Marguerite V. Nash was a woman of many dimensions. She met a president, led the NAACP and served as a jail matron, the first African-American woman to hold that position at the Summit County jail.
The president was John F. Kennedy. The year was 1963, when tensions were high in the Civil Rights movement. The place was the White House. Nash was one of 300 invited women who heard Kennedy plea for their cooperation in easing the nation’s racial problems. The group also met with the soon-to-be-president Lyndon B. Johnson. Nash told theBeacon Journal that she thought it “was a very useful meeting.” Johnson reported that he thought that meeting might be the most effective in the series Kennedy had on Civil Rights.
Nash had been invited because of her involvement in the local and state NAACP. A long-time member and activist of the Akron chapter, she also was involved in the state organization, serving on the executive board in the 1950s and early 1960s.
But she had another life as well. Her job, her career was with the Summit County Sheriff’s Department. She joined the sheriff’s department in 1960. In 1975 she was named Summit County’s jail matron as “an affirmative action to ensure the equal rights of minorities and women in our office,” Sheriff Ronald Weyrandt told the Beacon Journal.At the time of her retirement in 1981, one of her colleagues, Sgt. Ken Lockhard, said, “She is really a mother to us.”
Born in Youngstown, she was the widow of the one-time Negro All-American basketball and football player James R. Nash. They had three daughters and one son. Nash was a member of the Wesley Temple A.M.E. Church. In 1987, the local NAACP chapter created a scholarship in her name.
Nash died on Aug. 6, 1996 at the Cypress Nursing Home in Houston.
Frances Burke Murphey, a Beacon Journal reporter for 55 years, brought home many honors and awards over her long career but her greatest contributions to the city were the stories she left behind. While other reporters and editors were covering the “big” stories, Murphey liked to tell the “little” ones, the ones about ordinary women and men building the city.
Murphey was born into journalism. Born in Macedonia on Dec. 24, 1922, Murphey was the daughter of Philip A. and Marie L. (Thompson) Murphey. Her mother was a reporter for the old Akron Times Press. When she was in junior high, Murphey tagged along with her mother when she covered political meetings. Murphey graduated from Hudson High School. She planned on a journalism career when she enrolled at Kent State University.
When she graduated, she got a job at the Beacon Journalas a reporter. (Even as a student, she had worked for theBeacon as a stringer covering Kent, Brimfield and Brady Lake.) But the editors never thought she’d last long. In fact, Murphey had to sign a contract saying her job was temporary. When the men returned from World War II, the editors expected Murphey to give up her job. She didn’t but she did have fall-back plans. She learned how to operate the Beacon’s elevator and switchboard, just in case, the newspaper reported.
There weren’t very many woman reporters at the Beacon Journal at the time. Ruth McKenney, an early reporter, had already moved on, so Murphey needed to develop her own style. She was best known for her dress — bib overalls and boots. Murphey was also known for her dogged determination in getting a story. Murphey is credited with single-handedly forcing both The University of Akron and the Akron-Summit County Public Library to open their board meetings to the public.
She was known for her “Good Afternoon” and “Good Morning” columns that told about retirements and weddings, college reunions, outings and anniversaries – the stuff that made Akron a community. She was also known for insisting on including a married woman’s first name in a news story, even though the style of the day was to identify them only by their husband’s name. She was also known for her travel columns that highlighted the state of Ohio – and her outhouse photos.
It was this reputation that brought literally hundreds of readers out for the Fran Murphey retirement party at the Civic Theatre, the largest place the Beacon could find in the city.
Murphey won many awards during her career. In 1996 she won Knight Ridder Newspapers’ John S. Knight Excellence Award for Community Service. In 1993, she won a special recognition award from the Associated Press Society of Ohio. Over her career, Murphey held many jobs at the Beacon – school editor, spelling bee editor, State Desk reporter-photographer and, of course, columnist and travel writer.
When she died on Nov. 9, 1998, she was mourned as a city “original.” Ohio Gov. Bob Taft acknowledged her many contributions by giving her the Governor’s Award for Journalism. The state also dedicated a rest stop along Interstate 77 in Summit County to her.
Judge Carla Moore was first African-American woman elected to a judicial seat in Summit County. She was a successful associate with one of Akron’s largest law firms in 1980 when she pursued an opportunity to become an assistant US attorney for the Northern District of Ohio representing the federal government and its agencies in litigation including bankruptcy, civil fraud, civil rights, contracts, environmental litigation, social security and medical malpractice.
She was promoted to deputy chief of the Civil Division in 1984 and promoted again in 1986 to chief of Appellate Litigation. She left the U.S. Attorney’s office in 1988 for a private firm.
Moore received a B.A. in German from The University of Akron and a Juris Doctor degree from The Ohio State University College of Law. She was admitted to the Ohio Bar in 1977 and accepted a position as assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Section, where she gained trial experience enforcing Ohio’s anti-discrimination statute in state and federal courts.
Moore was appointed to the bench in 1989 by Gov. Richard Celeste following the death of Judge Harold Stubbs. She retained the seat in the November 1989 election. As important as her work is on the bench, Judge Moore further distinguishes herself by her tireless efforts on numerous civic boards and organizations, where she gives humbly and freely of her time to help those less fortunate and less accomplished.
In 1973, Belle K. Miller received the Bert A. Polsky Humanitarian Award from the Akron Community Foundation. The choice made sense. Miller showed her humanitarian side in many ways. She was a crusader for children and mental health. She worked hard for the Jewish community both locally and nationally.
Born in Newport, Ky., she and her parents moved to Akron in 1914. She became a nurse and worked at Akron City Hospital, where she met her husband pediatrician Noah Miller.
She started as a community activist while her children were growing up and she focused her activism on youth and their mental problems. She founded the Summit County Mental Hygiene Clinic and served as its president. She was also an early president of the Akron Child Guidance Center and the Sagamore Hills Children’s Psychiatric Hospital.
Committed to principles of social justice, Miller was an advocate of fair housing and served on the board of the Akron Urban League. She was also long active in the League of Women Voters, serving as president of the Akron league and board member of the Ohio league.
A member of Temple Israel, Miller remained active in the Jewish community. She was president of the Akron Jewish Family Service Society and a fund-raiser for the Akron Jewish Federation, the National Women’s Division of United Jewish Appeals and the Council of Jewish Federation Welfare Funds. In 1987, the Women’s Division gave her its “Woman of Valor” award.
Miller also served on the boards of a variety of community organizations, including Goals for Greater Akron, Planned Parenthood, United Way Women and the Women’s Board of Stan Hywet Hall. Her concern for the city’s appearance led her to service on the Akron Urban Design Commission, the citizen’s advisory committee to the Akron Planning Commission and the board of Keep Akron Beautiful.
Miller died on Nov. 26, 2001 in Jupiter, Fla. Her funeral was held in Akron. She is buried at Rose Hill Burial Park.
Laura Horn McClure never forgot the hard times of her youth. So when a nurse asked her to donate some of her daughter’s clothes, she was happy to oblige. That simple act of charity led to one of Akron’s most extraordinary volunteer agencies, Good Neighbors.
The call came in 1957. McClure said the nurse had a family so poor that the girls couldn’t attend school because they didn’t have anything to wear. “So I gathered up what I could and took the stuff to them,” she told the Beacon Journal.
That act of kindness started a chain reaction. Soon McClure had more requests than she could handle so she turned to her church, North Hill Methodist, and its Women’s Circle for help. The church donated a room to sort and store clothing and the women got busy. A new organization had been formed, Good Neighbors. But there was so much need in Akron that a single church and a single Women’s Circle couldn’t do it all. Soon other churches were involved.
The Good Neighbors organization provides food, clothing, and aid to Akron area residents that need a hand. The Good Neighbors does it without any bureaucracy or red tape. It was many volunteers, working through the churches and civic organizations in the area, to help residents in need.
By 1967, Good Neighbors had spread to 44 churches and helped almost 12,000. By 1969, about 60 churches were involved. In 1971, 100 churches and civic organizations were part of the Good Neighbors network and thousands of needy Akron families were getting food, clothing or other aid when they needed it.
McClure headed the group for its first 25 years but she did more than just administer the organization. She delivered baskets and processed requests. In fact, she’d answer the phone calls that started around 8 a.m. and lasted until late at night. When the group didn’t have enough money to pay the rent for the office, McClure recruited teenagers to help her pick enough strawberries to pay the bill. When the group fell short of the money needed to fill Christmas baskets, she went into debt to buy the ham and potatoes and fruit needed. She was also the main fundraiser, going out to churches and civic organizations and urging listeners to donate.
All this seemed so far removed from the painfully shy little girl from Gambier, Ohio. Born in Butler, near Mt. Vernon, Ohio, in 1910, McClure was the daughter of Charlie Horn, a schoolteacher who earned $100 a month teaching in Gambier. The family didn’t have much in the way of material goods and the other children often made fun of the poorly dressed little girl. As a result, she became very shy.
During the Depression she married Harold McClure. He worked for the Works Progress Administration. Things improved once they moved to Akron in 1944. He found a job at Goodrich and she for a time worked as a waitress at the old Akron Hotel.
When her two daughters were young, she was active in the PTA and played the piano for Bettes School events and the North Hill Methodist Church. Once she got the Good Neighbors program started, she didn’t have much time for any other activities.
The whole McClure family was involved in the organization. Her husband and daughters all helped out. By the 1980s, however, the Good Neighbors had grown beyond the McClures. While she remained active in the group, the day-to-day administration was turned over to others.
Today, Good Neighbors still helps thousands of those in need in the Akron area. The basic concept is the same. This is a group without any bureaucracy or red tape that just helps people in need.
During her life, McClure received many awards for her work. In 1967 Lane Bryant named her one of nine outstanding volunteers; in 1968, the Beacon Journal selected her as a Woman of Achievement; in 1974 the National Association of Social Workers honored her.
When McClure died on May 7, 1995, her family asked that no flowers be sent and donations be made to Good Neighbors. McClure would have approved.
Anyone who is studying African Americans in Akron, invariably turns to Shirla Robinson McClain’s book, The Contributions of Blacks in Akron: 1825-1975. It started as a dissertation but ended as a life-long crusade to tell the story of African Americans in the city.
McClain was a product of the Akron Public Schools. She graduated from The University of Akron, earning a Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctorate in Education. Her dissertation, which becameThe Contributions of Blacks in Akron: 1825-1975, is still considered an important resource for scholars researching African Americans in the city.
McClain had a 20-year career with the Akron Public Schools. She was a classroom teacher, at various times working with Headstart, elementary and secondary students. She was a remedial teacher, educational specialist and a supervisor. She then moved on to college, teaching education at Kent State University and Walsh University.
Throughout her long career, McClain wrote articles, presented scholarly presentations and did in-service consulting. She worked hard to start a Black History curriculum in Akron’s public schools and to begin a gallery and repository for materials on Akron Black History in what is now called the Pan African Culture and Research Center at The University of Akron. In 1997, that gallery, located in the old train station on the university campus, was renamed in her honor.
McClain died in Akron in 1997, after a long battle with adrenal gland cancer. She was only 62. At her funeral, the Rev. Ronald Fowler, of Arlington Church of God, called McClain, “a tremendous giant in our community.””She taught us to believe in ourselves, in our potential as people, to make contributions to the broader community and to be proud of our African-American heritage,” Fowler observed.
Janet Leach, first female editor of the Akron Beacon Journal, always likes to say “you can have it all, but not at the same time.”
That seemed to prove true for her as well, when, in February 2003, she was unable to juggle home, job, family, children and community activism and resigned as editor of the Beacon. She has since accepted a position as “professional in residence” at Kent State University’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Leach was editor of the Beacon at a particularly difficult juncture. Taking over in 1998, just as the economy soured in Northeast Ohio, Leach had responsibility in 2001 of overseeing the first newsroom layoff in the paper’s history. Buyouts further reduced the newsroom staff, eliminating many of the Beacon’s most experienced reporters.
In spite of the cutbacks, Leach remained committed to covering the community as thoroughly as before. Leach especially emphasized the coverage of children and children’s issues, supervising the series on shaken baby syndrome.
Under her watch, the newspaper came to be known for its community projects. After the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City on September 11, 2001, the newspaper started a campaign to raise funds to buy a fire truck for that city. The public quickly responded and New York had a much-needed fire truck. The newspaper also was very active in raising public awareness and funds for the Millennium Fund for Children, an endowment fund established to enhance children’s lives in the 21st century.
When Leach took over as BJ editor in March 1998, she said it was “like a dream come true.” Leach was returning “home.”
Leach was originally from Maple Heights, a Cleveland suburb, and had been away for more than 20 years, first to get her journalism degree from Bowling Green State University (Bowling Green, Ohio) and then to establish a professional career.
Leach started that career as a police reporter at The Review Times, a small afternoon daily in Fostoria. She also worked for the Arizona Republic and the Phoenix Gazette and taught journalism at Northern Kentucky University and the University of Cincinnati. Immediately before coming to theBeacon, Leach had been managing editor for the Cincinnati Enquirer, a daily newspaper owned by the Gannett Company.
Coming “home” also meant that her three daughters — the twins still in diapers – could spend time with Leach’s family and that husband John could get his law degree at The University of Akron.
Leach understood that being editor of the Beacon brought enormous responsibilities. The newspaper had a long tradition of editorial excellence, winning a total of four Pulitzer Prizes, including the Golden Medal for Meritorious Service in 1994.
She seemed to live up to her job. She supervised the much-trimmed-down editorial staff of 170 but the paper’s editorial excellence still remained high. During her five-year tenure with the Beacon, the newspaper won the “Best Newspaper in Ohio” award three times from the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists.
In addition, Leach served on the board of directors of the Associated Press Managing Editors and as a judge for the Pulitzer Prizes. She is also a member of the Knight Foundation, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Akron Press Club, and the American Society of Newspaper Editors. She is a graduate of Leadership Akron.
However, the strain of running a newspaper and family wore on her. In her memo to the staff announcing her resignation, Leach cited personal reasons for her departure. She had struggled to “juggle demands for editor, mother, wife, community involvement and more” and she needed to give up some of her tasks – and one of those tasks was editing the Beacon Journal. In accepting her resignation, Publisher James N. Crutchfield said, “Jan has been an outstanding editor of the Beacon Journal.” She is a “fine journalist and a leader with vision and compassion. We will miss her.”
Leach and her family continue to reside in Fairlawn, Ohio.
Polly Sherman Leonard Keener is the creator of the nationally syndicated cartoon strip, “Hamster Alley,” and the puzzle/cartoon feature “Mystery Mosaic,” both nationally syndicated to about 450 newspapers.
Born Polly Leonard, Keener married stockbroker Robert L. Keener, son of retired B.F. Goodrich executive, in 1967.
Keener, an artist, has found creative outlets in a wide variety of mediums. She manufactured a line of “photo dolls,” stuffed dolls with faces based on photographs. Her sketches of the Stan Hywet mansion, the Akron, Ohio, home of Frank and Gertrude Seiberling, graced china plates and playing cards.
But Keener really made her name in cartooning. Her “Animal Drolleries,” cartoons that lampoon humankind with animal characters, premiered in 1977. More recently, her comic strip, “Hamster Alley,” featuring a cat, a bunny and lots of hamsters, is syndicated to weekly newspapers across the United States by DBR Media of Orlando, Fla. The same syndicate distributes her puzzle/cartoon feature, “Mystery Mosaic.”
In her free time, Keener teaches cartooning through The University of Akron’s Continuing Education program, sells”Hamster Alley” merchandise , writes books (Cartooningwritten with Jim Davis in 1992 is still considered a classic in the field; The Writer’s Little Instruction Book: 385 Secrets for Writing Well and Getting Published written with Paul Raymond Martin in 1998; and Hamster Alley: The Early Strips), gives lectures on cartooning and illustrates books, magazines, logos, ads and products.
Keener remains active in her field. She is the former chair of the Great Lakes Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society and a former board member of the national organization.
Photo courtesy of the Beacon Journal. Cartoon used with permission.
Mary Jane White Kaufman was a self-proclaimed “volunteer-at-large.” However, that doesn’t even begin to describe her successful efforts to support both music and education in the Akron area.
Born in Nashville in 1918, Kaufman moved to Akron in 1927. The former Mary Jane White, Kaufman married Harold S. and had three children, Thomas, James and Judith.
In 1963, Kaufman started teaching freshman composition at The University of Akron (UA) and, a year later, she taught language arts at Woodridge High School. Twenty years later, Kaufman retired from Woodridge but continued teaching at UA.
While at UA, Kaufman was involved in the Faculty Women’s Club, where she participated in the evening book group.
English and teaching came in second to her love of music, though. She dedicated many hours volunteering at the Akron Symphony Orchestra, the Greater Akron Musical Association (GAMA) and the Tuesday Musical Club. Kaufman was the founding chairwoman of the Akron Symphony Chorus in 1957, a job she held for 28 years. She began a benefit drive to help the chorus and began performing with the group. In 1985, Kaufman was elected as president of the GAMA board. Two years later, she headed a campaign for the first major endowment drive and raised nearly $1.8 million for the symphony.
In 1998, Kaufman celebrated her 80th birthday by kicking off the second endowment campaign. As chair of “Previews from the Podium,” Kaufman led many pre-concert lectures for the symphony.
The Tuesday Musical Club, an Akron group that brings nationally and internationally recognized musicians to the city, also benefited from Kaufman’s long years as fund-raiser extraordinaire.
As trustee emeritus for the Akron Symphony in later years, Kaufman kept her close ties to the Orchestra.
She was nominated for the 2000 Governor’s Awards for the Arts. Also that year, Kaufman was awarded the Outstanding Fund-Raiser Award by the North Central Ohio Chapter of the National Society of Fund-Raising Executives.
Melina Kanakaredes is an actress, best known for her role on the prime-time television series “Providence.”
Kanakaredes was born in Akron, Ohio, on April 23, 1967, to a Greek-American family. Her first name comes from the Greek prefix Meli, which means honey. She was born the youngest of three daughters to an insurance salesman and a homemaker. Her family owned a candy store in Akron called Temo’s Chocolate Company. When she comes back to Akron to visit family, she still goes to Temo’s, which is now owned by her uncle.
Kanakaredes graduated from Firestone High School and started her entertainment career in a community theater. While attending high school at Firestone, she appeared in plays at a nearby all-boys school.
Kanakaredes attended Ohio State University briefly but then transferred to Point Park College in Pittsburgh, which is affiliated with the Pittsburgh Playhouse. Before long, young Kanakaredes was appearing in productions at the Playhouse as well as the Pittsburgh Public Theatre. She also made appearences in commercials and industrial films.
After graduating with honors with a Bachelor in Fine Arts in theater from Point Park, Kanakaredes moved to New York City, where she worked in the off-Broadway play, “State of the Art.”
In 1991, she landed the part of Eleni Andros Cooper (no. 1) on the popular daytime drama, “The Guiding Light.” She earned two Emmy nominations for that role. The role also led to her being cast for a brief role on “NYPD Blue,” and eventually co-star roled in “New York News,” “Leaving L.A,” and “Oz” before settling on “Providence” in 1999.
Kanakaredes has also appeared in feature films such as the 1998 Casino hit “Rounders,” “Dangerous Beauty,” “The Long Kiss Goodnight” and, most recently, “15 Minutes.” She also appeared in the television movie “Saint Maybe” in 1998.
Kanakaredes is married to chef/restauranteur Peter Constantinades. They have a daughter Zoe. The family lives in Los Angeles, although Kanakaredes has just joined the Roundabout Theatre Co.’s production of “Cabaret.” She plays Sally Bowles.
