HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: Wabash Valley women are prominent in arts and literature
Rob Robbins
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: Wabash Valley women are prominent in arts and literature
Mike McCormick Special to the Tribune-Star
Every March, Women’s History
Month, interest refocuses on the role women have played in bringing fame or
notoriety to Terre Haute and the Wabash Valley.
During the past 16 years
this column has discussed the contributions of dozens of prominent local women
in multiple disciplines. Many gained celebrity in the arts. Three years ago an
entire column was devoted to distinguished area women in the
arts.
Biographical sketches — some brief and some extensive — have been
written about:
• Actors: Frances Denny Drake, Alice Merritt Oates, Laura
Moore, Selma Franko Goldman, Eleanor Franklin, Helen Bertram, Rose Melville and
her sisters, Flora Keller Labbe, Grace Hayward, Valeska Suratt, Maud Hosford,
Rose Fehrenbach (known as Marie Roslyn), Maria Kimberly and Maurine
Powers;
• Artists: Janet Scudder, Harriet Hosmer, Caroline Peddle Ball,
Amalia Kussner Coudert, Fannie B. Blumberg, Juliet Peddle, Mary Alice Hadley and
Helen Riedel;
• Dancers: Elise Reiman, Archileen Chambers and Ernestine
Myers;
• Musicians: Ada Campbell (bandleader), Marie Rosenburg (violin),
Carrie Adams (composer), the Wilton Sisters, the Kehoe Sisters (known as The
Rhythm Queens), Helen Webb (piano) and Nancee South (piano, organ);
•
Vocalists: Edith Castle, Ione Williams and the Sweet Adelines;
•
Playwrights: Grace Hayward and Lillian Decker Masters.
Mention also has
been made of:
• Actors: Florence Sage, Carrie Wayne, Sadie Farley, Rachel
Dean, Hazel Marie Stark (known as Marie Crisp), Joanne Lansing, Julie Payne,
Lynn Topping Richter, Rhonda Loge (known as Rhonda Bates) and Sheryl Uzzell
(known as Summer Selby);
• Artists: Blanche Bruce, Jane Kimball Yung and
Rosa B. Griffith;
• Dancers: Julia Parker, Amy Ann Monninger and Nancy
Sauer;
• Musicians: Vivian Bard (piano), Elizabeth Persis Pushee (piano),
Essie Kent Lamb (piano), Emily Allen (piano), Lottie Longman (piano), Theresa
Lepper (piano), Anna Hulman (piano), and Geneva Kellett (piano)
•
Vocalists: Helen Jeffers, Maude Paige, Dora Hauck, Emily Kern Westfall and
Cecelia Eppinghousen; and
• Motion picture producer Tracey
Trench.
As pointed out previously, local women also have found a niche in
literature.
Mary Hannah Krout, a native of Crawfordsville, was hired as
editor of the Terre Haute Daily Express in 1882. A school teacher, she began her
career as a journalist by submitting poems to newspapers in Indianapolis, Terre
Haute and Kokomo.
A workaholic, Krout resigned from the job in Terre
Haute after a year due to failing health but later became a newspaper
correspondent. She became a world traveler. Four of her eight scholarly books
were about the Hawaiian Islands, where she resided intermittently for nearly 10
years.
Ida Husted Harper, wife of local attorney Tom Harper and a close
friends of Eugene V. Debs, was a pioneer suffragist and a fine journalist. As
secretary of the Indiana Woman Suffrage Association, Harper lured Susan B.
Anthony to the organization’s Terre Haute convention during November
1887.
Harper later relocated to Rochester, N.Y. and wrote “The Life and
Work of Susan B. Anthony” in three volumes and then finished “The History of
Woman’s Suffrage.”
Martha Evans Martin was the daughter of a Terre Haute
surgeon. Her father, Dr. John Evans, died Dec. 23, 1856, before her first
birthday. As a result, she was raised in Sullivan by her mother and stepfather,
Murray Briggs, editor of the Sullivan Democrat.
Her mother Margaret died
when she was 11 but Briggs, later president of the Indiana State Normal board of
trustees, took good care of her. Martha graduated from DePauw University and
became a court reporter in Wayne County, where she met and married Edward
Martin, owner of the Richmond Daily Telegram.
Martha became the associate
editor of the Richmond newspaper and, in 1890, was elected the first president
of the Indiana Union of Literary Clubs. The Martins relocated to New York in
1891 where Martha became editor of Demorest Magazine and wrote several books,
including “The Friendly Stars” and “Ways of the Planets.”
Bertha Pratt
King, co-founder of King Classical School and the widow of Max Ehrmann, edited
her husband’s diary and wrote, “The Worth of a Girl.” Sculptor Janet Scudder
wrote her autobiography, “Modeling My Life.”
Before she was interested in
art, Fannie B. Blumberg wrote stories for children’s magazines and books about
Rowena, Teena and Tot illustrated by Mary Grosjean Adams.
In 1904, Terre
Haute resident Anna Robinson Black published “A Hoosier Girl Abroad,” a diary of
77 days spent in Jerusalem attending a Sunday School convention.
Lydia
Whitaker wrote “A Prophet of Martinique: a love story embracing a vivid account
of the historic destruction of Mont Pelee.” It was published in 1906 by a
company owned by Terre Haute lawyer James Solomon Barcus.
In 1914,
Georgie Boynton Child wrote “The Efficient Kitchen” and, with her sister Louise
Boynton in 1932, “The Golden Grains.”
Martina Swafford, wife of Dr.
Benjamin Swafford, founder of Union Hospital, wrote poems under the pen name
Belle Bremer. Her most popular book, “Wych-elm,” was published in 1891. Swafford
became president of the Western Association of Writers.
Elizabeth Newell
published an anthology of poetry in 1935, entitled, “Through the Years.” In
1891, poet Ida May Davis was the first woman to serve on the school
board.
Frances Foster Perry wrote “Their Hearts’ Desire,” in 1909. “Inner
Darkness, a novel by Ethelda Daggett Hesser, was published by Harper Bros. in
1924. Terre Haute Post reporter Mabel McKee wrote several novels, including “The
Heart of a Rose”
Mormon Virginia Sorensen launched her controversial
writing career in Terre Haute during 1942 with “A Little Lower Than the Angels,”
a novel about the life of Joseph Smith. She won the John Newbery Medal in 1957
for “Miracles on Maple Hill.”
There are many others.
~Catherine Pulsifer~
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