USA > Ohio > Women of Ohio; a record of their achievements in the history of the state, Volume I > Part 17
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Mrs. Slade has been of great service to the social work in Cincinnati. She was a girl counselor of the Juvenile Court, a member of the board of Shoemaker Center and has done outstanding work in the West End Branch of the Y.W.C.A. She has served as general chairman of the West End Branch, representing them in the meetings and conferences of the Central Y.W.C.A. Her advice and experience have been of value in local, national and international conferences. In the local branch she has given much time, at one time as chairman of the finance committee and at another of the education committee.
Mrs. Slade is a reader of ability and has taken part in many public programs. Her training and activities in various groups have made her widely known. She serves often as speaker before groups interested in the development and accomplishments of Negroes and has furthered progress in many other ways.
REBECCA SNYDER
REBECCA SNYDER, assistant principal of Avondale School, Cincinnati, belongs to one of the pioneer families of that city. Her great-grandfather, Thomas Williams, came to Cincinnati in the early 1790's and served at Fort Washington under Major Doughty.
Miss Snyder was born on Walnut Hills, on property which this ancestor originally purchased from John Cleves Symmes. She attended Woodward High School, then entered the Cincinnati College of Music where she studied organ under Jeanette Hall and composition with Otto Singer. She developed into a pupil of distinction and was given a gold medal for her fine work the year before her graduation.
This was followed by post-graduate work in Chicago under Wilhelm Middelschulte. Miss Snyder commenced her teaching in Avondale in 1892. Her academic training was taken at the University of Cincinnati.
At first she taught music, but later was appointed a regular teacher in the eighth grade. She continued in this position until 1919, when she was made assistant principal.
In addition to her administrative duties, Miss Snyder taught the eighth grade music and directed the school orchestra, which was noted as one of the outstanding elementary school music organizations of the city. In December 1892, Miss Snyder was appointed organist of the Avondale Presbyterian Church. During the forty-seven years of her teaching, she has remained in this position, and has had entire charge of the choir.
A woman of marked ability, of unbounded energy and keen intellect. possessing a fine mathematical brain and indomitable will, Miss Snyder was
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an outstanding grade teacher and ranks as a superior assistant principal. Her influence over the pupils and throughout the Avondale community, it is said, can hardly be over-estimated.
To her chosen profession Miss Snyder has brought a forceful personality, an efficient loyalty, a ripe scholarship and a practical idealism, all of which is backed by a keen sense of justice and an admirable altruism which will live on, it is believed, for generations to come.
BARBARA GRACE SPAYD
BARBARA GRACE SPAYD, educator, connected with the De Vilbiss High School of Toledo, has made definite and important contribution to the teach- ing service of this city for her initiative has enabled her to put forth many progressive ideas which have proven of real worth, particularly in the de- partment of English, where much of her teaching has been done. She has also done notable work in the editorial field and she is constantly studying that her efforts shall be of real and lasting benefit in child development.
Her parents, Charles and Mary Catherine (Gerberich) Spayd, were natives of Ohio and parents of three daughters, Edith Gerberich, Barbara Grace and Mary Catherine, all born in Toledo. The second daughter acquired her early education in the Broadway school, afterward spent two years in the St. Clair school and was graduated from the Central High School. She then spent a year as a student in the Toledo Normal Training School and was afterward at the Indiano then the Waite and later the Roosevelt schools. Through her early teaching she earned the money that enabled her to attend the University of Chicago. Her course there was interrupted for a year, but she returned and again took up her work there, majoring in English and history and minoring in sociology. She was surprised during commencement to learn that she had won a scholarship. She has also felt very grateful over the fact that her student days at the University of Chicago brought her into close contact with such eminent educators as William Rainey Harper, then president of the University, Dr. Watson, outstanding psychologist and others. She attended the lecture courses under Richard G. Moulton, editor of the Moulton Bible and among her instructors were George E. Vincent and Robert Lovett. She was graduated with the Bachelor of Philosophy degree in 1907 and afterward returned for two quarters to use her scholarship privileges. She then left the University to continue her work on her thesis and was unable to return on account of the death of her mother, remaining at home with her father and sisters. In the meantime when she had returned to use her scholarship she was in the department of sociology and history.
In September, 1908 Miss Spayd began teaching English and algebra at the East Side Central High School under Harvey A. Jones, who was then principal, and from whom she gained much knowledge as to the methods
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and procedure of teaching. She remained at that school until September, 1913, when she went to the Central High School, where she continued for a year, when she was transferred to the Waite High School at its opening in 1914, there remaining until 1936 when she was assigned to the DeVilbiss High School, where she still continues her teaching. In 1921 she was made head of the English department in the Waite High School and in 1920 she was asked to serve as chairman of the committee appointed to prepare a course of study in English for the city schools. When Dr. Babbitt came to Toledo from the University of Chicago to prepare the curriculum of the English department, she was again chairman. As early as 1916, in a very definite way, she introduced the socialized class room procedure in her own classes, endeavoring to give students an opportunity to discuss problems in the classroom just as they would among their friends or in their own homes. Miss Spayd was a pioneer in that and she was also the first to introduce the reading of current magazines in the English department. Thus in a quiet and modest way she developed class procedure and her work has been out- standing. Another outstanding point in her teaching has been in training students to co-operate with each other in the pursuit of some definite goal. In 1920 her senior classes prepared typewritten booklets and illustrated them for use in the grade schools, the purpose being to acquaint the incoming freshmen with the activities they would encounter when they entered the Waite High School. In another year her pupils wrote to various magazines to get the history of each publication and on still another occasion they wrote to get information about the colleges to which the Waite graduates might go. They also compiled booklets containing poetry quotations-all this being done in the Waite school.
In the current year (1939) Miss Spayd's senior class has completed the biography of Thomas A. DeVilbiss, the work being done through interviews, research, reading and study.
Miss Spayd is well known through her contributions to educational journals and her other writing. In June, 1918, she prepared an article for the English Journal, a publication of the National Council of Teachers in English. In the December 16, 1920 issue of the Journal of Education she had an article on "The Passing of Classroom Autocracy" and for The Ohio Teacher of April, 1921, she wrote an article on spelling and for the New York Evening Post of May 21, 1921, she wrote "A School for Scholars."
In 1924 Miss Spayd was asked to give a talk before the Ohio State Edu- cation Conference and this was afterward published in the College Bulletin, the title being "A Program for Oral English." Beginning in 1925 she was editor for several years of the department of English in The High School Teacher, a high school journal, for which she edited all the articles that appeared in its pages. In 1928 she was asked by Houghton, Mifflin & Coni- pany to edit their book "Tales of a Wayside Inn" and in 1933 she edited
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a school edition of " Arrowsmith," by Sinclair Lewis, for Harcourt, Grace & Company, while in 1935 she edited "The Long Trail" for Harper Brothers. In each case she wrote the biography of the author and study notes for the pupils. The book "Arrowsmith" is used by both colleges and Sunday schools.
Miss Spayd belongs to the Collingwood Avenue Presbyterian Church, the American Association of University Women and the Toledo Writers Club and is a member of the National Education Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, the Alumni Association of the University of Chicago and the Toledo Teachers, the Ohio Teachers and the National Asso- ciation of Teachers. She is particularly interested in the retarded and med- iocre child, neither of whom seem to be getting their chance and she feels that these two classes present problems which the educator must solve.
MARY AUGUSTA STONE
MARY AUGUSTA STONE of Cambridge, Ohio, retired teacher, musician, genealogist and historian, received as a Christmas gift from her father in 1875 a diary in which she registered her days events regularly until 1910 and intermittently ever since.
Pages of this diary could tell not only the story of her long and colorful life but the history as well of the entire community in which she has exem- plifid the spirit of American Education.
Mary Augusta was born in Wheeling, West Va. in 1862, the daughter of Maro Farwell Stone and Mary Augusta Mix, both descendants of dis- tinguished early American families. Her paternal grandfather, Benjamin Butler Stone, served with Washington at Valley Forge.
His wife, Anna Asbury Stone, was a heroine of a heroic ride from her home in Virginia to Valley Forge to carry supplies to her husband and brother. At York, Penn., she was given a letter for General Washington, which letter disclosed a plot endangering the life of the commander-in-chief. Anna Stone was pursued-but she got away. She delivered her precious letter intact.
The education of Mary Augusta Stone seems to have started with her birth but at five years she first entered a private school conducted by Miss Belle Baily. Soon afterward she began piano music with her mother as instructor. Later Miss Stone studied music under leading teachers of piano and pipe organ, who recommended that she be sent abroad to develop her talent. But this was impossible.
Both her father and mother died soon after the family had moved in 1870 to Cambridge, Ohio. Mary Augusta graduated from Cambridge High School, entered Wooster College, had to leave because of illness and in 1886 began her life work as a teacher in the Cambridge public schools and those of neighboring communities.
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She was for several years principal of the Centralized High School of Van Wert County ; then principal in Lucas County and by 1914 Mary Augusta saw her way to completing her education at Muskingum College. Her work there won her A. B. degree and presently a position on the faculty. She had become associate professor of education when she retired in 1936.
Widespread appreciation of her ability motivated her special assignment, for the following year, to a position in the Cambridge public schools during which her unusual task was the preparation of material for celebration of the Centennial of the city's incorporation.
Miss Stone had long since qualified for this type of work, through re- search for the Old Northwest Genealogical Society and very notably, a pageant which marked the Cambridge Home Coming, celebrated in 1921.
Her interest in archaeological and historical research is still active and is reflected by her life membership in the Institute of American Genealogy and her continued co-operation with similar organizations. Many of her cduca- tional and historical articles have been published. Her history of Cambridge is part of the Ohioana Library at Columbus and is on file at the Congres- sional Library, Washington, D. C.
CHRISTINE GORDON SULLIVAN
CHRISTINE GORDON SULLIVAN, former supervisor of Art Education in the Cincinnati public schools, was one of the incorporators of the Teachers' Annuity and Aid Association and organizer of the first teachers' club of Cincinnati.
Miss Sullivan was president of the Women Teachers' Club of those early days and was in charge of the education department of the centennials of 1886 and 1888. She was also in charge of the exhibit from the Cincinnati public schools at the World's Fair in 1893; of the art exhibit at the Atlanta Exposition.
She was author of the eclectic system of drawing used in the public schools of Cincinnati before 1900 and was president of the art department of the National Education Association for a period.
Christine Sullivan was at all times interested in the welfare of the children and teachers of Cincinnati and was a potent influence for good in this com- munity.
She died in 1899.
ELIZABETH SULLIVAN
ELIZABETH SULLIVAN, principal of the largest of Cincinnati's eight vocational high schools, established the first retail training program in the State of Ohio. She obtained her information for that program when she was sent in 1911 to Prince School in Boston, later affiliated with Simmons College, for special training by the Cincinnati Board of Education.
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Upon graduation from Prince School she entered the vocational field in commercial lines, acting as educational advisor to five large Cincinnati department stores.
Fourteen years of business experience as educational director formed her background for the work in which she is now engaged. She was placed in charge of Commercial Vocational High School in 1928 and was appointed head of the school in 1933. Under her leadership the school has grown from an enrollment of 232 in 1928 to 1200 in 1939.
A graduate of Hughes High School and the Cincinnati Normal School, Miss Sullivan has had a varied experience in elementary and high school work. compulsory continuation classes and evening schools. She has taken special administrative work in vocational lines at the University of Cincinnati and Ohio State University. She has also attended Miami University.
Her affiliations include : Prince Alumnal Association, National Education Association, National Education Commercial Department, Ohio Commercial Teachers Association, National Commercial Teachers Association, Interna- tional Society for Business Education, Cincinnati Business Teachers Forum, Ohio Educational Association, American Vocational Association, Cincinnati Vocational Association, Cincinnati Teachers Association, Southwestern Ohio Teachers Association and Ohio Vocational Association.
ANNE SUTHERLAND
ANNE SUTHERLAND, born in Denmark, Ashtabula County, Ohio, daughter of John H. Sutherland, native of Ontario, Canada, and Mary Alice Fisher Sutherland of Stark County, went to school as a young girl at the New Lynne Institute, where the principal was Jacob Tuckerman, grandfather of Judge Florence Allen. Later she attended the high school at Vevay, Indiana, and graduated from the Western College for Women, Oxford, Ohio, in 1914.
After several years as a teacher in various country schools in Indiana, she came, in 1921, to Walnut Hills High School, Cincinnati, Ohio, where she is a teacher of English.
Anne Sutherland finds relaxation from the rigors of her profession in managing a ninety-three acre farm which she owns near Vevay, Indiana, on the Ohio River, where she raises corn, wheat, alfalfa, watermelons and tobacco.
She is affiliated with numerous educational organizations. For several years she was editor of the Cincinnati Teachers Association Official Bulletin, one of her chief endeavors aside from her actual teaching.
She is a member of the Cincinnati Teachers Association, the Ohio Edu- cation Association, the National Education Association, a former vice presi- dent of the American Association of University Women, a member of the executive board of the Southwestern Ohio Teachers Association, a second vice president of the National Alumnal Association of Western College.
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ELIZABETH THORNDYKE
ELIZABETH THORNDYKE, as principal of the largest elementary night school in Cincinnati and Cincinnati's first community center, was the leader in an outstanding piece of Americanization work among the throngs of foreigners flocking to the city after the great war.
In 1927 she became principal of Dyer School, one of the largest elementary schools in Cincinnati with an enrollment of approximately 1300 pupils, located in the heart of the slum area. She began her teaching career in Kentucky and upon coming to Cincinnati taught history and civics for several years in Hughes High School.
She has a distinct flare for the civic, social and recreational side of education and her varied activities include work as playground director, social worker, classroom teacher, school executive and as student of the classics, modern languages and special education.
Miss Thorndyke holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Cincinnati, College of Liberal Arts and has pursued the graduate courses in Teachers College leading to the doctor's degree. She has devoted much time to historical research studies at Wisconsin and Chicago and perfected her knowledge of French at the Sorbonne, Paris.
Her literary contribution to educational magazines has been considerable, embracing articles on technical subjects in education. Some of these have been used as reference material in University classes.
She has traveled extensively studying educational methods in Paris, London and the Orient, including the schools of Manila, China and Japan. She has frequently appeared on the lecture platform before Cincinnati aud- iences and at the Ohio Educational Association meetings in Columbus.
Miss Thorndyke is a member of the Methodist Church and has served the Business and Professional Women's Club of the Avondale Methodist Church as president. She believes in women's clubs and is a member of the American Association of University Women, Alliance Francaise, Ohio League of Women Voters, Better Motion Pictures Council and Bona Court, Eastern Star.
Her especial hobbies are gardening and linguistic studies particularly the French language, but she also enjoys music and sports.
Her contribution to education has been on the social side. Her talent for organization and her peculiar sympathy with, and understanding of, the needs of underprivileged children and the families in the lower financial brackets have made her a valuable social worker as well as a capable executive.
FLORENCE TUROWSKI
It is not only in educational circles that FLORENCE TUROWSKI of Youngstown is well known, although she has been a successful high school
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teacher since 1925, but also in club, musical and art circles and she has keen appreciation for all interests of cultural value. Born in Youngstown on the 12th of June, 1904, she is a daughter of John B. and Frances (Jesionek) Turowski, both of whom were born in Poland and came to Youngstown in 1891, the father entering the employ of the Carnegie-Illinois Steel Company.
Miss Turowski attended the Youngstown schools and continued her educa- tion at Ohio State College, where she won her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1925 and her Master's degree in 1929. She began teaching in the Hayes junior high school in 1925 and has here since continued, specializing in mathematics and French, and her long connection with one school indicated how satis- factory her service has been to those most concerned. She is a member of the Ohio Teachers Association, the Youngstown Business and Teachers Associa- tion and the Youngstown Education Association.
Miss Turowski is also active and prominent along various other lines. A member of the National Council of Catholic Women, she is serving as secre- tary of the Youngstown deanery and is a member of the Catholic Choral Club, the Catholic Collegiate Association, and the Catholic Daughters of America. She is secretary of the National Polish Arts Clubs of America, sec- retary of the Federation of Polish Societies of Mahoning county and a member of the Polish National Alliance. She is a member of St. Casimir's Roman Catholic church, the Chi Delta Phi, an honorary speech arts society, the Young People's Literary Society and is active in the Monday Musical Club concert drives. She has been chairman of the Polish Art Exhibits of the Butler Art Institute of Youngstown since 1934 and she is alert to every opportunity that will advance intellectual and cultural progress. She has traveled extensively through the United States and abroad and has pursued special studies in Warsaw, Poland, gaining moreover in her European trip that broad and stimu- lating knowledge which travel brings. She enjoys working with people and studying personalities-and her own is a most interesting one.
WINIFRED K. VOGT
WINIFRED K. VOGT, one of the able teachers of the Zanesville public schools, who for some years has been instructor in mathematics in the junior high school, is also actively interested in civic affairs as indicated in the fact that she is president of the Business and Professional Women's Club of her city.
Miss Vogt is a native of Muskingum County, Ohio, and a daughter of William and Elizabeth (Killie) Vogt, also natives of the same county. where her father became a prominent contractor, doing much of the bridge building in that section of the state. Spending her girlhood days under the parental roof, Miss Vogt attended the public schools, passing through consecutive grades to her graduation from high school, while later she was a student in
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Athens College, of Athens, Ohio. Soon afterward she began teaching in the Zanesville public schools, with which she has since been identified and for a number of years she has been a mathematics teacher in the junior high school. She has the ability to impart clearly and readily to others the knowl- edge she has acquired and is regarded as one of the most competent and forceful teachers of Zanesville.
Miss Vogt belongs to the Young Women's Christian Association and to the Federation of Women's Clubs, has done effective work for the welfare chest, for the Red Cross and for similar organizations. She became a charter member of the Business and Professional Women's Clubs and has served as its president since 1936. She belongs to the Presbyterian Church and gives her political allegiance to the Republican Party, at all times keeping well informed on the questions and issues of the day, both state and national. Something of her rating in the public life of the city was indicated in an article which appeared in a local paper in connection with the weekly gift of roses by Imlay to an outstanding person in Zanesville and which was as follows: "Among our most potent factors for civic good is the Business and Professional Women's Club. Winifred K. Vogt, one of Zanesville's best known and most efficient teachers is president of the local club and we take a great deal of pleasure in nominating her for the weekly gift of Imlay roses. Miss Vogt, who is proud of her city's far-reaching American traditions, has been active in all movements for the civic development of the community. Not the least of these activities has been the leadership she has given the business and professional women who play such an important part in our affairs.
"Her chief hobby is travelling and she firmly believes in the slogan 'See America First.' Not only has this splendid representative of Zanesville's womanhood been devoted to public good but she is also a private philanthropist.
"Because she is a public-spirited citizen and a charming woman as well we take great pleasure in nominating Miss Winifred Vogt for the weekly gift of Imlay Roses."
ALICE ELVIRA VON STEIN
ALICE ELVIRA VON STEIN, teacher of English at the Hughes High School, Cincinnati, was born in that city, graduated from Hughes and from Mt. Holyoke College with the degree of A.B. She did graduate work at the University of Cincinnati where she received her M.A.
Miss Von Stein began her work as a teacher in 1909 and is regarded as an authority in her field. She was a delegate to the Conference of American University Women at Oxford, England in 1938, and has been active in various organizations; notably the Mt. Holyoke Alumni Association and the College Club of Cincinnati.
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SARA WALDEN
Since 1930 SARA WALDEN has been matron at "Maplecrest," which is being maintained by the Ohio branch of the International Order of the King's Daughters and Sons, and her work there gives her an outstanding position in connection with women's activities in Bucyrus. She has always been a resident of Ohio and is a native of Rising Sun, Wood County, born in 1896, her parents being James W. and Clara (Neikirk) Walden. Her father, who was born in Sandusky County, Ohio, September 22, 1860, was a stationary engineer. The mother was born in this state in March, 1861, and was a granddaughter of Joseph Neikirk, who removed from Maryland to Ohio and settled near Cooper or Five Points, becoming one of the pioneer residents of Seneca County, where Mrs. Walden afterward engaged in teaching school. The ancestry of Sara Walden has been connected with American history since colonial times for she is of the seventh generation of the descendants of William Rule, who fought in the Revolutionary War and was killed in battle at the age of fifty-four years. In the family of Mr. and Mrs. James W. Walden were six daughters, as follows: Mary, a registered nurse living in Clyde, Ohio; Bertha, a teacher in the elementary grades of the Clyde schools ; Bessie, the wife of Homer Young, of Green Springs, this state; Lida, the wife of M. I. Wiedle of Clyde; and Iona, wife of Roy Perry, a resident of Vickery, Ohio.
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