making sure that there were picture books available for those who couldn’t read.) She also believed that lightness and cheer were more conducive to reformation, and placed flowerpots on all windowsills, tacked maps and pictures on the walls, and installed bright lights throughout. She spearheaded the celebration of holidays, introduced music into the prison, and began a program of positive incentive over punishment. Finally, she fought to improve the food served to the women and ended the “rule of silence”, believing that “the nearer the condition of the convict, while in prison, approximates the natural and true condition in which he should live, the more perfect will be its reformatory influence over his character.” [1]
It must be said that her methods were deeply influenced by the now-discounted “science” of phrenology which looked at the correlation between skull shape and human behavior, giving a biological basis for criminal behavior (not, as many religious people believed then, sheer, incorrigible sinfulness.) Eliza would even edit and publish an American edition of a treatise by the English phrenologist Marmaduke Blake Sampson, under the title Rationale of Crime and its Appropriate Treatment. [2]
This phrenological poster ostensibly shows how to interpret bumps on the skull to predict and understand observed behaviors. Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Although the mayhem that had plagued previous matrons was significantly reduced, Eliza’s approach was viewed as simply coddling the prisoners. This led to conflicts with several staff members, including Reverend John Luckey, the influential prison chaplain. By 1848, a change in the political landscape installed new prison leadership and she was forced to resign.
She would move to Boston, to work at the Perkins Institute for the Blind until her explorer-husband died unexpectedly while in San Francisco. Eliza went to California both to settle his estate and execute a plan assisting destitute women purchase homes in the West to achieve financial independence. Though that initiative was not successful, Eliza herself bought a ranch in Santa Cruz County, built her own house, and traveled on horseback unchaperoned, among other scandalous things she would detail in her 1856 book California, In-doors and Out.
In 1852, she entered into a stormy marriage with William Fitzpatrick, a volatile pioneer. During this period, she had a daughter, who died in infancy, worked on her California book, taught school, visited San Quentin prison, and gave public lectures.
Divorcing Fitzpatrick in 1856, she returned to New York and began work on what is arguably her most significant work, Woman and Her Era. In it, she would glorify women’s reproductive role as a creative power second only to that of God. She further contended that the discrimination women experienced and the double-standard of social expectations stemmed from an unconscious realization that females had been “created for a higher and more refined existence than the male.”[3]
So, her initial disdain for women’s equality and suffrage stemmed from her unique feminist philosophy that ironically saw women as superior due to their reproductive function, historically something that had always defined female inferiority. Thus, in her world view, why should women lower themselves to the level of men to achieve “equality”?
It’s a fascinating way to look at the world, no?
Eliza would give numerous lectures on this topic before returning to California and serving as the Matron of the Female Department of the Stockton Insane Asylum.
In 1862, she would work towards a Constitutional Amendment to abolish slavery and, in 1863, answer the call for volunteers to help nurse wounded soldiers at Gettysburg.
She died of consumption a year later, likely contracted during her Civil War hospital work.
She is buried in a Quaker cemetery in Milton, New York.
Major Publications:
Life in the Prairie Land (1846) A memoir of her time on the Illinois prairie between 1836 and 1840.
California, In-doors and Out (1856) – A chronicle of her experiences and observations in California.
My Early Days (1859) An autobiographical novel describing Farnham’s life as a foster child in a home where she was treated as a household drudge and denied the benefits of a formal education. The fictional heroine reflects Farnham’s own character as a tough, determined individual who works hard to achieve her goals, overcoming all obstacles.
Woman and Her Era (1864) Farnham’s “Organic, religious, esthetic, and historical” arguments for woman’s inherent superiority.
The Ideal Attained: being the story of two steadfast souls, and how they won their happiness and lost it not (1865) This novel’s heroine, Eleanora Bromfield, is an ideal, superior woman who tests and transforms the hero, Colonel Anderson, until he is a worthy mate who combines masculine strength with the nobility of womanhood and is ever ready to sacrifice himself to the needs of the feminine, maternal principle.
SOURCES
James, Edward T., et al., editors. Notable American Women, 1607-1950 : A Biographical Dictionary. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971.
Wilson, James Grant, et al., editors. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography. D. Appleton & Co., 1900.
[1] NYS Senate Report, 70th Session, 1847, vol. viii, no.255, part 2, p. 62
[2]Notable American Women, 1607-1950 : A Biographical Dictionary.
Henrietta Hill Swope, c. 1950s Courtesy of Kevin Swope
Henrietta Hill Swope 1902 – 1980
Astronomer Inventor ***Local Connection: The Croft, Teatown, Spring Valley Road***
Henrietta Hill Swope was a quiet, humble, but fiercely driven scientist whose work contributed to our current understanding of the structure of our universe.
Specifically working in the fields of Cepheid variable stars and photometry, her early work showed that that the Earth and the Sun were not at the center of the Milky Way galaxy as previously believed. From there, she surveyed all the variable stars within the Milky Way, thus tracing out the structure of that galaxy, something that had never been done before. She also helped invent LORAN, and contributed to the creation of a new technique to simply and accurately determine the distance of stars and galaxies from Earth.
Born in St. Louis, MO in 1902 to Gerard and Mary Hill Swope, Henrietta came from an extraordinary family. Her father was a financier and president of General Electric, while her uncle, Herbert Bayard Swope, was a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, war correspondent and newspaper editor. Her mother was a Bryn Mawr graduate who would go on to study with the pioneering educator John Dewey, and later work for Jane Addams at Hull House in Chicago.
Henrietta became interested in astronomy as a young girl, and was taken to the Maria Mitchell Observatory on Nantucket where she heard lectures from Harvard’s Dr. Harlow Shapley and others.
Henrietta went off to Barnard College, where she majored in Mathematics and was graduated in 1925. (She said she chose Barnard because she “didn’t have any Latin. My father didn’t believe in any Latin. He thought I should spend that time on either sciences or modern languages.”[1])
Henrietta Hill Swope Barnard Class of 1925 Photo Courtesy of Kevin Swope
In 1927, though she had only taken one course in astronomy, a friend alerted her to a fellowship offering for women only sponsored by Dr. Harlow Shapley at the Harvard College Observatory (HCO). She applied and was quickly accepted. (Her initial interpretation was that he was reaching out to women specifically because he “wanted some cheap workers.” Ahem.)[2]
She became Shapley’s first assistant, and while she looked for variable stars on photographic plates taken via the HCO telescope, she earned her Master’s in astronomy from Radcliffe College in 1928.
At the Harvard College Observatory, c. 1930s Looking for variable stars Courtesy of Kevin Swope
The following year, she became famous when she identified 385 new stars, accurately revealing the composition of the Milky Way galaxy. By 1934, she was in charge of all the Harvard programs on variable stars which were central to much of the astronomical research at the time.
In 1942, she left Harvard to work at MIT in a radiation laboratory, and the following year was recruited by the US Navy to work on a secret project which would come to be known as LORAN (Long Range Aid to Navigation.) This innovative technology allowed navigators to use radio signals from multiple locations to fix a precise position. She was appointed head of LORAN Division at the Navy Hydrographic Office in Washington, DC for the duration of the World War II.
Post-WWII, she would teach astronomy at Barnard College, then relocate to California to work as a research fellow at the Mt. Wilson and Palomar Observatories, as well as teach at the California Institute of Technology (CalTech). She would visit her family’s home The Croft in Ossining a few times a year, and is remembered by a niece as being “no frills. Very sweet, otherworldly, and decidedly bluestocking, none of us knew how accomplished she was or how important her work was.”
Henrietta Swope at The Croft, c. 1930s/40s Courtesy of Kevin Swope
During this time, Swope’s research focused on determining the brightness and blinking periods of Cepheid variable stars, and the quality and precision of her work allowed other astronomers to use these stars as “celestial yardsticks” with which to rapidly measure celestial distances. Swope herself used them to determine that the distance from earth to the Andromeda galaxy is 2.2 million light-years.
She remained at the Mt. Wilson Observatory and CalTech until her retirement in 1968.
In the 1970s, she donated funds to the Carnegie Institute of Washington to aid in the development of the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile.
The Henrietta Swope Telescope in Las Campanas, Chile
The 40-inch Henrietta Swope Telescope began operation in 1971 and though Swope died in 1980, she continues to help people look to the stars.
Kathryn and Lewis Lawes attending the Joe Louis v. Max Baer fight, 1935
Kathryn Stanley Lawes 1885-1937
“The Mother of Sing Sing” ***Local Connection: The Warden’s House, Spring Street*** (Today, the clubhouse of the Hudson Point Condominiums)
Kathryn Stanley Lawes (1885 – 1937) was known as the “Mother of Sing Sing.”
Wife of Warden Lewis Lawes, the longest tenured Prison Warden in Sing Sing’s history, she arrived at Sing Sing on January 1, 1920 with her two young daughters in tow. Settling into the drafty old Warden’s house situated next to the main cellblock, she would raise her girls (and have a third) within the walls of the prison.
Sing Sing Warden’s House, c. 1910 Courtesy of the Ossining Historical Society and Museum
She would regularly go into the prison and visit with the incarcerated. And her quiet kindnesses were the stuff of legend. She would arrange for every man to get a Christmas present – noting that some had never received one in their brutal lives. She would help them write letters to their families. Her youngest daughter, Cherie, recalled how her mother once gave away a favorite dress of hers so that the daughter of one of “the boys” could wear it to attend a high school dance.
Daughter Joan Marie “Cherie” Lawes, seen with her pony just outside the gates of Sing Sing, c. 1930 Courtesy of the Ossining Historical Society and Museum
Kathryn hosted Labor Day picnics for inmates, Halloween parties for the neighborhood children, and oversaw special meals in the mess for Thanksgiving and other holidays.
Those incarnated in Sing Sing knew that they could trust her, with one quoted as saying that telling her something was “like burying it at sea.”
In 1937, the Logansport-Pharos-Tribune wrote one of the very few articles about her, saying “When a convict’s mother or near relative was dying, the convict was permitted to leave the Sing Sing walls for a final visit. On such occasions, instead of going under heavy guard, he was taken in Mrs. Lawes’ own car, often accompanied by the Warden’s wife herself.”
She was especially solicitous to those awaiting execution, doing little things to make their cells brighter, spending hours talking to them – sometimes she would even arrange for their families to stay in the Warden’s house as the execution date drew near. She also made sure that every incarcerated man (and women) had a decent burial if they had no immediate family.
Little things, perhaps, but important.
Born in 1885 in Elmira, New York, Kathryn Stanley was ambitious and smart. At 17, she took a business course and landed a job as a secretary in a paper company. It’s around that time she met Lewis Lawes, who was working as an errand boy in a neighboring office.
Kathryn Stanley in Elmira, c. 1900 Courtesy of Joan “Cherie” Lawes Jacobsen
But Lewis’ father was a “prison guard” (today the term is “Corrections Officer”) at the Elmira Prison, so it was rather natural that his son would eventually follow in his footsteps.
Kathryn and Lewis married in 1905 and started their family. Lewis quickly rose through the ranks in the New York prison system first in Elmira, then in Auburn. In 1915, he became Chief Overseer at the Hart Island reformatory, living right in the middle of the facility with Kathryn and their two infant daughters. Even then, Kathryn found time work with the boys in the reformatory, some who were as young as 10, giving many of them the first maternal attention they’d ever experienced.
Kathryn would be an essential participant in her husband’s success, helping cement his reputation as a progressive and compassionate Warden.
Still, it’s quite hard to flesh out Kathryn’s story. She gave very few interviews and those that she did give read like someone wrote them without ever talking to her. In fact, much of what we know about surfaced only after her mysterious death.
You see, one of the things that makes her story so complex and compelling is that she died at the age of 52 after falling off (or was it near?) the Bear Mountain Bridge.
The Bear Mountain Bridge, c. 1930
A Mysterious Death
On October 30, 1937, the New York Times published an article entitled “Wife of Warden Lawes Dies After a Fall. Lies Injured all Day at Bear Mountain Span.” In it, the New York State Police stated that she had “jumped or fallen” from the bridge. Though conscious when discovered by Warden Lawes, their son-in-law, and Dr. Amos Squire, she died in Ossining Hospital soon after from her injuries.
A few days later, a follow-up story was published in the Times that quoted heavily from Dr. Squire (the former Sing Sing Prison Doctor as well as Westchester County Medical Examiner). Dr. Squire had apparently gone back to investigate the scene of the accident. There, according to the article, he found “her high-heeled shoes caught between two boards of a walk” and concluded that she had gone hiking, perhaps venturing down the trail to pick wildflowers. He continued, “After falling and breaking her right leg, Mrs. Lawes evidently dragged herself about 125 feet southward along the path to the pile of rock where she was found exhausted.”
The men of Sing Sing were devastated when they heard the news of her sudden and shocking death. Eventually, in response to their entreaties, the prison gates were opened and two hundred or so “old-timers” were permitted to march up the hill to the Warden’s house to pay their last respects at her bier.
(In 1938, the New York Times noted that the “Prisoners of Sing Sing Honor Late Mrs. Lawes” with the installation of brass memorial tablet, paid for by the Mutual Welfare League, a organization of incarcerated individuals.)
Kathryn’s Influence
Fifteen years after her tragic death, Kathryn Lawes’ story continued to capture the attention of the press.
From a March 1953 feature in The Reader’s Digest “The Most Unforgettable Character I’ve Ever Met”, to the July 1956 exposé in tawdry Confidential Magazine below, Kathryn’s life (and death) remained compelling.
Even today, one can find sermons online that praise Kathryn Lawes’ generosity and compassion for those that society would rather forget.
Margaret “Margie” Griesmer Courtesy of Open Door Family Medical Center
Margaret “Margie” Griesmer 1934 – 2008
Founder and First Executive Director of the Open Door Family Medical Center ***Local Connection: 165 Main Street
Margaret “Margie” Griesmer made a tremendous difference to thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people in and around Ossining.
And her legacy continues.
Those of you who live in Ossining are no doubt familiar with the Open Door Family Medical Center. Located at 165 Main Street, it was the first location of what has become a chain of accredited health centers that serve the un- and underinsured throughout Westchester, Putnam, Dutchess and Ulster counties.
In 1972, Griesmer was the driving force behind its founding and development, quietly and methodically laboring to bring excellent, low- to no-cost health care to marginalized community members and the working poor.
Born in 1934, Griesmer graduated from the Mercy School of Nursing in Detroit, Michigan. Marrying soon after graduating, she moved to Ossining with her husband and had four children.
In 1970, the family relocated to Berkeley, California for a year when her husband, an IBM mathematician and researcher, was granted a sabbatical.
While there, Griesmer volunteered at the Berkeley Free Clinic, a self-described “radical volunteer health collective . . . that believes that health care is a fundamental human right.” Griesmer was inspired by what she saw and determined to replicate the concept in Ossining.
Free health clinics were growing in popularity in the 1960s and early 1970s, thanks in part to the civil rights movement and the War on Poverty. But when New York State decided that such clinics needed oversight and licensing, many clinics shuttered. It’s here that Open Door found its niche. As a registered nurse, Griesmer was uniquely positioned to work with local medical professionals, and get the needed licensing to operate.
The first Open Door clinic was located in the basement of the First Baptist Church at 1 Church Street, Ossining. With an all-volunteer staff (doctors, nurses, technicians) it was only open Tuesday/Thursday nights and Saturday mornings. The waiting room was the Sunday School room, and the patients sat on tiny little chairs waiting for their appointments.
Original Open Door Flyer, c. 1972 Courtesy of Open Door Family Medical Center
Artistic re-creation of that first waiting area at the First Baptist Church c. 1972
That first year, the clinic saw over 1,000 patients.Griesmer reached out to businesses in the community for support, and organizations such as IBM, the Ossining Chamber of Commerce, A.L. Myers and the Junior League of Westchester contributed in various ways to help fit out that first clinic.
The goals were wide-ranging and egalitarian:
“The Ossining Open Door came into being because of an urgent need in Ossining not only to treat the physical illnesses of the underprivileged but to comfort our elderly, counsel our youth, and listen to the lonely.”
Griesmer would be named Executive Director in 1973, a position she held for over 20 years.
In 1976, Open Door moved to 165 Main Street (formerly Hilliker’s Department store) and in 1988, took over the adjacent building at 163 Main Street. Since then, they’ve hired full time physicians, nurses, technicians, dentists, specialists, social workers, psychologists, started a pre-natal program in collaboration with Phelps Hospital, opened clinics in Mt. Kisco, Brewster, Mamaroneck, Port Chester, Sleepy Hollow, Saugerties and pioneered school-based health centers in nine schools throughout the region.
Pamphlet for new location at 165 Main Street Courtesy of the Ossining Historical Society and Museum
Griesmer was a visionary with a solid medical background who also happened to excel at relationship building and fundraising. It was a powerful and effective combination.
With Assemblywoman Sandy Galef, c. 1980 Courtesy of Open Door Family Medical Center
An excellent judge of people, she filled the ever-expanding Open Door with dedicated professionals who shared her drive to improve and grow the services offered to the community.
In 1998, Griesmer tapped Lindsay Farrell as her successor. A volunteer who started helping out in 1986, Farrell continues in the CEO position today, carrying on and expanding Margie Griesmer’s vision to make quality health care available to all.
Today Open Door serves over 60,000 patients at seven locations throughout Westchester, Putnam and Ulster counties, with an additional nine school-based health clinics. And, as has always been the case, care is available to anyone — fees are determined on a sliding scale.
Lindsay Farrell and Margie Griesmer, c. 1990s Courtesy of the Open Door Family Medical Centers
Dr. Ruth Murray Underhill Courtesy Denver Museum Nature and Science Center
Dr. Ruth Murray Underhill 1883 – 1984
Red Cross Volunteer WWI Anthropologist Author Professor Television/Radio Host ***Local Connection: Linden Avenue***
Ruth Murray Underhill was an anthropologist known for her work with Native Americans of the Southwest. She was also a social worker, a writer, a Supervisor at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a professor, and a local television/radio host. Multi-lingual, Underhill spoke several Western languages, including O’odham and Navajo.
Underhill was born in Ossining in 1883. She grew up on Linden Avenue in the rambling Victorian home built by her father in about 1878. (The building still stands today.)
Ruth Murray Underhill and sister Margaret in front of the family home on Linden Avenue c. 1890 Courtesy of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science
The daughter of Abram S. Underhill and Anna Murray Underhill, her pedigree stretches back to one of the earliest European settlers of this country – Captain John Underhill, who arrived in 1632. And, according to a 1934 article in the Democratic Register, going even further back, the Underhills were related to a William Underhill of Stratford-upon-Avon who reportedly sold William Shakespeare his home. (It is impossible to ignore the irony that this woman, who spent much of her adult life studying and recording the language and culture of Native Americans, was directly related to Captain John Underhill, a man infamous for his brutal tactics against the Native Americans in the 1600s. He led several bloody massacres and murdered hundreds (if not thousands) of Lenape during the Dutch era in New York State.)
Ruth Underhill attended the Ossining School for Girls (located just across the street from today’s Ossining Public Library):
She would go on to study at Vassar College, graduating in 1905.
Ruth Murray Underhill, c. 1900 Courtesy of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science
But, as she wrote in her memoir An Anthropologist’s Arrival:
“I did not start with a career and a goal in mind, not even the goal of marriage – for nice girls did not know whether they would be asked or not. I pushed out blindly like a mole burrowing from instinct. My burrowings took me to strange places and now in my last hole I am trying to remember how I bumbled and tumbled from one spot to another. This is the story for those friends who wondered how I could even have started the bumbling, for many girls of my era did not.”
She spent the next decade searching for her calling – briefly serving as a social worker first in Massachusetts, then in New York City, then traveling around Europe with her family. When World War I broke out, she volunteered for the Red Cross, organizing orphanages for the children of Italian soldiers killed in battle.
Ruth Murray Underhill in Red Cross Uniform, c. 1917 Courtesy of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science
In 1919 she married Charles Crawford, but she described it as a loveless marriage on both sides that would end in divorce a decade later.
At age 46, Underhill went back to school, enrolling in a graduate program at Columbia University.
Ruth Murray Underhill c. 1930s
In her memoirs, Underhill tells the story about how she ended up studying anthropology:
“I am no longer quite sure which departments I visited before anthropology. I think they were sociology, philosophy, and economics. What I said to them in substance was: ‘I find that social work is not doing what I thought it did. I wonder if what you teach would really help me to understand these people. I want to understand the human race. How did it get into the state it is in?’
Upon asking this question of Dr. Ruth Benedict, a well-respected professor in the anthropology department, she found her answer: “You want to know about the human race? . . . Well, come here. That is what we teach.”
At the time, the chairman of Columbia’s anthropology department was Dr. Franz Boas, considered by many to be the “father of modern anthropology.” He seems to have been unusually encouraging towards female students – Margaret Mead and Zora Neale Hurston, among others, who studied with him. Both Boas and Benedict would encourage Underhill to pursue a PhD. [Fun Fact: Dr. Boas is buried in Ossining’s Dale Cemetery.]
In 1936, Boas financed field work for Underhill to go to Arizona to study the Papago (today known as the Tohono O’odham.) Out of this work came Underhill’s doctoral thesis “Social Organization of the Papago Indians” and the first published autobiography of a Native American woman, Autobiography of a Papago Woman. Living with and studying the Papago in southern Arizona for several years, she became close to Maria Chona, an elder and leader of her tribe.
Maria Chona, Elder of the Papago (Tohono O’odham) c. 1936 Courtesy of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science
Dr. Underhill peeling potatoes at her campsite in Arizona, c. 1936 Courtesy of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science
In her book, Underhill documented the rites, ceremonies and history of Chona and her tribe. Underhill even wrote about the rituals surrounding menstruation, which must have been deeply shocking for her readership at that time.
Underhill received her doctorate in 1937 and began studying Navajo culture.
Dr. Underhill with members of the Navajo nation, c. 1940s Courtesy of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science
From there, she went on to work for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, becoming Supervisor of Indian Education and helping develop curricula for Native American reservation schools.
In 1948 Underhill became a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Denver, but “found the students languid.”
Dr. Underhill in cap & gown for a University of Denver Commencement, c. 1950 Courtesy of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science
She would retire from the University just five years later and travel the world solo.
Dr. Underhill at the Rainbow Bridge in Arizona, c. 1950 Courtesy of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science
Upon returning home, she would write what is considered her seminal work, Red Man’s America – a textbook on Native American cultures and histories.
Dr. Underhill c. 1950s Courtesy of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science
On the strength of that, she was asked to host a public television program of the same name that ran from 1957 – 1962.
Dr. Ruth Murray Underhill on TV c. 1957 Filming “Red Man’s America” for KRMA-TV channel 6, an educational TV station owned and operated by the Denver Public Schools. Courtesy of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science
Underhill would stay in contact with the members of the Papago and in 1979, they honored her with the following:
“It was through your works on the Papago people that many of our young Papagos, in search of themselves, their past, their spirit have recaptured part of their identities. Your works will continue to reinforce the true identity of many more young people as well as the old. It is with this in mind that we wish to express our deep sense of appreciation.”
Ensign Mary Feeney Gordenstein Courtesy of the Ossining Historical Society and Museum
Ensign Mary Feeney Gordenstein 1916 – 1943 OHS 1933
U.S. Navy Nurse, Died in Action , World War II ***Local connection: Hamilton Avenue***
Did you know that Feeney Road in the Town of Ossining is named after Ensign Mary Feeney Gordenstein, a US Navy nurse who died in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on April 14, 1943?
Mary Feeney was born in Ossining on September 11, 1916, to John and Ida Mae (Farren) Feeney. Her father was a desk clerk for the Ossining Police.
They first rented a house at 72 South Highland Avenue and then moved to 31 Hamilton Avenue.
Both houses still stand today:
72 Highland Avenue. Photo source: Google Streetview
31 Hamilton Avenue. Photo source: Google Streetview
Mary went to Ossining High School, graduating in 1933. She then went on to study at the Cochran School of Nursing at St. John’s Riverside Hospital, Yonkers, graduating in 1937.
The census for 1940 has her working in “private practice.” In August 1941, she entered the US Navy Nurse Corps as an Ensign and spent at least four months in training before being shipped out. (For more on the US Navy Nurse Corps see here and here.)
Navy Nurse Recruiting Poster. Courtesy of the National Archives
When Ensign Feeney joined up, there were only about 800 Navy nurses on active duty. By the end of World War II, over 11,000 nurses, both active and reserve, were serving in the Navy.
Ensign Feeney’s initial posting is still unclear, but in May of 1942 she married Bernard Joseph Gordenstein in Hillsborough, New Hampshire. He was also in the Navy, serving as a pharmacist. (This bit of information came as something of a surprise to the members of the Feeney family consulted for this exhibit. This might explain why the road is named Feeney and not Gordenstein.)
At some point, after the December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor attacks, Ensign Mary Feeney was posted to Hawaii and served at the Pearl Harbor Naval Hospital. This was where injured warriors, primarily those from the Pacific Theatre of Operations, were stabilized before they were sent back to the US.
Here’s a 1942 photo from the U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery — while I can’t prove it, I have a feeling that the third nurse from the left, in the back row, might be our Mary Feeney.
Administrative group including Navy nurses and Red Cross workers at the Pearl Harbor Naval Hospital, 1942. Courtesy U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery
And in the photo below, the nurse seated in the front row all the way on the left actually does look very much like Ensign Feeney. (What do you think?) If it is, it would have been taken just four months before her death.
U.S. Navy Nurses pose for a group portrait at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, December 16, 1942. Photo source: National Museum of the U.S. Navy
Sadly, Ensign Mary Feeney’s career in the US Navy was brief – she died of pneumonia on April 14, 1943 while stationed at the Pearl Harbor Naval Hospital.
She was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star for “Heroic or Meritorious Achievement or Service.”
She is buried in the Punchbowl National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific on Oahu.
And in 1963, the Town of Ossining would name a street in the newly completed Lakeville Estates subdivision after her.
Playwright Author Civil Rights Activist ***Local Connection: Bridge Lane, Croton-on-Hudson***
Lorraine Hansberry was born in Chicago, IL to Carl August Hansberry, a successful real estate speculator (known as “The Kitchenette King of Chicago”) and Nannie Louise Perry, a teacher.
When Hansberry was 8, her parents purchased a house in a white neighborhood, but faced intimidation and threats from the residents who tried to force them to leave. Hansberry remembered rocks being thrown through their windows, and her mother prowling the house after midnight carrying a German Luger pistol when Carl Hansberry was away on business.
Illinois courts upheld the ongoing eviction proceedings and found that by purchasing their house, the Hansberrys had violated the “white-only” covenant of that subdivision. However, Hansberry’s father took the case all the way to the United States Supreme Court and won.
This experience would inspire Hansberry’s most famous play A Raisin in the Sun.
In 1950, Hansberry moved to New York City to pursue a career as a writer. Landing first in Harlem, she began working for Paul Robeson’s Black, radical newspaper Freedom, a monthly periodical.
At Freedom, she quickly rose through the ranks from subscription manager, receptionist, typist, copy editor to associate editor, along the way writing articles and editorials for the paper. It was during this time that she wrote one of her first theatrical pieces, a pageant for “The Freedom Negro History Festival” that would feature Paul Robeson, Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier, among other luminaries.
In 1953, she married Robert Nemiroff, a book editor, producer, and composer of the hit single “Cindy, oh Cindy.” They moved to 337 Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village and it was here, in 1957, that she wrote her semi-autobiographical play A Raisin in the Sun.
It took the producers nearly two years to raise the funds, as investors were wary of backing the first play of an unknown 26-year-old Black woman. Premiering in New Haven, Connecticut, A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway in March 1959 and was the first Broadway show to be written by Black woman and the first to be directed by a Black man (Lloyd Richards.) Starring Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Claudia McNeil, the production was nominated for four Tony Awards. The original production ran for 530 performances – a remarkable feat in those days and would make a successful transfer to the big screen in the 1961 movie written by Hansberry and starring most of the Broadway cast. Today it is a staple of high school and college curricula and is considered one of the greatest American plays of the 20th century. It continues to be produced all over the world.
After the success of A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry purchased a townhouse in Greenwich Village.
Soon after, she would purchase a house in Croton-on-Hudson. Ironically calling her Bridge Lane home, “Chitterling Heights,” it became her escape from the city, her writing studio, and a place where Black artists and progressives (such as Langston Hughes, Alex Haley, and Ruby Dee) would gather.
Lorraine Hansberry’s house on Bridge Lane, c. 2018
Hansberry’s Broadway success catapulted her into the whirlwind of popular intellectual discourse, and she used her newfound fame to speak out on things that mattered to her. She became a star speaker, dominating panels, podiums and television appearances. Her quick wit and provocative stances made her popular with the media as she could always be counted on for spirited discussion.
She was deeply involved in the Civil Rights movement, appearing at numerous events and meeting with political leaders:
Hansberry with Nina Simone at a Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee event, 1963. Courtesy of the New York Public Library
By 1963, as one of the intellectual leaders of the civil rights movement, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy would meet with her, James Baldwin, Lena Horne, Harry Belafonte and others for advice on civil rights and school desegregation initiatives. (Read a May 25, 1963 New York Times article about this meeting here.)
In 1964, Hansberry was integral in organizing and participating in one of the first fundraisers in the New York City area for the civil rights movement, held at Croton’s Temple Israel. (The 1963 Birmingham church bombings catalyzed many on the East Coast.)
She was the MC of the event, and brought in other like-minded celebrities, including Ossie Davis, James Baldwin, and Judy Collins. They raised over $11,000 for organizations like the Congress of Racial Equality – Freedom Summer voter registration project (CORE), the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the NAACP.
Some of the money raised went towards the purchase of a Ford station wagon that Freedom Riders James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were driving the night they were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
Unofficially separated for several years, Hansberry would divorce Robert Nemiroff in 1964, though they remained close collaborators and business partners to the end of her life. Nemiroff produced her final play, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, which opened on Broadway in October 1964.
In January 1965, Hansberry would die from pancreatic cancer at the age of 34, two days after The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window closed.
She is buried in the Bethel Cemetery in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.
CODA:
“You are young, gifted, and black. In the year 1964, I, for one can think of no more dynamic combination that a person might be.”
The above quotation comes from a talk Lorraine Hansberry gave to six teenage winners of a Readers’ Digest/ United Negro College Fund writing contest. In 1968, ex-husband and literary executor Robert Nemiroff would compile many of Hansberry’s unfinished and unpublished works into an off-Broadway play called Young, Gifted and Black. This in turn would be adapted into a posthumous autobiography of the same name published in 1969.
Singer/Songwriter Nina Simone would be inspired to write and record a song with that title and in 1972, singer Aretha Franklin would release an album of the same name.
There have been numerous productions of her seminal play A Raisin in the Sun – on Broadway and off-, internationally, in regional theaters, on television and film. In 1973, a musical version of the play, called Raisin won the Tony Award for Best Musical. In 2010, playwright Bruce Norris wrote Clybourne Park which tells the story before and after the events of A Raisin in the Sun and in 2013, Kwame Kwei-Armah wrote Beneatha’s Place which imagines what happened to the character of Beneatha after the events of A Raisin in the Sun.
It is a play and a story that continue to inspire.
Yet, it took until 2013 for Lorraine Hansberry to be inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame:
Finally, today, in addition to her other accomplishments, Lorraine Hansberry is now being hailed as a figurehead of the LGBTQ movement. However, this is a little tricky, as Hansberry was not out during her lifetime. For five decades after her death, ex-husband and literary executor Robert Nemiroff restricted access to any of Hansberry’s writings that explored her sexuality. It wasn’t until 2013 that researchers were allowed to see these previously hidden articles, letters, and journal entries. Since then, Hansberry has emerged as a queer icon. Her published works from this cache, often signed only with her initials, reveal a thoughtful and progressive thinker, while her private writings offer a new perspective on this multifaceted artist.
Born to an Irish-Catholic family in Roxbury, Massachusetts, Mary “Mollie” Josephine Rogers grew up as a dutiful, observant Catholic.
It wasn’t until she attended Smith College as a Zoology major that she became inspired by the active Protestant Mission Study groups. She wondered, why didn’t the Catholic students have anything similar?
Mollie Rogers, c. 1905 On the occasion of her graduation from Smith College Courtesy Maryknoll Mission Archives
After graduation, she went on to get a teaching certificate and was invited back to Smith as a “demonstrator” in the Department of Zoology. It was during this time that she was tapped to lead a Bible and Mission Study class for Catholic undergraduates at Smith. To prepare, she contacted Father James Walsh, Director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in Boston. At the time, her goal was simply to “inspire the girls to do actual work when they leave college [and] show them how great the Church is.”
Soon, she was leading a class of Smith students as well as working for Father Walsh as a secretary, helping him publish the first missionary periodical in the United States called The Field Afar:
Courtesy Maryknoll Mission Archives
In 1912, Father Walsh would go on to found the first missionary society in the United States, the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America.
But he was having problems purchasing land for the campus he envisioned. After a transaction in Pocantico Hills fell through, Father Walsh sensed that there might be anti-Catholic sentiment at the root of his difficulties. To counteract that, he turned to his secretary, Mollie Rogers. She put on her best Smith College ensemble with pearls, hat and gloves, and, looking like a wealthy Westchester matron, purchased a 99-acre farm on what was then known as Sunset Hill in Ossining.
Mollie Rogers, c. 1912 Courtesy Maryknoll Mission Archives
From then on, Mollie Rogers would be looked to as the de facto leader of the group of women who were drawn to help Father Walsh.
Soon, they determined to form a religious community of their own. As Mollie charted a course through unmapped waters – theirs was the first group of American religious women whose goal was overseas missionary service – she took on the name Mother Mary Joseph.
Mother Mary Joseph cooking with the Maryknoll Brothers in 1925 Courtesy Maryknoll Mission Archives
The women affiliated themselves with the religious order of St. Dominic and worked relentlessly to overcome multiple rejections by church leadership in both the US and Rome.
Mother Mary Joseph testing out veil options, c. 1920 Courtesy Maryknoll Mission Archives
It wasn’t until 1920 that they were finally approved to begin their mission work. Soon, they were serving in faraway places like Manchuria, the Philippines and China, and women from all over the world were joining the community.
Mother Mary Joseph in Loting, China c. 1940 Courtesy Maryknoll Mission Archives
Under Mother Mary Joseph’s guidance, the congregation of Sisters grew rapidly, setting up missions in Asia, Latin America, Africa and the United States.
The new Maryknoll Motherhouse, c. 1932 Courtesy Maryknoll Mission Archives
Mother Mary Joseph would live in the Maryknoll Motherhouse until 1952 when she suffered a debilitating stroke that left her partially paralyzed. She would rally, continuing to encourage and inspire, until she passed away on October 9, 1955.
Today, Maryknoll Sisters continue to serve in 18 countries. Sisters have opened schools, clinics, and hospitals, expanding their reach into Latin America, Africa, Thailand, Japan and South Korea. They’ve nursed lepers in Hawaii, AIDs patients in El Salvador, taught English in Jakarta, prayed with Navajo, worked with Sudanese refugees, helped Vietnamese asylum seekers, performed surgery in Guatemala, started health clinics in Tanzania, taught nursing in Korea – Mother Mary Joseph’s mission lives on.
“As one lamp lights another nor grows less, so nobleness enkindles nobleness . . . If we could only be mindful that every act of kindness can beget another act of kindness, and any act of charity can bring forth another act of charity, how little trouble we would have in life.”
PERSONAL NOTE FROM THE CURATOR:
I’ve had the great good fortune to work with some of the Maryknoll Sisters over the years, and they always amaze me with their breadth of knowledge, keen intelligence, and positivity.
In 2020, I spoke with Sister Jean Fallon and asked her what made her want to be a missionary nun. This is what she told me:
“When I was a very little girl, my father took me to see some shacks that had appeared at the end of our very nice street.
‘They’re called Hoovervilles,’ he told me. [Yes, Herbert Hoover was President when she was a little girl!]
I cried, ‘But we have to help these people, they can’t live like that.’
My father shook his head – ‘There are too many of them and they need too much. There’s nothing we can do.’
Well, I think that was the moment that started me on this path – I was only about four years old, but I’ve never forgotten that moment. Yes, there ARE too many and they DO need a lot. But there’s always something we can do.”
Opera Singer Broadway Star Teacher ***Ossining connection: 12 Ann Street, Ossining***
An operatic mezzo-soprano, Inez Matthews is best known for her roles in Broadway’s Carmen Jones and Lost in the Starsby Kurt Weill. A gifted singer and musical interpreter, a 1954 article described her as follows:
“It is almost impossible to write of Inez Matthews without overworking superlatives. Typed as a mezzo-soprano, she has a splendid, long-ranged voice, so controlled that she can color its dark, lovely timbre with exquisite lyricism, and flute a sparkling coloratura with an always prevailing limpid clarity of tone. The instrument is remarkable. But that is not all. Her teachers insist that she is an earnest, intelligent student (no detail is too much trouble), and seems unaware of her great personal beauty.“
Born into a musical family, Inez’s father was Reverend Edward J. Matthews of the Star of Bethlehem Church. Her mother Mary sang in the church choir and the Matthews children would have their first public singing experiences at Star. (Inez’s older brother, Edward, was also a well-respected classical singer, creating the role of Jake the Fisherman in George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess [click here to hear him] and as well as Saint Ignatius in Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein’s 1928 opera Four Saints in Three Acts. He would go on to enjoy a successful operatic and recital career before a car accident claimed his life in 1954.)
Brother Edward would give concerts around Westchester at hospitals and veterans’ homes, and the story goes that Inez (who was ten years younger) would tag along, ending his recitals with her rendition of “Rock-a-Bye Baby” sung to her doll dressed in matching clothes, to enthusiastic applause.
While at Ossining High School, she studied voice with Katherine Moran Douglas, a Briarcliff Manor singing teacher whose operatic career had included singing Wagner’s Parsifal in Bayreuth, Germany, Madama Butterflywith Enrico Caruso under Giaccomo Puccini’s supervision, and appearing in the first Metropolitan Opera production of Manon Lescaut. The connection came through Inez’s brother who began his vocal studies with Douglas after she heard him singing as he mowed her lawn after school one day.
After graduating from Ossining High School in 1935, Inez continued her vocal studies. In 1942, she auditioned for the famed acting duo Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne and was cast in their Broadway play The Pirate.
The next year, she would perform as a soloist in the Broadway revival of Hall Johnson’s 1933 folk opera Run, Little Chillun. [Fun Facts: The production also starred actor Earle Hyman in his Broadway debut, and Leslie Uggams’ aunt Eloise Uggams.]
1943 would see her cast in the Broadway premiere of Carmen Jones, a Broadway opera based on the music of George Bizet’s Carmen, but with an updated storyline. Initially a member of the chorus, Inez would stay for the entire run, understudying and then taking over the lead role.
But American opera houses were not open to Black singers at the time — remember, it wasn’t until 1955 that New York’s Metropolitan Opera would hire Marian Anderson (to sing the small role of Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera.)
Inez would tour as a soloist with various Black-helmed choirs, such as the De Paur Infantry Singers and the Juanita Hall Chorus. Making her Town Hall recital debut in New York City in 1947, Inez sang a varied repertoire that ranged from Shubert lieder to operatic arias to spirituals. The New York Times noted that her “work impressed because of the keen intelligence, the grasp of style and the emotional warmth displayed throughout the various offerings. Here was an artist with a real understanding of the nature of the music presented and interpretive ability far above the average.”
1949 would find her on Broadway again, in the role of Irina in the premiere of Kurt Weill’s Broadway opera Lost in the Stars.
Click on this image to hear Inez Matthews sing!
She would marry the Rev. Ulysses Jackson in 1950 and continue to perform, touring internationally in a production of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (with her brother Edward).
Inez would return to Broadway in 1952 for a ground-breaking production of the 1928 opera Four Saints in Three Acts. (Both Inez and Edward would appear together in this production, as would a young mezzo-soprano named Betty Allen* and diva-to-be Leontyne Price.)
Inez would enjoy a successful recital career for the next decade, recording several albums of Shubert lieder and spirituals to add to her cast albums of Porgy and Bess, Lost in the Stars and Four Saints in Three Acts. She would close out the 1950s dubbing the role of Serena, played onscreen by Ruth Attaway, in the Samuel Goldwyn-produced film of Porgy and Bess.
Inez Matthews’ Inter-Allied Artists Management Flyer, 1957 noted that she was “Completely booked, September 1956 through January 1958”
Click here to hear selections from “Inez Matthews Sings Spirituals.”
Click here to hear Inez Matthews sing “My Man’s Gone Now” froma 1959 recording of Porgy and Bess.
Click here to hear Inez Matthews sing “Stay Well” from the 1949 cast album of Kurt Weill’s Lost in the Stars.
In the 1960s, she would scale back her performing, teaching several generations of students both privately and at Virginia State College. Her occasional participation in productions – a 1970s Four Saints in Three Acts for example — as well as solo recitals in the New York area were consistently noted and enthusiastically praised by the local press.
She passed away in the Bronx in 2004.
*PERSONAL NOTE FROM THE CURATOR: Back in the 1980s and 1990s, I studied voice with mezzo-soprano Betty Allen who performed with Inez Matthews in several productions of Four Saints in Three Acts. I was quite thrilled to discover this connection as I researched Matthews’ life for this exhibit.
Sources:
Story, Rosalyn M. And So I Sing. 1990, Warner Books, Amistad. (p. 89) “Conversation with Inez Matthews” by Kari Paulson, 1997 “Found in the stars” by Mary Craig, Musical Courier, August 1954
Ossining History on the Run 