Category: Post War/Modern Period (1946-1999)

Dorothy Jackson is considered Akron’s “goodwill ambassador.” For almost 20 years, Jackson served as deputy mayor of the city. She was the first African-American woman to serve in an Akron mayor’s cabinet. Jackson retired in June 2003 but doesn’t plan to give up her community activitism..

Born in the Oklahoma Indian Territory, she came to Akron, Ohio, when her father got a job at Goodyear. She graduated from East High School and Actual Business College. She attended Kent State University and The University of Akron. On a scholarship, Dorothy attended Gallaudet College, a college for the deaf, and learned sign language. Since then, she has served as a volunteer interpreter for the deaf.

In 1956, she went to work at Goodwill Industries where she taught physically and mentally challenged people job skills. She left Goodwill in 1968 and went with the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority (AMHA). As Human Services administrator, she directed award-winning service programs for the 20,000 residents of the AMHA.

In 1984 Mayor Tom Sawyer appointed Jackson deputy mayor for Intergovernmental Relations. She then served Mayor Donald Plusquellic, as city government’s liaison to a wide range of civic and community groups.

Under Plusquellic, Jackson served on a wide range of local, state and national committees. She was a trustee for Akron General Medical Center and chaired the United Way/Red Cross Partnership Council. She also played a role at the Northeastern Educational Television of Ohio and the National Retirement Communities for the Church of God and served on the advisory committees of the National City Bank and the Junior League of Akron.

Although retired, Jackson plans to continue to serve as interpreter for the deaf at Arlington Church of God, a member of the National Registry of Professional Interpreters & Translators, the Life Membership Committee of NAACP, the National Caucus on the Black Aged, and the Senior Citizens Advisory Council.

Jackson has won many awards over her decades of service to the community, including the Bert A. Polsky Humanitarian Award, the Ohio Black Women’s Leadership Caucus Rosa Parks Award, United Way’s Distinguished Service Award, and the Urban League’s Community Service Award. She has also been inducted into the Ohio Women’s Hall of Fame. A 28-unit handicapped housing development was named Dorothy O. Jackson Terrace in her honor. The Jewish National Fund named a park in Kiryat Ekron, Israel, after her.

Photos courtesy of the Beacon Journal. Bottom photo shows Jackson with Glenisha Brooks.

–Zachary Jackson

Akron, Ohio, owes much of its beauty, its arts, and its leadership to Judith Isroff.

Isroff started the Keep Akron Beautiful movement more than 20 years ago when the city was looking particularly seedy. The movement started as a grassroots movement to educate the public about the need for recycling and beautification. Isroff was its first executive director (from 1981-1989) and helped write the grants that brought much needed funding to the project.

As an arts advocate, Isroff and her husband Clifford set up the Lola K. Isroff Arts Assistance Fund which underwrites a summer arts program for Akron junior and high school students at The University of Akron. She also serves on the Ohio Citizens for the Arts board, the Community Advisory Council to WKSU and the board of trustees of the Akron Art Museum.

As a citizen concerned about the future of the city, Isroff became president of Leadership Akron, where she oversaw a training program that helps mold the next generation of male and female leaders. She was president of the Akron Roundtable and is a lifetime member of its board. She also was the first and only woman board president of the Akron Jewish Community Federation.

Over the years, Isroff has received many awards, including the Myrtle Wreath Award from Hadassah, the Women’s History Project Woman of the Year award and (with her husband) the 2001 Bert Polsky Humanitarian Award.

Photos courtesy of the Beacon Journal.

Christine “Chrissie” Hynde, lead singer with The Pretenders, got her musical foundation at Firestone High School in Akron, Ohio

Hynde is the daughter of Bud, who worked for Ohio Bell, and Delores (Dee), who worked as a secretary. She graduated from Firestone High School where she was a member of choral groups and briefly attended Kent State University where she majored in Art.

But Hynde wanted to be a rock star and she didn’t think she needed a college degree to do it. She also didn’t think she could reach her goal in Akron so she moved to London, vowing not to return until she made it big.

In London she went through a series of jobs – including a brief stint as a critic for a music magazine, New Musical Express – and a number of different bands. By 1979 everything clicked musically; her band, The Pretenders, hit it big with a recording that went on to be nominated for three Grammy awards. Hynde wrote many of the songs. Billboardsaw her as a talent. “Hynde writes literate, sharp, biting lyrics and demonstrates a flair for melodies that ring with elements of rack classicism.” The New York Times saw her as the key to the Pretenders’ success. “Miss Hynde’s songs and singing and her tough, rock-and-roll-woman persona are what makes the Pretenders really special….”

Hynde is still with the Pretenders and still recording, although with a different label. She and the Pretenders are no longer with Sire/Warner Brothers and now records on the smaller Artemis label.

Hynde has long been one of the more controversial characters in popular music. As an animal rights activist, she implied that McDonald’s should be bombed because it encouraged meat consumption and she was arrested for protesting the department store Gap’s use of leather.

The Pretenders still tour. In 2002, they opened for the Rolling Stones on their American tour. Hynde returns to Akron to perform to visit her family who still live there.

Photo courtesy of the Beacon Journal.

–Kathleen L. Endres

It’s difficult to categorize Kathryn Motz Hunter. She is a patron of the arts, a business woman, and a politically active citizen.

Hunter was born into the Akron business community. Her father, Clarence E. Motz, an attorney, bought into the Valley Savings Bank in 1927. Before his death, her husband, John B. Hunter, ran the bank and a companion business, First Akron Corp.

While her husband ran the Motz “family business,” Kathryn Hunter was busy starting her own. Hunter owned and operated two neighborhood weeklies, the Falls News (now owned by Record Publishing) and the Hudson Times, for 18 years.

Hunter also went into the “family business.” She is now president of First Akron and chair of the board of Valley Savings. In 2002, she was named “Business Woman of the Year” by Inside Business. In 1998, she was the first woman to receive the “Sales and Marketing Executive of the Year Award” from the SME Association.

But that’s only part of Hunter’s story. She is also a patron of the arts. She serves on the board of trustees of the Ohio Ballet and the advisory board of WKSU. She is also a philanthropist, working through the Akron Community Foundation as a board member.

Most recently, she turned her attention to the issue of school funding. She worked on the unsuccessful campaign for Issue 12, a sales tax to be used for Summit County schools. She also served on The University of Akron’s Board of Trustees during the 1990s when that school’s first woman president was let go.

Hunter lives in Silver Lake.

Photo courtesy of the Beacon Journal.

–Kathleen L Endres

Judith L. Hunter is an example of how women’s careers take unexpected turns. Hunter started out as a teacher in the Hudson elementary schools. She is now the judge of the Summit County Court of Common Pleas, Juvenile Division.

Hunter attended high school in Richland County, Ohio. She got her degree from Shelby High School in 1959 and then went off to college, first to Baldwin Wallace and then Ohio State. After graduation, she taught in Hudson, Ohio; but in 1967, she left that job to care for her newborn son. By the 1970s she was back in school – this time to The University of Akron’s School of Law. She graduated in 1978 in the top 10 percent of her class.

Hunter started a new career as an attorney specializing in family law. She joined the law firm of Matz, Pertsilage and Weimer and served on the Family Law Committee of the Akron Bar Association. She also developed a strong interest in the legal problems facing battered and abused wives and children; Hunter volunteered as legal counsel for the Battered Women’s Shelter in Akron.

Her career then took another turn – politics. A Republican, Hunter ran for the Akron Municipal Court unsuccessfully; her run for the Domestic Relations Court met a similar fate. Finally in 1991 she won the election for clerk of courts. Five years later she was running for the Summit County Court of Common Pleas, Juvenile Division, and won. She was re-elected in 2002.

Since arriving on the bench, Hunter has brought a variety of innovations to the juvenile court. She implemented procedures needed to comply with seven new juvenile justice laws. She has also started a juvenile drug treatment court, an important innovation because research showed that a full two-thirds of the children involved in the Summit County court system needed some type of substance abuse treatment. She also serves on the county’s Criminal Justice Advisory Board.

Over her career, Hunter has won a variety of awards; she was named woman of the year by the Women’s History Project of the Akron area and received The University of Akron’s Urban Light Award. She currently serves on Summit County’s Criminal Justice Advisory Board.

Photo courtesy of the Beacon Journal.

—Zachary Jackson

Since her graduation from The University of Akron in 1986, Terri Heckman’s name has been synonymous with Akron agencies that assist women in time of crisis. She has been the executive director of the Battered Women’s Shelter of Summit and Medina Counties since 1995. She also was head of the Akron Rape Crisis Center.

A state licensed social worker, Heckman has been recognized as a dynamic statewide leader and recognized speaker on topics concerning domestic violence, child abuse, rape, elder abuse and dating violence. She also wrote two publications, “A Rape Survivor’s Support Manual” and “It Wasn’t Suppose To End This Way,” a date-rape prevention manual written in a comic book format.

Heckman served as the chairperson of the Summit County Domestic Violence Coalition from 1998 – 2001 and continues her leadership role with this Coalition, acting as the executive director. She has also been the chairperson of the Summit County Children At Risk Coalition and chairperson of the Education Committee of the Summit County Child Abuse Prevention Project, has held leadership positions with the Summit County CYO, Summit County Child and Family First Coalition and the Summit Forum, and has been elected to sit on the Steering Committee of the Ohio Domestic Violence Network — the State recognized coalition addressing the needs, services and future of the domestic violence movement in Ohio. She also served 12 years as the head girls soccer coach at Archbishop Hoban High School.

She’s been honored for her hard work and commitment on multiple occasions. In 1999 she received the Outstanding Service to Crime Victims Award from Victims Assistance Inc. of Summit County; in 1998 she won The Liberty Bell Award from the Akron Bar Association, and in 1996 received the Harold K. Stubbs Humanitarian Award from St. Paul A.M.E. Church. She’s also received Special Achievement Award (for authoring “The Survivor Support Manual”) from the state of Ohio Attorney General’s Office, the Professional Woman of the Year Award from the Akron Women’s History Project and distinguished service awards from both the Akron Jaycees and Kiwanis Club.

Heckman was born in Cleveland in 1958 and was raised in Fairlawn. She attended St. Hilary grade school and graduated from Copley High in 1976. Her parents and four siblings still reside in Summit County.

Photo courtesy of the Beacon Journal.

 

–Zachary Jackson

Irene Henrietta Seiberling Harrison, proper young woman of privilege, set in motion the wheels of industry and historic preservation for the citizens of Summit County, Ohio.

Harrison was born on February 25, 1890, in Akron, Ohio. The daughter of Gertrude Penfield and F. A. Seiberling, she is credited with turning the switch on the machines that started the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Plant in Akron when she was 8 years old. The company was co-founded by her father and her uncle.

Seiberling received her education at the Dana Hale Preparatory School in Wellesley, Mass., where she studied music. Seiberling loved to travel with her family and made several trips to Europe to find material and design information for the Tudor-style mansion being built by her parents in Akron.

A well-known story about the 21-year-old Seiberling recalls that she was given the task of booking return passage for herself and her parents from England to New York in 1912. Because of a change in their sightseeing schedule, however, they were not able to meet the ship she had booked them aboard — the Titanic.

Early in 1923, Seiberling organized a Tea Day to educate other young women about the need for a unified and coordinated community group. This group was a precursor to the United Way Fund. Harrison also is listed as a participant in the march for women’s suffrage and volunteered for community service during World War I.

On Christmas day, 1923, Seiberling married New York banker Milton Whateley Harrison. The couple moved to New York where she raised their children — Sally, Robert and Gertrude.

It was not until after her husband’s death in 1949, and at her father’s urging, that Harrison returned to Stan Hywet. Because the 100-room, 1,400-acre mansion needed expensive upkeep and finances were limited, Harrison established a non-profit board to care for the home and the general public was first allowed inside in 1957.

Described as a petit, dainty woman standing just over 5 feet tall, Harrison was a determined force in the causes she held dear. At age 105, she campaigned for the removal of carcinogens, fluorides and chlorine in the drinking water of Akron.

On January 21, 1999, Harrison died at age 108 and the community mourned the loss of a good woman. In reporting her death, The Auto Channel, a website dedicated to the auto industry, was quoted as saying, “she was an outstanding woman who contributed greatly to her community and had a unique hand in Goodyear’s beginnings.”

Photos courtesy of the Beacon Journal

–Penny Fox

Mabel Lamborn Graham’s name is almost synonymous with the Akron Symphony Orchestra. It was because of her support, dedication and hard work that the Symphony celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2002.

Born Mabel Lamborn on July 13, 1905, she grew up in Alliance, Ohio, a town settled by her relatives. In 1925, she married Dr. Lawrence A. Graham, a dentist of Silver Lake.

During the earlier years, Graham was very active in the Cleveland Skating Club and was an international skating judge for many years. She also spent time as a piano teacher, spreading her love of music through instruction.

In 1949, Beacon Journal business manager John Barry presented a $500 check to Graham, with instructions to start a symphony orchestra in Akron. He only had two specifications: “Make it a union, and never give up.”

Graham took those words to heart and quickly started fund-raising efforts to begin what many called her first love.

In 1952, Graham chaired a fundraiser for the Akron Symphony, the Viennese Ball. This formal affair featured music by the Denny Thompson Orchestra and the Akron Symphonette. Tickets to that first fundraiser cost $3.50 per couple, and that evening raised $1500 for the future of the orchestra. The benefit has become a tradition for the Symphony, one that still continues today.

Sue Jeppesen Gillman, Graham’s friend and former Akron Symphony Guild president, was always amazed at the dedication her friend and colleague showed for the Symphony.

“She devoted a lot of time to getting it started and keeping it going,” Gillman said. “She wouldn’t take no for an answer, and that was a large factor in keeping the orchestra going.”

Fund raising was a slow and tedious job. Originally, Graham had planned on the orchestra performing for the first time in 1951. However, the volunteers of the Greater Akron Musical Association (GAMA), the Symphony’s parent organization, needed $8000 to start the symphony – money that just wasn’t available.

Graham didn’t give up though, continuing her efforts to keep her word to Barry. Graham’s efforts finally paid off when, in 1953, the first concert by the Akron Symphony was given at Central High School — the same orchestra that still performs regularly today.

Though another president came before her, Graham has always been regarded as the founding president of GAMA, an office which she held from 1953 – 1970.

Graham had a busy year in 1953, not only serving as president of GAMA, but also taking over the voluntary position of business manager for the Symphony.

“She was our whipcracker,” Gillman said. “Mabel was a great one for getting things done.”

In 1970, Graham stepped down as president of GAMA. “After 17 years, she wanted someone else to take over the reins,” Gillman said. Graham retained her connection with the Symphony, earning the title of Trustee Emeritus.

The Symphony wasn’t Graham’s only involvement. In 1977, she was elected president of the Tuesday Musical Club. She was also an integral part of bringing the first instrumental opera performance to Akron.

Graham, a member of the First Congregational Church, died on August 4, 2002. The Akron Symphony dedicated its 2003 season to Graham for her steadfast determination and enthusiastic perseverance in the creation of the Akron musical tradition.

Photo courtesy of the Akron Symphony Orchestra.

–Jennifer Petric

You could call Joyce Jackson George’s life a kind of “Horatio Alger story.”

She didn’t have many advantages starting out. She was reared in Edgewood Homes, a low-income government housing project on Akron’s west side; but, through hard work, she became the first woman judge elected in Summit County.

Born on May 4, 1936, she’s the daughter of Raymond and Verna Jackson. Jackson graduated from West High School in 1953. She started college, The University of Akron; but, like many women in the 1950s, she got married, had a child and dropped out of school. When her marriage failed, she moved to New York City with her young son and worked as a secretary. Two years later, she was back in Akron, reconciled with her husband and had another child. But her marriage failed again.

This time she went back to The University of Akron to get her degree. She majored in Education, a degree that assured her a job, something that this young single mother needed. From 1962 to 1966, she taught first grade at Miller and Crouse schools.

George, however, had other career plans. At night, she attended The University of Akron’s Law School. In 1966, she graduated and started a new career — this one in law. From 1966 to 1973, she was assistant director of law from the city of Akron.

In 1973, she started on a slightly different career path — in politics. That career has not always been successful. In 1973, she tried for a seat on the City Council but was overwhelmingly defeated when the Democrats made a clean sweep in that election. In 1974, she was elected to the Summit County Charter Commission.

Then in 1975, at the age of 39, she became the first woman judge elected in Summit County. She defeated the former county prosecutor and three others to win the new Akron municipal judgeship. It was quite an accomplishment for the kid from the west side who had once worked as a butcher’s assistant (and at Isaly’s and Firestone) to get by.

George always seemed to keep her options open. In 1976 and 1980, she ran for the Appeals Court — and lost. In 1978, 1986 and 1988, she ran for the Ohio Supreme Court — and lost. But that doesn’t mean she ignored her duties on the municipal court. In 1979, she ruled on the “Debbie Does Dallas” case and found the film “obscene.” She was popular enough in 1981 to be re-elected to the muncipal court. In 1982, she moved on to the Court of Appeals.

These successes caught the eye of a new Republican president in the White House, George Bush, who named her a U.S. attorney for the northern district of Ohio. “There’s only 93 of them in the whole United States, so it is very prestigious,” she said.

Described as a moderate Republican, George is popular in Summit County party politics. She served on the county’s Republican Party’s Executive Committee from 1994-1996. In 1996, she was back on the election trail, this time running for Congress against popular Democratic Representative Tom Sawyer. She lost — soundly.

These days, George is a visiting judge in the Court of Common Pleas. She also does arbitration, mediation, writing and lecturing. Not bad for a kid from the west side of the city.

–Casey Moore

Carole Garrison never followed a simple career path. She started as a police officer in Atlanta in the early 1970s but shifted to education. During her career as an educator, she did research that highlighted the roles women play in police work, helped launch The University of Akron’s Women’s Studies Program, improved services to women in the city – and went off to Cambodia to monitor that country’s first democratic election.

After earning a Ph.D. at Ohio State University, Garrison came to Akron in 1981 to teach at the university’s Department of Criminal Justice. Her research was practical and usable – she studied drug and alcohol abuse among adolescents, community attitudes toward police women and the employment of female police officers in Ohio. As a result, she was one of only 30 criminal justice professionals asked to serve on the review committee of Ohio’s proposed police certification curriculum.

Shortly after Garrison arrived on campus, a small group of women – Garrison among them – started planning a Women’s Studies program at the university. The plans took time; the small group not only had to come up with an academically sound proposal but they also needed to build alliances across campus. Garrison became the program’s founding director.

While director, Garrison expanded her ties to the community. Often working with friend and colleague Faye Dambrot, Garrison was one of the founders of the Women’s History Project of the Akron Area and served on the boards of the Rape Crisis Center, the National Women Studies Association and the U.S. Defense Department’s Committee on Women in the Service.

In 1992, Garrison went off to Cambodia to supervise that country’s first democratic election in its history. For 13 months, she lived in remote village, set up polling stations and supervised the registration of voters. In 1993, she returned to Akron to teach; but three years later she was back in Cambodia as executive director of the Cooperation Committee for Cambodia, a network of humanitarian and developmental non-government organizations. While in Cambodia, Garrison adopted 6-year-old daughter, Tevi Seng.

Today, Garrison resides in Richmond, Ky., with daughter Tevi. She is chair of the Department of Criminal Justice and Police Studies at Eastern Kentucky University

Photo courtesy of Carole Garrison.

–Zachary Jackson