Category: Twenties (1920-1929)

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Mary A. Holmes, d. 1986

Mary Holmes and Akron’s Civil Rights movement grew up together. In 1918, she was one of the founders of the NAACP in the city. In the 1920s, she was a staffer for the African-American newspaper. In 1940, she made her way to president of the Council of Negro Women. By the 1960s, she was with the Summit County Community Action Council as a “housing adviser.”

She never planned on that life. “I never planned to get knocks on my head, but somebody’s got to get the knocks to get things done,” she told the Beacon Journal in 1975. “My biggest pleasure is doing something for somebody.”

Born in Buchanan, Va., Holmes attended high school in Charleston, W.Va. She moved to Akron in 1918. Conditions for African Americans in the city were bad. Everything seemed to be segregated. It was little wonder that Holmes would help found the city’s NAACP chapter as soon as she moved to town.

For a time, Holmes worked as a stenographer/bookkeeper for a small manufacturing company. In 1921, she, along with William B. Johnson and William Byrd, started theBlack and White Chronicle, a weekly newspaper covering the city’s African-American community. Holmes was bookkeeper/proofreader/reporter for the newspaper. Opie Evans remembered that Mary Holmes was vital to the newspaper’s life. “You know, that Mary Holmes was everything in that office. She really kept that paper going” (Beacon Journal, Feb. 11, 1991).

After the newspaper folded in 1927, Holmes held a variety of jobs from catering to domestic work and continued to be a leader in the African-American community. She was the secretary of the Colored Women’s Republican Club and president of the Council of Negro Women. She also served as the secretary of the Woman’s Auxiliary of the NAACP. In 1962 to 1964, when racial tensions were highest in Akron, Holmes was president of the city’s NAACP.

Holmes worked with the Summit County Community Action Council “for about as long as anyone can remember,” the Beacon Journal reported. In 1975, she was a “housing adviser,” helping set up the Emergency House for families displaced by eviction or forced out of their homes by disasters, and worked at the North Akron Neighborhood Center.

In 1975, she announced that she was retiring. When she looked back over her long career in Akron, she could see progress. As far as segregation was concerned, Akron was a better place to live. In 1978, the churches in the community acknowledged her role in the city by giving her the “Brotherhood Action Award.”

Holmes died in Akron on April 9, 1986.

 

Photo courtesy of the Beacon Journal.

. –Kathleen L. Endres

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Hermine Zipperlen Hansen, 1859-1942

Mrs. Hermine Zipperlen Hansen, described by her friends “as a tireless worker for Akron’s cultural and welfare development,” in the Akron Beacon Journal, left her $60,000 estate to various clubs and institutions in Akron.

When Hansen died on Jan. 8, 1942, most of her estate was left to the Edwin Shaw sanitorium and to a trust fund designed to assist “worthy but needy students” at The University of Akron. The rest of it was divided up among other Akron area organizations with which she was affiliated.

Hansen was the daughter of Civil War surgeon Adolph Zipperlen and was the widow of Hans Hansen. She was the sister of Mary Schumacher, second wife of Ferdinand Schumacher, the so-called “cereal king” of Akron.

During her life, Hansen was the chairperson of committees for the Woman’s City Club. In 1917, she served as president of the Woman’s Council, a citywide federation of women’s clubs from across the city. She remained active in the Woman’s Council, even after it was renamed the Akron and Summit County Federation of Women’s Clubs. One of the most important fund-raising efforts of the Federation was the sale of Christmas Seals, the revenues of which were used in the city for various health efforts. She handled the Federation sales in both 1923 and 1924. She was also given the responsibility of chairing the committee that organized the Ohio Federation of Women’s Clubs convention in Akron. She was an early president of the College Club of Akron as well.

Earlier in her life, Hansen taught school in Cincinnati.

She and her husband resided at 41 North Portage Path in Akron.

Photo courtesy of the Beacon Journal.

–Janelle Baltputnis

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Catherine Garrett, died 1962

Mrs. Catherine W. Garrett was one of the early female members of the Akron Board of Education.

The first woman had been elected to the Akron Board of Education in 1896, but after that Akron public schools had gone 20 years without a woman on its school board. In 1918, Mrs. A. Ross Read was elected and four years later in 1922, Garrett joined her on the board. In 1925, both women resigned in protest when the four-man majority, said to be dominated by the Ku Klux Klan, engineered the hiring of a new superintendent in a secret session.

Garrett was heavily involved in local educational organizations even before her election. She was one of the founders of the Findley School Parent Teacher Association and a lifetime member as well. She also served as president of the Akron Council PTA.

In addition to her interest in education, Garrett also participated in other city activities. She was one of the founders of the Fifty Year Club and she served as a trustee for that organization. She was a member of the Monday Study Club, the Women’s Universalist Missionary Association, the Akron and Summit County Federation of Women’s Clubs, the Alumni Association of the Akron and Summit County Federation of Women’s Clubs and she was a chairman of committees for the Woman’s City Club.

In 1917, Garrett held the position of recording secretary of the Akron Home and School League and she served as president of that organization from 1919-1921. In 1931, she was the Universalist Women’s Club representative to the Akron and Summit County Federation of Women’s Clubs. She also attended the First Universalist Church in Akron.

Garrett, who was born in Liverpool, England, came to live in Akron when she was 1 year old. She married Charles W. Garrett, who was a broker. She was widowed in 1948. When she died in 1962, she left behind two daughters, Margaret and Jean. The Garretts resided at 3533 Bath Road.

Garrett died in Akron in 1962 after a short illness.

Photo courtesy of The University of Akron Archives.

–Janelle Baltputnis

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Celia Esselburn Frank, 1864-1930

When Celia Esselburn Frank died in 1930, the Beacon Journal called her a “pioneer Akron social worker.” That seemed an apt description. What made her different was how she worked. She had no affiliation with any charitable organization or agency in the city. She just did her relief work on her own.

Celia Esselburn was born near Lodi. Her father was Lewis Esselburn, a Medina County merchant. Before she married, Esselburn was a telephone operator staffing Akron’s first exchange. She was married to J.C. Frank, an Akron attorney.

Once she married Frank, she started helping the needy of the city. Her home became a kind of clearing house for used clothing for the needy.

According to the Beacon Journal, Frank worked under the direction of the Probate Court. She distributed used clothes to those in want. In reporting her death, theBeacon Journal said, “Social work was her great aim in life through her efforts, happiness was left where squalor and want was found.”

Frank was a member of First Church of Christ Scientist.

–Kathleen L. Endres

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Mary Peavy Eagle, 1909-2003

Mary Peavy Eagle, founder of the Akron Council of Negro Women in 1932, had a singular mission in her life, to improve the conditions African Americans faced in Akron, Ohio.

Eagle credited a walk on Glenwood Avenue with opening her eyes. A teacher had taken her children out to recess and it seemed to Eagle that the two or three little African-American children “looked a little less cared for than the others. So then I thought – I see this, so now I’ll have to do something about it.”

Eagle got together a group of women and started a club. “I wanted the mothers to take more pride in their children. We encouraged the parents to join the PTA; visit the schools; meet the teachers, and get to know each other. This would make it easier for the children to do well in school. We also worked with the schools in educational programs. We were successful at that. If there was any way that could help a mother by finding clothing for her children we did. We secured clothing, more food, and what not. We helped any child.” One of her biggest concerns was getting an African-American teacher at Bryan school. Eventually African-American teacher Herbert Bracken was appointed to that school over the protests of some white parents (Oral Black History Project, 1990, The University of Akron Archives).

It was that activism that led Mary Eagle to be the first African-American woman president of a PTA in Summit County.

Eagle, then Mary Peavy, came to Akron in 1924 from Checotah, Okla. Her father came to work in the rubber factories and found a job with Miller Rubber. The Peavys were a big family. Mary was the eldest of seven. Several of her sisters, particularly Anne and Sarah, were also leaders in the African-American women’s community in Akron. Mary Peavy attended old North High School.

By 1927, barely out of her teens, Mary Peavy was superviser of the Young Ladies Progressive Club. Sisters Sarah and Anne were also officers. The club provided services to the poor. They distributed groceries and money to needy families. Other officers included Cora Armstrong, Addie Mae Williams, Ruth Coffee, Ada Driskill and Velma Varner.

In 1929 Mary Peavy married Isaac Thomas Eagle, a Goodyear rubber worker who was also from Checotah, Okla.

In 1932, when most African Americans were struggling during the Depression, Eagle started the Council of Negro Women to coordinate efforts among the neighborhood clubs. In 1936, African-American leader Mary McLeod Bethune copied Eagle’s model and created the National Council of Negro Women.

Eagle did not stop with the Council of Negro Women. She continued her activism throughout her life. In the late 1930s, Eagle heard about a slum clearance program, one of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s WPA projects. Eagle contacted her councilman, Ray Thomas, and asked for help. He agreed and the slums on North Street were replaced by the brick homes of Elizabeth Park Homes.

Eagle was always a Democrat. She remained active in Democratic politics throughout her life. She sipped tea with first lady Bess Truman and was invited to President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. She was also a delegate to the 1954 UNESCO conference in Washington, D.C.

Eagle, a lifetime member of the Mt. Zion Baptist Church, had two daughters, one a teacher in the Akron Public Schools and the other a public relations executive in Houston.

Eagle is buried at Glendale Cemetery.

 

Photo courtesy of The University of Akron Archives.

–Kathleen L. Endres

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Ruth Ebright Finley, 1884-1955

Ruth Ebright Finley, “girl reporter, sob sister, feature writer” for the Akron Beacon Journal in the early 20th century, went on to a career as an editor, a biographer, an expert on American quilts – and one of the greatest clairvoyants of the 20th century.

It’s a long trip from Akron to the afterlife but was an easy one for Finley because she lived two quite separate lives.

Ruth Ebright was born in Akron, the daughter Dr. L.S. Ebright and his wife, the former Julia Ann Bissell. Her father himself lived a kind of dual existence, one as a physician and one, for a time, as the postmaster of Akron.

Ebright was well educated for her day. She enrolled in Oberlin in 1902 but returned to Akron the next year to go to old Buchtel College (now The University of Akron). She never completed her degree.

Instead she started her reporting career with the Beacon Journal. This was a time of sob sisters and sensational journalism. Ebright won a name for herself when managed to get an interview with the former Akronite wife of inventor Thomas Alva Edison. She then went on to the oldCleveland Press. She was best known for her stories on the working conditions of labor women and she is credited with helping get a bill passed that was designed to benefit working women. It was while at the Cleveland Press that she met and married Emmet Finley, an editor there.

Finley had a varied journalistic career after that. She was woman’s page editor of the Cleveland Press, fiction editor of the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain, managing editor for the old Washington Herald, woman’s editor of the Enterprise Newspaper Association, assistant editor ofMcClure’s magazine and editor of Guide Magazine and theWoman’s National Political Review.

There were many dimensions to Finley’s life. Building on her interest in quilts and quilting, she wrote the book, Old Patchwork Quilts and the Women Who Made Them. Part of the movement to reawaken American interest in quilts and quilting, Finley designed the quilt given first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. There was a certain irony in this because Finley was a critic of the New Deal, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the first lady on the pages of the Woman’s National Political Review, the periodical she edited.

Finley was also an historian of sorts. In 1931, she published a biography of antebellum magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale. The Lady of Godey’s: Sarah Josepha Haleis still considered an important resource on Hale and her popular woman’s periodical.

Even as Finley continued her career as an editor, quilt expert and historian, she and her husband were exploring different aspects of reality.

As Joan and Darby, the Finleys became chronicling their exploits in the afterlife in their 1920 book Our Unseen Guest. That book chronicled how they first got involved in the paranormal. In Cleveland in 1916, they played with a Ouija board and met their guide to the afterlife, a volunteer ambulance driver who had died in France the year before. Although Our Unseen Guest quickly became a classic in psychic literature, the Finleys were able to keep their involvement in the paranormal secret.

Ruth Ebright Finley died in 1955. Her husband had died five years earlier. The couple did not have any children. Ruth Ebright Finley’s papers are located in The University of Akron Archives.

Photo courtesy of The University of Akron Archives.

–Kathleen L. Endres

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Carrie Peterson Dick, 1859-1943

Carrie Peterson Dick was a woman more comfortable in the background but her involvement in Akron’s arts and welfare communities belied that tendency.

In history books when Carrie Peterson Dick is mentioned at all, she is identified with her husband, Congressman and “president maker” Charles Dick of Akron. But when her husband was off studying law or fighting in the Spanish-American War or serving in both houses of Congress or making a president (McKinley), Dick had her own life building and strengthening many of the cultural and welfare institutions and organizations in the city of Akron.

A charter member of the Fifty Year Club, Dick also helped start the Art and History Club. She was also one of the founding members of the Akron Art Institute and the first woman member of its board. Because of her position in the community, she was also invited to serve on the boards of the Sumner Home for the Aged and the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA). Both Dicks were members of Trinity Lutheran Church.

That type of community involvement seemed inconsistent with the Beacon Journal’s characterization of Dick as a “quiet little woman, she has preferred to remain in the background.”

Carrie Peterson married her high school sweetheart in 1881. They had met at Central High School. The couple had five children. The Dicks are buried in Glendale Cemetery.

 

Photo Courtesy of the Beacon Journal.

–Kathleen L. Endres

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Maud Hayes DeVaughn, 1848-1943

Maud Hayes DeVaughn was a leader in the fight for prohibition in Akron, Ohio, and played active roles in many other organizations during her 75 years.

DeVaughn’s 16 years as officer of the Summit County Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) displayed her strong beliefs in prohibition. She served as secretary for nine years, and she retired 1933 after seven years as president.

After her term with the WCTU was complete, DeVaughn moved over to leadership roles at the Akron and Summit County Federation of Women’s Clubs. She served as president of that organization in 1936.

DeVaughn was also the founder and president of the South High PTA.

DeVaughn began a radio series in 1936 that focused on Akron women and public welfare. She was a member of the Board of Maintenance of the YWCA and the Board of Goodwill Industries.

A member of First United Brethren Church, DeVaughn died in 1943.

Photo courtesy of The University of Akron Archives.

–Jennifer Petric

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Inez G. Crisp, 1887-1965

Mrs. Inez G. Crisp was a writer and an artist, as well as a prominent member of many social organizations in Akron. She was also a controversial leader of the Akron and Summit County Federation of Women’s Clubs.

Crisp was involved in the Akron Woman’s City Club and on the board of its Little Galleries organization. She was the oldest member of the Aeronautical Association and was associated with the Mary Day Nursery and Children’s Hospital. For a time, she served as president of the Order of Golden Arrows, Phi Beta Phi fraternity and the Akron Panhellenic Council. She attended college at Ohio University.

In addition to these organizations, Crisp was a member of the Women’s Art League, which was a club of women artists. In order to participate in the Art League, a potential member had to submit some of her paintings to a 12-woman jury for review or have a painting accepted by the Akron Art Institute for its May show. When the Art League began in 1933, there were 20 members; but by 1939, when Crisp was treasurer, the organization had expanded to 40. Eventually, Crisp became a president of the group.

Crisp was elected president for the Akron and Summit County Federation of Women’s Club in 1923; but just one year later in May 1924, she stepped down from the position. According to stories printed in the Akron Beacon Journal, Crisp was accused of being “influenced by political backers of Mayor Rybolt’s motorization plan to oppose any federation move which would not be in support of Rybolt’s scheme.” However, she blamed her health. “My family, health and home make it necessary for me to resign. Things have been unfortunate in the organization. I hope they will be able to get together and solve their problems,” said Crisp. Anna (Mrs. C.H.) Case was appointed to complete the remainder of Crisp’s presidential term.

During her lifetime, Crisp had her artwork displayed at O’Neil’s and the Akron Art Institute. She wrote several fiction stories and historical articles that were published.

Crisp was born in Mount Sterling, Ohio, and came to Akron in 1909. She was married to Raymond G. Crisp, who was the chairman of Fred J. Crisp Co., a company that supplied builder materials. The Crisps resided at 1934 Highbridge Road.

When Crisp died at St. Thomas Hospital in 1965 at the age of 78, she was a widow. She left one son, George E. She is buried in Chestnut Hill Cemetery.

Photo courtesy of the Beacon Journal.

–Janelle Baltputnis

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Leah C. Chittenden, 1884-1972

Mrs. Leah C. Chittenden was an Akron school-teacher who was active in several educational organizations.

Chittenden was a member of the North Hill Literary Club from 1918-1919 and she served on the club’s advisory board. She held the position of first vice president of the Akron Home and School League in 1925 and she was chairman of the Department of Applied Education.

In addition to her educational interests, Chittenden was the recording secretary of the Akron and Summit County Federation of Women’s Clubs and librarian of the Federation’s Garden Club. Beginning in 1919, she was supervisor of all the city garden work. In the mid 1920s, Chittenden was on a committee to help organize a speakers bureau for the Community Chest campaign, which was the forerunner of United Way. She attended Church Hill Methodist Church.

Chittenden, who was born in Salem, Ind., lived in Akron for 41 years until retiring to Florida in 1949. She was married to Thomas A. Chittenden, who was a high school teacher. When she died, Chittenden left two sons, Walter and Thomas. The Chittendens resided on Glenwood Avenue.

Chittenden died in 1972 in Florida after a long illness. She is buried there.

Photo courtesy of the Beacon Journal.

–Janelle Baltputnis