The Ridge Historical Society
Bessie Sutherland
By Carol Flynn
Happy Belated Birthday to Bessie Sutherland, the namesake of the Elizabeth H. Sutherland Elementary School at 10015 S. Leavitt Street in Beverly, Chicago.
Bessie was born as Elizabeth Bingle Huntington in Blue Island on September 27, 1851. Her father, Samuel D. Huntington, farmed and raised livestock, was involved in the railroads, and was Constable and Sheriff for a number of years.
Her mother, Maria Robinson Huntington, was possibly the first schoolteacher on the Ridge. In 1842, at the age of 14, Maria was making $1 per week to teach school. No record of any school earlier than that has been found.
Bessie graduated from the Cook County Normal School in 1869. “Normal” schools trained teachers in the “norms” of education standards of the day. That school evolved into Chicago State University.
She taught in Blue Island, Hyde Park, and Washington Heights. She took additional coursework at the University of Chicago. Along the way, she moved north on the Ridge to 107th Street and Prospect Avenue.
In 1883, she was named Principal of the Washington Heights School. This was before Washington Heights was annexed to the City of Chicago in 1890. She was the first woman to be named principal of a Cook County school. The school was renamed the Alice L. Barnard School in the 1890s in honor of another pioneering Ridge educator. Alice was the one of the first women to be named a principal of a Chicago public school.
Bessie was a Progressive Era educator and a suffragist. That period was marked by great reforms in all areas. Education saw a major shift from learning by lecture and memorization to learning by doing and experimentation.
One example of Bessie as an educator illustrated the new thinking. When she learned that a camel had escaped from a traveling show and was roaming freely in the local woods, she rounded up the entire school body and took them on an impromptu field trip to observe the animal in a natural setting.
Back then, women teachers were not allowed to marry and keep their jobs. Bessie put off marriage to her “intended,” David Sutherland, until her 43rd birthday in 1894. David, seventeen years her senior, was in real estate with considerable holdings on the south and west sides of Chicago.
David died in 1904, and Bessie continued with Barnard School until she retired in 1923. She died in 1924 and was buried in Mount Greenwood Cemetery. In 1925, the new school built at 100th and Leavitt Streets was named in Bessie’s honor.
RHS Historian Linda Lamberty is related to Bessie Sutherland. In 1974, a 96-year-old mutual cousin of Linda’s and Bessie’s told Linda that Bessie was “a truly wonderful person.” This cousin had known Bessie personally. According to Linda, Bessie was “one of the rare stalwart women” who forged paths for other women.