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Linda Lamberty, Ridge Historical Society Historian, and Carol Flynn, Ridge Historical Society researcher/writer, are honored to be part of “Invisible Labors,” a collaborative project with Susannah Papish, artist, educator and Director of boundary, the arts project space in Morgan Park; and Melissa Potter, feminist interdisciplinary artist and writer, and Professor at Columbia College Chicago.

“Invisible Labors” began as a project at boundary last year that included Melissa’s garden of native plants and an exhibition of papermaking, an artistic medium at which she excels. This led Susannah to start thinking about how the land was used in the Ridge area before it was just about all claimed by “development.”

Susannah reached out to Linda and Carol from RHS, with whom she worked previously on other projects, and rich discussions started about the history of the land from the time of the Native Americans to the arrival of the European settlers to the Great Migration of African Americans from the Southern United States.

This led to the idea for an artistic publication on the role that women played in the use of the land, as farmers and gardeners, and as artists. Carol will be a primary author with stories about the women of the Ridge and their connections to the land, based on research conducted with Linda. There will be additional writing from Melissa, as well as artwork related to the topic. We’re still thinking about formatting options for the publication.

March is Women’s History Month, so we are announcing this project at this time.

Susannah has put together a description of the project as well as a campaign to raise some funding to help with the cost of developing this project, which can be accessed at the website https://3arts.org/projects/invisible-labors/.

Thank you for your interest in the project. The publication will be out this summer. Please let us know if you have any questions or comments.

Image is of a painting by Alice Kellogg Tyler of the verandah of their farmhouse on the Ridge.

International Women’s Day

By Carol Flynn

Tuesday, March 8, is International Women’s Day, and March is Women’s History Month. The Ridge Historical Society has shared many stories in the past about significant women from the Ridge and their contributions.

One of the favorite heroines of the community is Gertrude Blackwelder and her story really can’t be over-told.

Gertrude Blackwelder made history on Saturday, July 26, 1913, when she cast her ballot in Morgan Park’s special election on building a new high school.

Reported Town Talk, a local paper, “As this was the first opportunity given women of Cook County by virtue of the recently enacted Women’s Suffrage law to vote upon questions other than candidates for school boards, nothing could have been more fitting than that Mrs. I. S. Blackwelder, former president of the Chicago Woman’s Club, and consistent worker for the betterment of women and children, as well as mankind as a whole, should cast the first woman’s vote in Morgan Park and Cook County.”

A photo of Mrs. Blackwelder casting that vote appeared in numerous papers. The Illinois law was the final push that led to the U. S. Constitution’s Nineteenth Amendment in 1919, granting women the right to vote.

The Progressive Era of 1890-1920 was a time of great reform and advancements, particularly in government and social areas. Gertrude Blackwelder embodied the spirit of that Era, working for women’s suffrage and other causes.

Alice Gertrude Boughton was born in 1853 in New York. Her father, a Baptist minister, valued education. In 1869, she joined her sister in Kansas to attend the newly established university there. Following graduation in 1875, she was the first female graduate to be appointed to the faculty and, in 1890, she became the first woman to give a commencement speech. Improving education opportunities for women and other disadvantaged groups became another important cause for Gertrude.

In 1877, Gertrude married Isaac Simeon (I. S.) Blackwelder, and moved to Chicago. Blackwelder (1840-1926) rose to top management in the insurance industry, starting as an adjustor handling claims from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

The Blackwelders settled in Morgan Park, where I. S. served as president of the Village Board. Sons Paul and Eliot were born. The family acquired the Ingersoll house at 10910 S. Prospect Ave., adding a Queen Anne-style front to the existing Italianate-style structure.

At that time, the wives of wealthy men did not “work” outside the home. They applied their intelligence, skills, and wealth to projects through volunteer organizations. Gertrude was elected to membership in the prestigious Chicago Woman’s Club (CWC), where she worked alongside Jane Addams of Hull House and Bertha Honore Palmer.

Gertrude’s special interest was vacation schools, summer programs offering nature, arts, music, and outdoor play activities for impoverished city children. For several years, she chaired the Vacation School Board, overseeing schools set up by the Chicago Permanent Vacation School and Playground Committee of Women’s Clubs. This coalition, with 212 delegates representing 50 clubs, worked closely with the Chicago Board of Education. Gertrude wrote several articles on vacation schools for college publications.

Due to her leadership abilities, Gertrude was chosen for higher office in the CWC. She served as Second and then First Vice President, and as President from 1906 to 1908. During those years, issues CWC addressed included children’s healthcare and daycare, the juvenile court system, crimes against children, working rights and conditions for women and children, sanitation and disease prevention in Chicago neighborhoods, pure food laws, and programs for the blind.

Even as an executive officer, Gertrude made time to chair the Story Telling Committee, organizing and conducting story hours at schools, libraries, and recreation centers.

At home, the Blackwelders were involved in “all things Morgan Park.” At the request of local women, Gertrude co-founded the Morgan Park Woman’s Club in 1889. Pre-COVID, this was the oldest women’s club still existing in Chicago.

The Blackwelders supported the annexation of Morgan Park to Chicago, and the building of the high school. Both sat on local school boards, and Gertrude headed the Public School Art League which obtained artwork to decorate the school. A proposal in 1923 to rename the high school for the Blackwelders resulted in naming the auditorium Blackwelder Hall.

Later, the Blackwelders moved to Stanford, California, where son Eliot was a college professor. Gertrude died there in 1938.

“When I entered the University, in January, 1869,” wrote Gertrude in the 1908 Graduate Magazine of the University of Kansas, “Such was my delight at the opportunity for higher education, then largely denied to girls, that no thought of our limitations disturbed the serenity of my youthful mind.”

That attitude prevailed throughout Gertrude Blackwelder’s life: she gave no thought to limitations. Her influence and accomplishments reached far beyond Morgan Park. Women’s History Month is a fitting time to give her recognition.

This photo is of Gertrude Blackwelder casting the first ballot, and it appeared in the Chicago Tribune, July 27, 1913. With her is Henry Heizer, local lawyer who served as Clerk of Election. Some people comment that Heizer looks disapproving, but that was not the case – he was totally supportive of the effort.

The First Chicago Christmas Tree and the Ridge –

Part 3 – Amalie Hofer Jerome and the Civic Music Association

By Carol Flynn

Amalie Hofer Jerome came from a distinguished family of educators, writers, musicians, and publishers that lived and ran a school on the Ridge. She was an honorary vice-president for the lighting of the first Chicago Christmas tree.

Amalie was born in 1863, the sixth of the eight Hofer children, the third of the five girls who all went into education and social reform. She was raised in McGregor, Iowa, and attended McGregor High School. Amalie had training as a kindergarten teacher with Elizabeth Harrison, a pioneer in early childhood education who established programs in Iowa and Chicago.

Amalie and her sisters became leaders in the kindergarten movement, which was covered in the previous post. She was the editor and publisher of the Kindergarten Magazine, the leading publication of the movement, and other related publications.

Moving to Chicago, she was involved in the kindergarten-training schools her sisters established, including serving as principal.

Her work with the kindergartens led her to become involved with many more causes.

This was the era of “settlement houses,” made most famous by Jane Addams’ Hull House in Chicago. These were institutions of the “Progressive reform era” in which social workers, clergy, educators, and other concerned people came together, often living together in the institution, to offer services to the poor, new immigrants, and others in need. They usually started with outreach to mothers and children, and established day care services, kindergartens, and playgrounds; English lessons; household training; and arts and crafts.

Amalie married Frank Jerome, a furniture merchant, in 1909. For several years, she was head resident of Fellowship House Social Settlement at 831 West 33rd Street, established in 1895. She resigned in 1916, but still stayed on the board, managing the settlement house activities.

Amalie was a founder of the International Kindergarten Union and the Playground Association of America. She traveled the world studying kindergartens and childhood education, and wrote articles and gave talks on the topics around the country.

In 1913, Amalie was a founder of the Civic Music Association in Chicago. For several years, free concerts had been given in the field houses of the city’s parks by notable musicians, and the time had come to organize the activities. As a leader of the Playground Association and also of the Chicago Woman’s Club, Amalie had been instrumental in arranging the concerts. She now took on the role of chairman of the executive committee of the new organization. Numerous groups, such as the Northwestern University choir and the Illinois Theater orchestra, provided free concerts in the parks.

Although she was recognized throughout Chicago for her many accomplishments, it was in her role as a leader of the Civic Music Association that Amalie was named one of the fifty-plus honorary vice-presidents for the lighting ceremony for Chicago’s first municipal Christmas tree.

Next post: Chicago’s First Christmas Tree

Ridge Historical Society

Teacher Appreciation Week – May 3-9, 2021 – Part 4

School Series – Profile 11: Kate Starr Kellogg

By Carol Flynn

Kate Starr Kellogg (1854-1925) was an influential educator who lived on the Ridge. We’ve briefly profiled her family and education career in the three previous posts.

Kate’s contributions to the education field went beyond just teaching issues. She also left a lasting impression on political and social issues concerning Chicago’s education system.

First, she supported employing married women as teachers. The Chicago Board of Education policy was that a female teacher who got married automatically lost her job, but married male teachers not only stayed employed, they were preferred. Kate strongly believed that school, home, and society were all inter-connected and reinforced each other. Not only did she believe married women could still have a teaching career, she supported parents having a stronger role in the education process and believed that what children learned in school should be relevant to their homes and social lives. She supported the establishment of parent-teacher associations.

Kate also supported the right of teachers to come together to achieve common goals such as protecting the integrity and standards of the profession and dealing with employment issues – in other words, to unionize. She was an active member of the National Education Association, founded in 1857, and now the largest union in the U.S., representing education professionals and students.

As a founding member of the Chicago Teachers Federation which formed in 1897, Kate personally tackled local issues, including going after corporations that were delinquent in paying their taxes that supported the public schools. The Federation publicly “outed” not only these companies, but their prominent stockholders, some of whom were businessmen claiming praise as “reformers” and philanthropists.

Kate also was a leader in advocating for the formation of a Chicago teachers’ pension system, and sat on the board of trustees for the fund once it was established. She helped wrest away control of the fund from the Board of Education and put it in the hands of the teachers themselves.

In 1909, Ella Flagg Young was named the first woman superintendent of Chicago public schools, the first woman in the U.S. to reach this level in the education field. As expected, her critics and enemies were numerous.

For 3 years, Flagg was unanimously re-elected to her position by the Chicago Board of Education. Then in 1913, without warning, school board directors who were against Young managed to gather enough votes to remove her from the superintendent position. They accused her of mismanagement of funds and making the school system inefficient. They called into question her integrity and competence. Realizing she did not have the support to continue, Young resigned.

Young’s supporters were outraged by the Board’s decision and treatment of Young. Her support was largely concentrated in the powerful women’s clubs of the day but also reached much farther than that – former students, including many men, and parents of current students supported Young. Their call for Young’s reinstatement was supported by Mayor Carter Harrison, Jr., Jane Addams of Hull House, and many other leaders. The teachers of the city strongly supported Young and “hinted” they would strike if she were not reinstated.

A committee was established to write a resolution to have Flagg reinstated. Kate was one of the eight committee members. On Christmas Eve, 1913, the Board of Education voted Young back in as superintendent.

Kate, not surprisingly, was a suffragist, supporting women’s right to vote. It was particularly jarring to teachers, overwhelmingly a female occupation, when it was announced they would be charged an income tax on their earnings, without any representation in any governmental decision-making processes.

Mary Kellogg, Kate’s older sister, and Kate were both members of the Chicago Peace Society. This group was the local branch of the American Peace Society, founded in 1828, to promote good will between nations and the use of arbitration and other peaceful means to settle disputes and avoid armed conflict. There were many prominent members in this association, including past and current mayors and governors of Illinois, judges, clergy and religious leaders, notable women organizers, and professional women such as Jane Addams and Ella Flagg Young.

Kate and her sisters had personal as well as professional relationships with leaders such as Addams and Flagg. That friendships would develop between like-minded women is expected. Several Kellogg sisters were involved in Hull House activities, and in an earlier post, we showed the portrait that Alice Kellogg painted of Addams.

They were all involved in various women’s clubs, and the state federation of women’s clubs, as well as professional and reform groups. Other women from the Ridge were also involved, including Gertrude Blackwelder. Kate was a speaker at meetings during Blackwelder’s term as president of the Chicago Woman’s Club, so they obviously knew and respected each other.

Kate had a personal relationship with Dr. Cornelia De Bey, a homeopathic physician from the medical school Kate’s father taught at, and the attending physician for her chronically ill sister, Alice. De Bey, a well-known reformer, suffragist, labor advocate, and pacifist, had been named to the Chicago Board of Education, along with Jane Addams. De Bey worked with Addams’ Hull House community.

De Bey shared living arrangements with Kate at 6565 S. Yale Avenue. “The Yale Apartments” or “The Yale” was designed by architect John T. Long in 1892 and offered luxury apartments to visitors for the 1893 World’s Fair. Today “The Yale” is a Chicago landmark. (Incidentally, John T. Long also designed the 111th Street Metra train station in Morgan Park, and perhaps the 115th Street station that burned down a few years ago, both Chicago landmarks.)

Next post – Kate Starr Kellogg – some personal interests.

The Month of March – Part 5, the Egan Daughters

By Carol Flynn

We’ve been looking at the George Francis (Frank) and Kate Egan family, an Irish American family that lived on the Ridge one hundred years ago. We shared some information on the sons, George, Jr., and Bernard, in the last post. This post will look at the daughters, Florence, born in 1892, and Marie, born in 1898.

Like most Irish American Catholic families at the time, activities centered around family, the Church, and Irish organizations. We see this with the Egan daughters. The family belonged to St. Margaret of Scotland Parish at 99th and South Throop Street. Florence and Marie were both involved in multiple activities and organizations, often following in their parents’ footsteps.

In 1919, the local paper reported Florence and Marie spent the Fourth of July in Indiana and both came home with “a nice sunburned complexion.” They were members of the One-Two-Three Club, and they entertained the club at their house; the Egan house was a stop for the club’s progressive hiking party, where refreshments were served at the stops.

After their brother Bernard died in 1918 from influenza while he was in the army, the family became involved with the Gold Star Mothers. Florence and Marie were mentioned in the local paper for assisting at the candy booth for the Gold Star Mothers’ bazaar held at the Coliseum.

Florence served as an officer with the St. Margaret’s chapter of the Women’s Catholic Order of the Foresters, which formed following the men’s organization, to offer sick, funeral and death benefits. She was also a member of the Daughters of Isabella, the women’s auxiliary of the Knights of Columbus.

Like her parents and many Irish American Catholics, Florence was very active in efforts to secure Ireland’s freedom. She became the recording secretary for the Joseph Murphy Council of the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic.

In 1921, she and the president posted an open invitation in the newspaper for people to attend a meeting of the group. She attended an outing with the group at Riverview Park that fall. Most impressive, she led the grand march at the Council’s benefit dance that summer.

That year, she and a friend hosted a Halloween party at the family home at 1414 W. 95th Street, which also served as the housewarming party for the house, which the family had famously built themselves from cement blocks. Reported the local paper: “Spooks, witches and brownies … all enjoyed themselves in the pretty new home … at the genuine old-fashioned Halloween party.”

Florence enjoyed travelling. She liked day trips to visit family and friends in outlying areas, and she also visited local resorts and places like Starved Rock.

In the fall of 1922, she visited Buffalo, New York, and she decided to move to New York and make it her home. The paper gave her location as Herkimer, a town south of Utica. But she was back home on the Ridge by spring 1923.

In 1924, she married Benjamin McGovern from Buffalo, New York. The newspapers noted she was treated to many showers and parties. She had one son. The marriage ended in divorce and Florence and her son moved into the large family house with her parents.

Florence continued her social activities. In the 1930s she was active with the Catholic Daughters of America, and the women’s auxiliary of the American Legion, where she served as president of a local unit and attended conventions in Springfield.

She had a summer home in McHenry where she entertained guests. Florence eventually moved to Arizona.

Marie, the younger sister, married George DuMais in 1920. Friends from all the clubs, and relatives, feted Marie with showers and parties.

DuMais worked for the Rock Island railroad. They moved to Portland, Oregon, for a brief time. Kate, Marie’s mother, spent a winter out there with her daughter. They moved back to the Ridge, and they bought a summer home in Wisconsin, along with a cousin from Kate’s side, the Murnans.

In October of 1924, George DuMais was crushed between two train cars in the Blue Island switching yards and died in the hospital a few hours later. His funeral was from St. Margaret of Scotland Church and he was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery. This left a devastated Marie a widow at the age of 27 with three small children; the third was born about a month after George died.

A descendent of the DuMais family responded to the RHS Facebook posts about the Egan family and reported this about Marie: “Marie Egan (later Marie Egan DuMais) was my great aunt.

“As I recall family history retelling the story, George DuMais worked for the Rock Island, and he was killed in a workplace accident. Marie was offered a cash settlement, or a promise of a lifetime job. Her son was only 5 or 6 at the time and she was pregnant with [another child]. She took the job.

“She worked as the ticket agent at multiple stations between 91st and 119th streets on the suburban line, ultimately ending up at 95th and Wood. The station included an apartment where she lived for many years, and where we would occasionally spend a night when her grandchildren, my cousins, would come to visit. Her son was a career Air Force officer and lived

in many places around the country.

“The Rock Island lived up to their commitment, and she worked long past the normal retirement age.

“When she finally retired, she was the longest tenured employee of the Rock Island.”

Her address for many years was listed as 10301 Walden Parkway, the 103rd Street station. All of the stations had second floors that were often lived in by the agents. This station no longer exists, it was replaced in the 1960s.

Marie also participated in clubs and activities.

Florence and she were both members of a cards club, the Beverly Five Hundred Club.

In 1943, the Ridge Court members of the Catholic Daughters of America (CDOA) held a supper followed by cards and games at the Food Research Institute downtown at Jackson and State Streets. The Food Research Institute fostered “better homemaking,” and developed new food formulas, tested and developed recipes, and staged food photography. It put on lunch and dinner events and was a popular venue for women’s clubs. This connects us to National Nutrition Month, which is also celebrated in March.

Florence was the chairman of the event. A few weeks before, the CDOA selected committee chairs for the year. Marie was appointed chair of the committee on caring for the sick, and Florence was appointed chair for “Americanism and national defense.”

Neither Florence nor Marie remarried.

Next post: Conclusion on Frank and Kate Egan.

The Nineteenth Amendment

By Carol Flynn

It will be a while yet before they can give final results for today’s election, so this seems like a good time to share a story about the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was ratified 100 years ago.

The Nineteenth Amendment states: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

The U.S. Congress passed the legislation on June 4, 1919. It took Illinois less than a week to be the first state to ratify the amendment, on June 10, 1919. Thirty-six states were needed to ratify the amendment, and this was reached with Tennessee on August 18, 1920, allowing the country to certify the Nineteenth Amendment as adopted on August 26, 1920. [The last state to ratify the amendment was Mississippi, in 1984. Yes, 1984.]

It was not surprising that Illinois was the first state to ratify the amendment, as it was legislation passed in Illinois in 1913 that was a major turning point in the women’s suffrage movement. In fact, the women of Illinois took the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment somewhat in stride because they had had the right to vote in the U.S. Presidential selection process for years.

Although the issue of women having the right to vote went back to the founding days of the country – the second First Lady Abigail Adams was all for it – the formal beginning of the women’s suffrage movement is considered to be an 1848 women’s rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York. The group came up with a list of resolutions and the one concerning the right to vote was hotly debated.

It was one of the few men at the meeting, Frederick Douglass, former slave turned statesman, who convinced the women to leave suffrage in their platform.

Douglass wrote, “All that distinguishes man as an intelligent and accountable being, is equally true of woman; and if that government is only just which governs by the free consent of the governed, there can be no reason in the world for denying to woman the exercise of the elective franchise. Our doctrine is

that ‘Right is of no sex.’”

The resistance to women voting was widespread and strong, not just among men but for many women, also. The arguments against it generally related to the “proper” or “natural” role of women in society. The debate continued for seventy years.

But changes occurred in society. There was increased industrialization and urbanization. A fast growth in wealth led to the “Gilded Age,” a veneer which covered a wide range of corruption and social ills. Reform-minded groups called for change, and an atmosphere conducive to women’s suffrage finally emerged.

The period from 1890 to 1920 became known as the Progressive Era. Reforms in government, education, business, even churches and religion, took place. Leadership cut across party lines, and Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, and Woodrow Wilson were all progressive.

By 1913 in Illinois, the Progressive Party held the balance of power in the state legislature. Women lawyers of the state’s suffrage association had figured out a way to get limited but significant voting rights for women.

The Electoral College is the process that the Founding Fathers established as a compromise between Congress or the public electing the President. Individuals known as “electors” are chosen by each state and it is the electors who actually choose the President. Each state has the authority to decide how its electors are chosen.

In Illinois, a bill allowing women to vote for the state’s electors was drawn up and introduced to the state legislature.

Every conceivable parliamentary maneuver was used by the opposition to keep the bill from coming up for a vote. Hundreds of men went to Springfield to entreat the Speaker to prevent entry of the bill. The Speaker asked the pro-suffrage lobby for a show of support, and he was immediately flooded with letters, telegrams, and telephone calls. Satisfied that there was public support for the bill, he let it go to vote.

When the time came for the vote, women “captains” went so far as to fetch needed male voters from their homes, and stayed on guard duty at the chamber doors to urge members in favor not to leave before the vote, and to prevent opposition lobbyists from being illegally allowed on the floor.

The bill passed. Illinois women became the first in the country with the right to vote in the process to select the U.S. President.

The opposition brought forth more than fifty legal challenges to have the new law declared unconstitutional, but none were successful. Pro-suffrage sentiment across the nation swelled. At the annual suffrage convention in 1916, a plan was developed state by state to procure voting rights in the presidential election process. Delegates went home and put their plans into motion and had successful results. By 1919, the country finally accepted that women were going to find a way to vote.

The women of the Ridge were not idle observers of these events, and many were ardent suffragists. They lost no time exercising their new, hard-won right. The other part of the 1913 Illinois bill covered certain aspects of municipal voting. The Illinois bill was passed on June 26, 1913, and on July 26, 1913, the women of Morgan Park voted for a bond issue to fund a high school. They were the first women in Cook County to vote, and the first woman to cast her ballot was Gertrude Blackwelder, former President of the Chicago Woman’s Club and the Chicago Political Equality League.

The InterOcean newspaper carried an article on the event. Many husbands and wives went to vote together for the first time ever. Even progressive David Herriott, the Morgan Park Postmaster and editor/publisher of the Morgan Park Post, was surprised when the women voted in their own names. His wife told him, “Mrs. David Herriott looks well on calling cards, but Janet Herriott has more political significance.” Janet Herriott cast the second female vote.

The event took on the aura of a garden party, according to the newspaper, with the summer frocks and parasols. It turned into a pleasant social afternoon with no problems. The policeman on duty said it was the most civil election he had ever witnessed. The women’s votes were kept separate from the men’s in case they were challenged legally. The only “bribe” in sight were packets of peanuts provided by the school superintendent, John H. Heil.

Just at closing time, a 65-year old woman rushed in still wearing her apron. She had biscuits in the oven at home and was in a hurry. The process was explained to her – she had to select a slip for or against the high school, fold it, and place it in the ballot box.

“For land’s sake,” she said, “it’s that easy and I’ve always respected a man because he knew enough to vote.”

World War I came in 1917, and women took on many non-traditional roles, both as volunteers and as paid employment. They showed they could keep their homes running and also participate in civic affairs. After years of opposing women’s suffrage, President Woodrow Wilson became an advocate. When the Nineteenth Amendment was finally ratified, the Illinois papers took little notice of it. They had been covering women voting for seven years.

The Ridge Historical Society

Carol Flynn

School Series – Profile 1: Alice L. Barnard

It is graduation time, and while the emphasis is on the graduates at this time, recognition is also due the teachers who encouraged the students along their paths of exploration and discovery. “Teachers” is used in a broad sense here to include professional educators as well as other role models and advisors who made lasting impressions.

There are dozens of Chicago public schools in Beverly, Morgan Park, Washington Heights and Mount Greenwood. Nineteen of them are named for individuals who made contributions to education and other important fields. This series will look at those people.

A good place to start is with Alice Lucretia Barnard (1829 – 1908) whose namesake school is at 10354 S. Charles St., because it was education that brought the Barnard family to the Blue Island Ridge in 1846 in the first place.

Alice’s brother was William Barnard, a graduate of Amherst University in Massachusetts. Deciding to seek new opportunities in the West, he made it as far as Chicago, where he had a chance encounter with Thomas Morgan, the wealthy Englishman who bought thousands of acres of land on top of and surrounding the Ridge and gave his family’s name to Morgan Park. Morgan talked William into taking a job as tutor for Morgan’s children. William moved to the Ridge, and other family members soon followed.

Alice was educated in Massachusetts and later she attended Mount Holyoke Seminary which she left after two years because there was “little independence in thought.” She was an early “progressive” teacher, believing in “the opportunity to study from life” and not just the memorization of facts. She advocated for better education opportunities for women and was disappointed she could not study chemistry and other sciences in a laboratory.

Alice began her teaching career at age 17 in Chicago in a one-room schoolhouse. After a few years, she found herself at the Dearborn School, at Madison and Dearborn. At the time of the U.S. Civil War, she angered some school officials by writing a paper favoring the rights of children of color in school. The teachers and children marched in a procession to the Court House to view President Lincoln’s body lying in state after his assassination in April 1865. She met past President Gen. Ulysses Grant when he visited Chicago in 1879.

When offered the position of principal at the school in 1867, she declined because she would have been paid a lower salary than men in the same position. This was considered rank insubordination and the head of the education board called for her to be fired, but wiser heads prevailed and she took the job of head assistant instead.

She had the support of “Long John” Wentworth, the very powerful past mayor of Chicago, U.S. Congressman, and newspaper editor. A few years later, in 1871, she was named principal, one of the first women in the city to receive an appointment, and she was paid the same rate as the men. But that position was short-lived. The Dearborn School site was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire in October 1871.

She was principal of Harrison School for a year, then in 1873 moved to Jones School as Head Assistant, at 12th Street and Wabash where a new school building had just opened. That school was destroyed by fire the following year and rebuilt in 1875. In 1876, when the principal resigned, the teachers petitioned to have her appointed to the position. She became principal of the school, where she stayed until retirement. That school is now Jones College Prep.

Alice never married; back then women teachers were usually required to give up outside employment if they married. She invested her money independently in real estate.

She was a member of Bethany Union Church, and also the First Presbyterian Church. She lived with her sisters and brothers in a charming house at 103rd St. and Longwood Drive, across from Givins’ Castle, and cultivated flowers. She entertained her students there, and she regularly decorated the classrooms at Jones with fresh bouquets. Her nephew later started a seed farm there. Today a CVS drug store is on that site.

Alice received considerable newspaper coverage in her lifetime – she was a celebrity in Chicago. The Inter Ocean ran a full page story about her in 1891 when she retired. It was hoped she would become a member of the Board of Education but that did not happen. Perhaps she was content to live in Washington Heights, the name for the area before "Beverly Hills" became popular, and tend her peonies.

In 1890, the Washington Heights School was severely damaged by fire. It was closed for a few years while it was rebuilt, and in 1892 the school reopened, now named for Alice L. Barnard. Such an honor is usually awarded after a person’s death, but Alice was still very much alive.

When she fell ill in 1908, it was covered in the Chicago papers. Alice was described by the Chicago Tribune as “one of the best known teachers in Chicago.” Upon her death, many tributes were given to her. She was laid to rest in Mount Greenwood Cemetery.

Ridge Historical Society

Part IV for Memorial Day – The Civil War and the Ridge

Carol Flynn, RHS Communications

Women joined the war effort, also. At least three U.S. Army Nurses who served during the Civil War have been identified from Blue Island.

Thousands of women served as nurses during the Civil War, first as volunteers, and then as paid members of a nurse corps established through the efforts of Clara Barton in 1861. Dorothea Dix organized nursing efforts in the Washington, D. C., area, and Mary Ann Bickerdyke did likewise at the military camps in Cairo, Illinois.

Nursing as a profession was in its infancy, and there were no nursing education programs. At first women were considered too delicate to cope with the demands of caring for the sick and wounded, but they soon proved themselves through their determination, hard work and sacrifice. Women nurses were paid $0.40 per day. Male nurses in the same situations were paid over $200 per month.

Nurses came from many sources, including wives who had accompanied their soldier husbands to camps, women who lived by the camps, and members of religious institutions and relief organizations.

Mt. Greenwood Cemetery identified the grave of one Civil War woman veteran buried there, Catherine Near, U. S. Army Nurse. Her maiden name was Catherine Fay and she was known as Kate.

The Fay family came to Blue Island in the early 1850s. Kate was living with her mother and a son from a first marriage, with a sister and brother in town, when the war broke out. The exact sequence of events that led Kate to become an Army nurse are not yet documented, but records show that she married John H. Near, a soldier from Blue Island, in December of 1861 in Alexander County, which includes Cairo as the county seat. Cairo, at the southern tip of the state on the Mississippi River, was the site for many Union camps, a point from which the soldiers embarked for campaigns in the South.

So far there is no documentation of Kate Near’s experiences as a nurse. The 1870 U. S. Census reports John and Kate Near and her son living in Grand Tower, Illinois, in the far southern part of the state in Jackson County. It appears the marriage later broke up, with Kate and her son returning to Blue Island, and John Near relocating to Missouri.

Army records show that Kate received her own pension from the Army. She died in 1908 at the age of 73. The cause of death was listed as accidental gas poisoning, assumedly from a gas leak.

Kate’s brother, Jerome Fay, bought property for farming at the junction of the Calumet River and Stony Creek, which became known as Fay’s Point. Jerome married John Near’s sister, Lydia. So a Fay brother and sister married a Near brother and sister.

At the entrance to Memorial Park on 127th Street in Blue Island is a display of old tombstones dating back to the days when the park was the Blue Island Cemetery. One of the stones belonged to Clarissa F. McClintock, U. S. Army Nurse.

The McClintock family came to the Ridge in 1850 and was among the “intelligentsia” of early Blue Island. Clarissa’s mother, Laura (Mrs. Thomas), and her sister, Marion, ran a private school in their home on Vermont St. Her father Thomas allowed his large collection of books to be borrowed by the townspeople, starting the first Blue Island “library.” McClintock's occupation was as a county surveyor.

Both Clarissa and her older sister Marion were listed as employed in 1863 at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, as commissioned nurses. As with Kate Near, no documentation of their experiences have been uncovered yet.

Clarissa was born in 1842 and died young, in March 1867, “after two years’ illness.” It is possible she contracted a lingering illness during the war. She was buried in the Blue Island Cemetery. That cemetery was closed and turned into a park. Most, but not all, of the graves were moved to other cemeteries. Her old gravestone is still in Blue Island but the location of the McClintock family graves hasn’t been looked into yet by RHS.

Marion was born in 1835 and died in 1900. She taught German for many years in the Chicago Public Schools. Marion is buried in Rosehill Cemetery.

The McClintock sisters and Kate Near are listed in the Army pension records. They are also listed in the Illinois Roll of Honor, compiled in 1929 to identify the burial places of those who served in any of the wars up to that time and were buried in Illinois. The list was started to aid in honoring deceased veterans on Decoration (Memorial) Day.

This concludes our posts – for now – about some of the Ridge residents who served in the U.S. Civil War. Their sacrifices to preserve the Union and the U.S. Constitution should be remembered.

May 6 to 12 was National Nurses Week, and the Ridge Historical Society did not forget about nurses! One recent history story we posted included the role of nurses in caring for patients during the influenza epidemic in 1918. Nurses bravely went into the homes of quarantined patients to help families care for their sick, plus assist with other domestic tasks, risking illness themselves.

We've also been doing research on some of the earliest nurses on the Ridge – those from the U. S. Civil War era.

Nursing as a profession was in its infancy then, and there were no formal nursing education programs. In fact, there were not even many hospitals – only about 150 in the country.

Thousands of women served as nurses during the U. S. Civil War. At first, women were considered too delicate to be able to withstand the conditions of tending to the sick and wounded, but they soon proved themselves through their determination, hard work and sacrifice.

Women started as volunteers, but thanks to the efforts of Clara Barton, a U.S. Army corps of nurses was formed in 1861. They were paid 40 cents per day for their service. (Male nurses were paid many times that, more than $200 per month.)

The nurses who "enlisted" came from many backgrounds: soldiers’ wives who had accompanied their husbands to military camps, local residents from the areas where camps were set up, religious institutions, and relief organizations. Not only did they deal with the injured, they also cared for patients with pneumonia, typhoid, dysentery, and malaria. Two-thirds of the deaths in the Civil War were from disease, not injury.

The graves of two nurses from the Civil War have been found in Ridge cemeteries. Mount Greenwood Cemetery includes the grave of Catherine E. Near. (Her name is spelled as Katherine on the stone; she went by Kate.) She was from Blue Island, and she died in 1908. Her maiden name was Fay. Her brother was Jerome Fay, of Fay's Point in Blue Island.

At the entrance to Memorial Park on 127th Street in Blue Island is a display of old tombstones dating back to the days when the park was the Blue Island Cemetery. One of the stones belonged to Clarissa F. McClintock, U. S. Army Nurse. Her background is being researched.

Yesterday, May 5, was National Teacher Appreciation Day, celebrated annually on the Tuesday of the first full week in May. The Ridge communities have had many, many fine teachers through the years. The Ridge Historical Society will share profiles of a few of them.

Let’s start with Elizabeth “Bessie” Bingle Huntington Sutherland, a very respected and forward-thinking leader in the education field.

Bessie was born in 1851 on the Ridge. Her parents, Samuel and Maria Robinson Huntington, were part of the earliest Ridge pioneer families. Samuel was a farmer and kept stock, then became involved with the railroads, and served as sheriff of the early settlement that would become the City of Blue Island. Maria was reputed to have been an early teacher in Blue Island, making $1.00 per week for her efforts.

Around 1854, a two-room school house was built in Blue Island, and it is probable that Bessie attended this school as a child. The Cook County Normal School was established in 1867. The name “normal school” was used for teacher preparation programs because they established teaching standards or “norms.” Bessie graduated from this school in 1869. This school eventually evolved into Chicago State University.

Bessie’s career as a teacher included the Blue Island school and the Hyde Park high school. She took graduate classes at the University of Chicago. The Washington Heights public school started in 1874, and Bessie became principal there in 1883, the first woman to be named a principal in Cook County. In 1893, this school was renamed the Alice L. Barnard School, after another Ridge native who had become the first woman principal of a Chicago school.

Bessie became a teacher during the “Progressive Era,” that time of significant reform in all areas of life. The field of education made great advances during this time, as the philosophy of learning changed from rote memorization to exploration and experimentation. Bessie surely knew two of the movement's leaders in Chicago, Francis W. Parker, who became head of the Cook County Normal School, and John Dewey, who established the University of Chicago Laboratory School.

An anecdote about Bessie illustrates the Progressive educator. While principal at the Barnard School, one day she heard that a camel had escaped from a traveling show and was freely roaming the local woods. She gathered the entire student body and led an impromptu field trip to the woods to observe the camel “in the wild” and share a lesson on animals of the world.

In those years, women teachers were not allowed to marry if they wished to remain employed. Bessie put off marriage to David Sutherland until her 43rd birthday in 1894. Sutherland, 17 years Bessie’s senior, was a real estate developer with considerable property on the south and west sides of Chicago. They made their home at 1638 West 103rd Street. The couple had no children, and David died in 1904.

Bessie served as the principal of Barnard School for almost 40 years. She resigned in 1923, and died in 1924. She was buried in Mt. Greenwood Cemetery. In 1925, the new school built at 101st and Leavitt Sts. was named in her honor.