Catherine Ann "Kate" Barnard

Catherine Ann “Kate” Barnard was born on May 23, 1875 in Geneva, Nebraska.   

At the age of seventeen she became a school teacher, taught for three years and then became a stenographer. In 1901 she was appointed clerk and stenographer for the Democratic minority in the territorial  legislature at Guthrie. In 1904 she was sent to work for the Oklahoma Commission at the St.Louis World’s Fair, where she noticed unemployment, urban poverty and horrible working conditions. She listened to discussions by social science experts who suggested solutions.  She returned home determined to get legislation passed to protect Oklahoma from the same poor conditions she had witnessed in St. Louis. 

“…I stood at the mouth of a burning coal mine. Fire leaped high through the only entrance. Fifteen men were hopelessly cut off below. The smell of their burning flesh came up to us on the crest of the flame.  A woman, clothed in only one garment, with three children clinging to it, and a babe in her arms, peered into the pit. Her husband was below.  She cried out, and going suddenly insane, tried to leap down to join him. 

There was only one reason why that nine should have but one entrance; it would cost money to provide another.  Then and there i determined to consecrate myself to the remedy.”

Her first success came in 1906 when she was at the Shawnee Convention which was a gathering of Oklahoma Farmers Union, the American Federation of Labor and four of the railroad brotherhoods.  Barnard was a delegate of the AFL and urged the abolishment of child labor and initiation of compulsory education. Democratic party leaders adopted her reform proposals for their platform at the constitutional convention a year later.  As a result she had a major role in writing the State’s constitution. At her suggestion they also created an elective office of Commissioner of Charities and Corrections for which Kate campaigned tirelessly and won. She was the first woman to win a statewide elective office in the United States. 

She served two terms during which she created a lasting body of reform legislation which improved conditions for the mentally ill, convicts, child and adult laborers and widows.  She launched an investigation into the Indian land scandals involving the defrauding of Indian minors of their timber, oil and gas rights and farmland. She also became administrator of the United Provident Association (later the United Way) in 1905. 

Her1908 investigation of the treatment of Oklahoma prisoners held in a Kansas prison rated national headlines and enhanced her reputation as a reformer. Her efforts resulted in the repatriation of the convicts and the subsequent creation of a three-tier state prison system consisting of a penitentiary, a reformatory, and a boys' training school.

Mary Washburn Shinn

Milicent Washburn Shinn was born April 15, 1858 in Niles, California.  She completed a A.B. degree at the University of California. It took her six years because she periodically had to take time off to earn enough money to continue. 

In 1880 Milicent began to contribute prose and poetry to The Californian.  In 1883 she acquired the periodical and changed it’s name to Overland Monthly and was it’s editor for the next eleven years. In 1894 she sold the successful paper and gave up her editorship.  She continued to submit her essays and poems though.

When her niece was born in 1890 she became very interested in child development. She kept precise records of the baby’s mental and physical progress which she published as Notes on the Development of a Child. As a result she was invited to speak at the world’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.  She was quite surprised at the attention her work received.  She had done the research for her own edification and enjoyment, not with any scientific aspirations.  She was astonished to learn that such records were not common. As a result of her presentation Shinn received several invitations for graduate study at prestigious institutions such as Stanford, John Hopkins and Clark University.   Milicent chose to return  to her alma mater, the University of California to earn her Ph.D.  She was the first woman and only the eleventh person to receive a Ph.D. from the school.

Her work in psychology was very well received and brought her attention in both the United States and abroad. Her second book, The Biography of a Baby, was published in 1900.  Shortly afterwards she retired to the family ranch in Niles where she lived quietly doing charity and church work.  She was also active in her college alumnae association.

March, Women's History Month

Highlighting the vital role played by women in history is the goal of HerStory.  Women have always been driven by their dreams which has resulted in amazing accomplishments. We draw inspiration and strength from those who came before us.  They are part of our own story .  Only through an inclusive and balanced “history”  can we know and celebrate how important women have always been in our country in society and in the world. We celebrate Women’s History Month each year in March which highlights the contributions of women to historical events as well as events in contemporary times. It is celebrated in the U.S. the U.K and Australia. 

In the U.S. wWomen’s History Month dates back to 1910/11  in remembrance of a strike of the international Ladies Garment Workers Union that took place in Chicago, known as the Hart, Scahffner and Marx strike. Women showed their capability to unify ethnic boundaries in response to an industry infamous for low wages, long hours -sometimes 75 hours a week- and poor conditions.  The strike began with sixteen women protesting, soon 2,100 others joined and eventually 41,000 women walked off the job and stayed out for 14 weeks until some of their demands for better conditions were met. 

Later, it commemorated the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 in Manhattan when 146 women perished. They were mostly young, some only teens who were immigrants and spoke little or no english, and were working 12 hours a day every day. They either died in the fire that broke out of the eighth floor of the wood frame building or died as a result of jumping out the windows to the sidewalks below. They couldn’t escape because the doors were locked to prevent them from stealing or taking unauthorized breaks.  An unauthorized break often meant taking time out to run down 8 flights of stairs to use the outhouse located in the back yard of the factory.

In the words of President Carter in 1980: "From the first settlers who came to our shores, from the First American Indian families who befriended them, men AND women have worked together to build this nation.  Too often the women were unsung and sometimes their contributions went unnoticed.  But the achievements, leadership, courage, strength and love of the women who built America was as vital as that of the men whose names we know well." 

Mary Sewall Gardner

This is dedicated to all public health nurses, but especially those working in Montezuma County.  You are amazing and do fantastic work.  I honor you. 

Mary Sewall Gardner was born on February 5, 1871 in Newton, Mass.  When she was 4, her mother died.  Her father soon remarried and his new wife was a medical doctor.  Mary's early education was in private boarding schools but in 1890 she returned home in order to nurse her invalid stepmother. She also engaged in community work.


At the age of 30 she enrolled in the Newport Rhode Island Hospital Training School  Mary had been greatly inspired by her stepmother and wanted to become a physician herself.  When she completed the four year training there, she assumed the role of superintendent of nurses of the Providence District Nursing Association.  The organization blossomed under her direction and actually became a working model for other district nursing associations.

In 1912 mary and another nurse founded the National Organization of Public Health Nursing.  She served as president and was instrumental in creating the monthly periodical Public Health Nursing, where she contributed many articles and editorials.

When World War I broke out,  Mary took a leave of absence and went to Italy, where she took up the post of chief nurse with the American Red Cross Tuberculosis Commission.  She established a training school for Italian women who wished to become nurses.

In 1916 Mary published her book, Public Health Nursing, which was considered her greatest contribution to her profession.  The book was revised twice and published in several languages.  It is considered a classic.

In recognition of er pioneering efforts in public health nursing, she received an honorary master's degree from Brown University.  Shw also received the Walter Burns Saunders Medal for distinguished service to nursing.

Ann Preston

Ann Preston

Ann was born December 1, 1813 in the Quaker settlement of West Grove in Pennsylvania near Philadelphia. She attended school but also helped care for her six younger siblings as her mother’s health was poor.  She was also active in the local anti-slavery society.

When her siblings grew to be more independent she began teaching.  At this time she also became interested in physiology and recognizing the need for more information on the subject, she initiated classes in female physiology and hygiene for women and girls.

In 1847 she embarked on a two year apprenticeship with Dr. Nathaniel Moseley in Philadelphia. Completing the apprenticeship she applied to four medical colleges in Pennsylvania but was rejected solely because she was female. In 1850 a group of Quakers founded the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania to meet the needs of the many women seeking a career in medicine.  Just shy of her thirty seventh birthday Ann enrolled in the first class with seven other women.

After graduating she remained at the college as a professor of physiology and hygiene.  In 1858 she initiated a fundraising campaign to build a woman’s hospital in connection with the college to provide hands on clinical instruction.

In 1866 Ann was appointed dean of the Woman’s Medical College, the first woman to hold that position. She applied for permission for her students to attend general clinics at the Philadelphia Hospital but was met with demonstrations by male medical students protesting the impropriety of educating men and women in medicine together.  She fought this narrow-mindedness saying women were patients and it was “in accordance with the instincts of the truest womanhood for women to appear as physicians and students.”  Philadelphia newspapers published her comments.

Carrie Adell Green Strahorn

Carrie Adell Green Strahorn was born on January 1, 1854 to a family of “old settlers” in Merengo, Illinois.  Her father had been a surgeon serving in the Civil War under Ulysses S. Grant.  He encouraged all three of his daughters to get as much education as they wished. Adell graduated from the University of Michigan and studied voice in both the United States and Europe. She enjoyed a comfortable life and listening to tales of her elders she vowed that she would “never be a pioneer.”  

However, for over thirty years she traveled thousands of miles by stage, saddle and rail into raw, wild and remote areas of the West with her husband, Robert A. “Pard” Strahorn who was a publicist for the new Union Pacific Railroad.  He had also written a guide book extolling the virtues of the Wyoming and Dakota territories. They married in 1877.  At the bride’s request, the word “obey” was left out of the wedding ceremony; they were going to Wyoming, where there was Women’s Suffrage. Railroad officials at first balked when Strahorn asked that his wife be allowed to accompany him on all his journeys, arguing that it was not a life suitable for a young lady. When he refused to take the job under any other condition, the railroad gave in.

 The first year alone they traveled over 6,000 miles with Adell assisting “Pard” in the writing of his informative travel guides. Together they established seven towns including Caldwell, Weiser, Payette, Shoshone, and Hailey Idaho as well as Ontario Oregon.  They often referred to these towns as  “our children of which we are justly proud.”

Adell was the first white woman to make a complete tour of Yellowstone Park and she described its breathtaking scenery.  In 1911 she published the popular Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage which was a witty and observant memoir that was illustrated by famed Western artist Charles M. Russell.  

“The multitude of friends thought it no less than a calamity in 1877 that a girl should choose as a life partner one who would carry her out into that mysterious and unsettled country,” Adell Strahorn wrote in the preface to her book.

Anne Hennis

Anne Hennis was born in Liverpool England sometime in 1742. She was formally educated and knew how to read and write.  By the time she was 18 both of her parents had died and she struggled to survive.  She sailed to America in 1761 probably as an indentured servant. She lived with relatives in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia.  In 1765 she married Richard Trotter an experienced soldier and frontiersman. They had one son, William.

Richard was killed at the Battle of Point Pleasant on October 19l 1774.  When Anne learned of her husband’s death she left her young son with neighbors, and set out to avenge the loss of her husband.  She became known as “Mad Anne”. She was a strange site wearing buckskin leggings, petticoats, heavy leather boots, a man’s coat and hat, a hunting knife in a belt around her waist and a rifle slung over her shoulder.  She rode from one recruiting station to another, appealing to all she met to volunteer their services to the militia in order to keep women and children safe and fight for freedom from Indians and later, the British. 

Although Anne primarily rode up and down the western frontier, she also recruited for the Continental Army, and delivered messages between various Army detachments during the Revolutionary War. She often traveled as a courier on horseback between Forts Savannah and Randolph, a distance of almost 160 miles. She was well known and respected by the settlers along the route. 

On her rides Bailey often came across a group of Shawnee Indians. In one such encounter, Bailey was being chased by them and about to be caught when she jumped off her horse and hid in a log. Though they looked everywhere for her and even stopped to rest on the log, they could not find her. They gave up and stole her horse. After they left, Bailey came out of the log and during the night crept into their camp and retrieved her horse. 

After several years living on her own, Anne met John Bailey, a member of a legendary group of frontier scouts called the Rangers, who were defending the Roanoke and Catawba settlements from Indian attacks. He seemed to enjoy Mad Anne's rough ways, and they were married November 3, 1785. 

In 1791, Anne Bailey singlehandedly saved Fort Lee (now Charleston, West Virginia) from certain destruction by hostile Indians with a three-day, 200–mile round trip to replenish their supply of gunpowder. After hours of riding, she reached Fort Savannah at Lewisburg. There, gunpowder was quickly packed aboard her horse and one additional mount, before she reversed her direction and galloped back to Fort Lee.

With Anne's return, the siege was lifted, the attackers repulsed. For her bravery Anne was given the horse that had carried her away and brought her safely back. The animal was said to have been a beautiful black, sporting white feet and a blazed face. She dubbed him Liverpool, in honor of her birthplace. Anne Bailey was forty-nine years old when she made this famous ride. 

Again a widow, and in her late fifties, Anne went to live with her son but her love for riding and of the wilderness had not ceased. For many years afterwards she could be seen riding from Point Pleasant to Lewisburg and Staunton, carrying mail and as an express messenger.