USA > Ohio > Women of Ohio; a record of their achievements in the history of the state, Volume IV > Part 14
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Miss Lyons studied music under several of the foremost Cincinnati teachers of piano and of organ. It was from this angle, while still in high school, that she became interested in radio and began to take part in music programs over Station WLW, Station WKRC and Station WSAI.
For a time Miss Lyons devoted her energies to library work but presently turned definitely to the field of radio for her career. Her first position was as pianist and organist with Station WKRC, in Cincinnati. For two years she was musical director of WKRC, during which period she was made program director of the station, a position unique for women in the radio profession.
Eventually Ruth Lyons concentrated on script and continuity preparation, taking over the duties of the "Woman's Hour," a daily presentation of a wide variety of women's interests.
Not only has Ruth Lyons been instrumental in discovering and de- veloping many talented singers, commentators and other stars of radio, but her ability to cover events of immediate and great importance has
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been impressively demonstrated. During the Ohio River flood of 1937 she won country-wide recognition for her effort and ingenuity in han- dling spot flood news and raised $56,000 for flood sufferers and the Red Cross.
Miss Lyons now conducts a full hour program daily for the innum- erable women who compose WKRC's radio audience, featuring inter- views with visiting celebrities, special events and discussions of a wide range of topics presented in a fashion that challenges deep and wide- spread interest. In addition, she is heard over the Mutual Network in various musical programs, and directs and supervises the entire pro- gram schedule of WKRC, the Mutual affiliate station for Cincinnati.
MILDRED F. MAYBERRY
MILDRED F. MAYBERRY of Bryan has done much radio work particularly in connection with preparing the continuity for advertising and has also figured in other important business connections. She is the wife of Dr. H. R. Mayberry, an able practicing physician of Bryan, and a daughter of John and Elizabeth Fruchte, who were born in In- diana. The father, who for many years followed farming, is now living retired in Fort Wayne, Indiana, but the mother passed away in 1933. They were parents of eight children, of whom William and Martha are both deceased. Edward married Lena Reppert of Magley, Indiana, where they reside, and they have two children, Walter and Elizabeth. Edward gives his attention to farming. Johanna and Adele have both passed away. Ernest, living in Wichita Falls, Texas, where he engaged in law practice, married Cora Lee Williams, and they have a son, Don.
The other member of the family, Mrs. Mayberry, passed through consecutive grades in the public schools of Fort Wayne, Indiana, until graduated from high school and then entered Heidelburg College, where she majored in economics and English, there winning her Bachelor of
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Arts degree. She afterward attended classes in post graduate work and following her college work engaged in teaching for a year in Napoleon, Ohio. Going to Cincinnati, Ohio, she pursued postgraduate studies and while in that city wrote all of the continuity for the Columbia Broad- casting Corporation's Cincinnati station, WKRC. The records today show about seventy thousand typewritten pages of continuity written by Mrs. Mayberry. At the same time she served on the staff of the Smith-Young Company, business analysts, for about five years. She also worked for the Domestic Art Guild of Cincinnati, where over a period of two and a half years she talked to approximately sixty thousand club women. The Guild was an advertising concern that would group about fifty products, many of which would be cooked and served to one hundred and twenty women per day. They carried on a program called "What's New", presented over WLW, their products handled being such as would be of interest to women. Mrs. Mayberry prepared the continuity and presented the program as the commentator over WKRC, continuing this work over a considerable period.
In the meantime, on the 13th of August, 1927, she had been married to Dr. H. R. Mayberry, who was graduated with the Bachelor of Arts degree from Otterbein University and with the Bachelor of Medicine and Doctor of Medicine degrees from the University of Cincinnati in 1931. He interned at the Good Samaritan Hospital of that city for a year and in the fall of 1932 they removed to Bryan, where they are well known, holding an enviable position in the social circles, as well as professionally, in Bryan. Mrs. Mayberry is particularly well known through her radio work and is among the women who have pioneered in this field.
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CLARA NEAL McGWINN
There are few women in Ohio or elsewhere whose activities have covered a broader or more interesting scope, or whose achievements have been more outstanding than those of CLARA NEAL McGWINN, of Cleveland, in which city she was born April 6, 1879, a daughter of Andrew William and Barbara Elizabeth Oppmann. Her father was born May 19, 1844, in Gaenheim, near Wuerzburg, Bavaria, Germany, was an orphan at fourteen, and in his boyhood traveled all over the world, coming to the United States when a youth of eighteen years. He fought with the American Army against the Indians, going on horse- back for nine months, from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to the Pacific coast before the railroad was built. Riding a mule, he crossed the Isthmus of Panama when about twenty years of age. He lost all of his possessions in the great Chicago fire of 1871 and in 1872, when twenty- eight years of age, he married and became a successful business man. His wife was born in Cleveland, Ohio, October 21, 1849, a daughter of John and Margareta Strebel, who came to America from Bavaria in Germany and settled in Cleveland about 1820, being among the early settlers of Cleveland where they became stable and successful business people.
Clara Neal McGwinn attended the Cleveland and West Cleveland public schools and the West High School. Entering the Cleveland Con- servatory of Music, she was preparing for concert work but this idea had to be abandoned because of illness but nevertheless her musical education was continued for many years. She was graduated on the completion of a three years course at the Cleveland School of Elocution and Oratory, receiving the Bachelor of Elocution degree (B.E.) and since that time has continued to give readings in public. She is also a
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graduate of Mrs. Sarah Rorer's Cooking School in Philadelphia, class of 1896, and in her later years has pursued courses of study in Columbia University, Cleveland College, in special radio classes and in Western Reserve University.
On the 8th of June, 1904, in Cleveland, Clara Oppmann became the wife of Clarence Jonathan Neal, a son of Jonathan and Mary Gillie Neal, the former being born in England and the latter in Scotland, both com- ing to Cleveland when very young.
Clarence Neal was born November 10, 1878, and passed on, Sep- tember 16, 1936, at the age of fifty-seven. In 1902 he was admitted to the bar but practiced only until 1913 when private business interests claimed all of his attention. In 1907 he and his wife had begun building apartments and from that time on building was a pastime with them. In 1908, when only thirty years of age, he was made a member of the board of the People's Bank and thereafter was continuously a director of some bank. In early life he was president of the Chamber of Industry and was always interested in civic betterment. At thirty-four he entered upon an eight year period as member of the school board and in 1916 was appointed Cleveland's director of finance and ran the city for five years within its income. During the coal emergency of 1922, when prices soared skyward and supplies dwindled almost to nothing, he was appointed by the governor to act as Ohio State Fuel Administrator and through his persistent efforts was credited with having the fuel situa- tion relieved and prices greatly lowered throughout the state. In 1912 he organized the Neal Storage Company, a continuation of the moving business established in 1864 by his father, Jonathan Neal.
Appointed in 1920, he served for sixteen years on the Cleveland Library Board, was vice president of the board and a member of the finance committee. He likewise was president of the Citizens League of Cleveland. He promoted the Neal Fruit Farm, became a leading or- chardist of Ohio through study and experience and developed "Neal's Crystal Cider." Just a few weeks before he passed on he said "when you get so close to something that grows and depends on you for its success or failure; when you get out into the country and let the wind blow through your hair and the sun shine on you, you've got something
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far more than you'll ever have if you stay in a city." He was president of the National Apple Institute, vice president of the Ohio Horticultural Society and secretary of the Northern Ohio Apple Institute. In 1924 he was general chairman of the Republican party in Ohio, directing the presidential campaign of Calvin Coolidge. There was no interest of their lives which Mr. and Mrs. Neal did not share with each other and to their two sons his attitude was that of an elder brother and companion.
The two sons are Herbert Clarence, born in Cleveland, May 4, 1907, and William Clarence, born in Cleveland, November 21, 1909. The former was married June 6, 1933, to Helen Pocock and they have two daughters, Barbara Richards Neal, born September 17, 1936, and Janet Neal, born July 31, 1938. William Clarence Neal married Mary Alice Smith, of Indianapolis, on January 1, 1937, and they have one daughter, Linda Claire Neal, born January 8, 1938. Both sons live in Cleveland and West Richfield and at the latter place operate the Neal Fruit Farm. They also conduct the business in Cleveland which was established by their father and is carried on under the name of the Neal Storage Company.
On the 16th of April, 1938, Mrs. Clara Neal became the wife of George Douglass McGwinn, who had been a boyhood friend of her first husband-a friendship that continued after both were married. Mr. McGwinn's wife, Kate (Freeman) McGwinn, passed on about the same time as Mr. Neal. Mr. McGwinn was born in Richmond (Grand River), Ohio, October 14th, 1878. At the age of thirty-two, he became presi- dent and general manager of the Illinois Valley Gas and Electric Com- pany at Streator, Illinois. He later served as vice president of the Union Trust Company, vice president of the Cleveland Union Terminals Company, during the building of the Terminal Tower, Union Station and Terminal Buildings; and president of the Cleveland Railway Com- pany and is now building manager of the Higbee Company.
Mrs. McGwinn is a woman of boundless energy, so that every day is filled to the brim with activities. Since her seventeenth year she has been active in connection with building operations and the handling of real estate. She loves the active business life but there has been time for other work besides business and the rearing of her family. She
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has been a devoted worker in politics and club interests, besides being ardently interested in piano music, public reading, sewing and house- keeping.
Her greatest pleasure has come from travel. There are few countries in the world that she has not seen. When eleven years of age she made her first trip to Europe and as a result has always been an advocate of teaching children when young just how to travel and adjust themselves to the world in which they live. Her third visit to Europe in 1911 to witness the coronation of King George V was most interesting and proved to be outstanding in that it marked the beginning of a new activity in her life. Showing her stereopticon pictures and telling about the places she visited became a habit from then on. Later when movies came in, the world was recorded in motion pictures.
In 1930 the whole Neal family took a cruise around the world, re- turning with motion pictures of the entire trip, which marked a great turning point in her life-writing for publication. Articles sent in from various parts of the world were printed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, then more articles from her pen appeared in print and from 1934 to 1936 she was the winner of five national prizes for her writings.
By this time most women who had raised their families would have been willing to call it a day, but life was only opening up for her. Her next venture was radio broadcasting-bringing to others the inter- esting world of which she had seen so much. "The Travel Club of the Air" is the subject of her program. Her descriptions cover practically every part of the world where she has been and to make these broad- casts of instructive value she sends to her listeners, free of charge, The Travel Club of the Air Atlas of the World-her contribution to the education of geography. Each place described, she locates on the map during her broadcast. Her fan mail discloses that she shares her ex- periences with people in all walks of life-bedridden, blind, cripples, people who have visited the same places, those who are too poor to travel, those unable to go and those who are too old and some who just enjoy the entertainment features of a broadcast.
After the marriage of her son Herbert, the photographer of the family, Mrs. McGwinn realized that if her trips were to be recorded in
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pictures she would have to take up photography herself, with the result that her pictures, in natural color, bring pleasure to school children, charitable institutions and clubs and to her many friends. From Febru- ary, 1937, to June, 1939, she traveled and recorded her trips in pictures and writing, going to South America, down the Pacific coast, crossing the Chilean lakes and coming up the Atlantic coast. She also spent seven weeks in the U. S. S. R., going in at Leningrad, then traveling down the Volga River and crossing the Caucasus Mountains by way of the Georgian Military Highway to Tiflis, Georgia, then into Armenia and across the Black Sea, leaving the U. S. S. R. at Odessa; then on through Roumania, Hungary and Austria into Germany and France.
Another trip followed, this time by motor through the British Isles, then by air to Cologne and by motor through Germany, going east as far as Vienna, where she arrived just a month after the "anschluss." Then came the greatest trip of all-four months going from Cape Town to Cairo-the full length of Africa, going inland to the lakes and moun- tains, into the heart of the dark continent, into the game country, then four thousand miles down the Nile from its source near Lake Tanganyika to the delta at the Mediterranean Sea; then to Syria, the Holy Land, Athens, Italy and Marseilles, all recorded in colored movies and in col- ored still pictures as well. A new series of broadcasts brought to the public descriptions of this entire trip.
In 1917 Mr. and Mrs. Neal purchased three hundred acres of virgin land at West Richfield, near Cleveland, and through consistent and persistent effort developed the Neal Fruit Farm, where about ten thou- sand apple trees produce some of the finest fruit ever grown. It was while walking in the orchard here that her husband, Clarence J. Neal, suffered a heart attack and was found dead under an apple tree in the orchard he loved so well. Although never having lived on a farm before, she thoroughly enjoyed the life and personally superintended the plant- ing of twenty thousand evergreens, many of them planted around the two lakes which they had developed on their farm.
In addition to all her other activities, previously mentioned, Mrs. McGwinn was president of the Woman's Club of Cleveland about 1925 to 1927; president of the There Arts Club of Lakewood, 1935-37; presi-
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dent of the Cleveland branch of the National League of American Pen- women, 1935-37; general chairman of the national convention of the National League of American Penwomen, held in Cleveland in April, 1937; and is active in the Young Women's Christian Association, of which she is a life member, and is also connected with many charitable institutions. She is also a Rotaryanne (wife of a member) of the Cleve- land Rotary Club and a past president of the Beta Theta Phi Mothers Club of both Western Reserve University and the similar organization of the Case School of Applied Science. Her outstanding characteristic perhaps has been the generous sharing of her own experiences and opportunities for the benefit of others, that their lives might thus be enriched and their horizons broadened, and she has thus shed around her much of life's sunshine.
MARY MERICKEL WEST
Educational activities, radio broadcasting and physical develop- ment work have largely claimed the attention of MARY MERICKEL WEST, who is also well known through her writings on normalizing through health, posture and diet. She has been an instructor in that field for a number of years and in various sections of the country. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she is a daughter of William and Edith (Foerstige) Hurst, both natives of the Keystone state, where the father engaged in the wholesale grocery business. He died about 1899 and the mother afterward married Lou Hartson of Toledo, who was a bank architect and who passed away in 1924. She is still living in Toledo, making her home with her daughter, Mrs. West.
In her girlhood days Mrs. West attended the grade schools of Pitts- burgh and pursued her high school studies in Toledo, while at the same time she took extra courses in St. Ursula's Academy. She was gradu-
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ated from the old Central High School and she also did work at the Scott High School of Toledo. In her senior year she married Herbert L. Merickel, who was secretary of the Toledo Merchandise Company. He died in 1925. Their daughter attended the Toledo schools and was gradu- ated from the Scott High School, the class numbering six hundred and twenty-four. She was the sixth in the group of honor students with all A. and B. marks. After her graduation she went to Arlington Hall in Washington, D. C., then attended Sullins College at Bristol, Virginia, where she took an academic course. While at Arlington Hall, she was a student teacher and at Sullins she taught swimming, dancing and riding. She was a guest at the president's ball and also at the tea the following day. In 1936 she was graduated from the University of Michi- gan with the Bachelor of Arts degree and a life teacher's certificate. She taught in the third grade in the Progressive School in Ann Arbor for two years and she is a member of the Pi Beta Phi, a national sorority. In September, 1937, she married Donald E. Hillier of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and they now make their home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where her husband is connected with the Armstrong Cork Company. He is a graduate of the Engineering school of the University of Michigan and was president of Falcon Society. He is a member of Delta Kappa Ep- silon. While pursuing her high school studies in Toledo, Mrs. Hillier also taught dancing in the Beatrice Gardner School and when only seventeen years of age she passed the examiner's test for the Life Saving Corps.
It was in November, 1928, that Mary Merickel became the wife of George Leon West, who for nineteen years has been chief cost account- ant at the Electric Auto-Lite Corporation and is an active member of Inverness. She attends St. Mark's Episcopal Church and she belongs to Toledo Chapter of the Easter Star, to the Ladies of the Oriental Shrine of North America, of which she was a charter member, to Ursula Wolcott Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and was formerly connected with the Quota Club. After the death of her first husband she went back to college to secure her credits and she has since devoted much time to public work. She has given broad-
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casts on normalizing over a Toledo station, this being a system for in- creasing or reducing weight in either men or women. She gave the exercises on the air and sent out a diet, first in leaflet form and later in book form. She has devoted eight years to W. Y. C. A. work, has had one year of social service training and eight summers of intensive study at nationally known hospitals and sanitariums. She devoted eight years to physical education, dramatics and dancing at the Janes-Franklin private school, working with pupils from the first grade through the eighth and she did graduate work at the Battle Creek College of Physical Education and the Battle Creek Sanitarium. For eight years she was northern representative of an exclusive private summer camp in Vir- ginia.
For eight years Mrs. West devoted her time to normalizing work (exercises and diets) at the Knights of Columbus recreation center; four years of normalizing with the members of the Toledo Woman's Club; four years of normalizing for the wives of the University Club mem- bers and wives of Toledo Club members; two years to teaching physical education and swimming at St. Mary's College and Hall of Divine Child at Monroe, Michigan; and two years to teaching physical educa- tion and dancing at St. Ursulina Academy of Toledo. She spent seven years with normalizing classes at the Raymer School P. T. A .; six years with normalizing classes at the Ottawa Hills P. T. A .; five years at Fulton School; two years at Nathan Hale School; two years at Long- fellow School; and six years with normalizing class to combined church groups, including St. Mark's Episcopal, St. Mark's Lutheran and the Collingwood Avenue Presbyterian Churches. She has broadcast a nor- malizing program for the past eight years with only two brief lapses from the air, the first interruption being from September, 1937, to Janu- ary, 1938, and then when she was with a sponsored program from Feb- ruary 28 to September 10, 1938. This period of study and teaching on the part of Mrs. West covers the years between 1926 and 1938. She is also the author of two copyrighted books on normalizing, covering health, posture and diets, her first book being copyrighted in September, 1935, the second edition printed in November, 1935, and the second book copyrighted in August, 1937, while the third book is now in preparation.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Women In Osteopathy Dentistry And Nursing (Continued from Page 637)
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A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE OSTEOPATHIC SCHOOL OF MEDICAL PRACTICE
Dr. Ray G. Hulburt, who is editor of "The Journal of Osteopathy" and "The Forum" the official publication of The American Osteopathy Association and who is a leading osteopathic physician writes in a sketch of the life of Dr. Andrew Taylor Still, the discoverer of the principles of osteopathy, and the founder of the first college of osteopathy, in Kirksville, Missouri, that "Andrew Taylor Still was born at Jonesville, Virginia, August 6, 1828, the son of the Rev. Abraham Still, M.D. Abraham was born in North Carolina, about 1797; was ordained as a Methodist minister in Tennessee, and sent as a circuit rider to Tazewell County, Virginia, where he married Martha P. Moore in 1823. They removed to Jonesville in 1824, where Abraham served as a Methodist minister and doctor of medicine for ten years, and was on the Board of Trustees of the Jonesville Camp Meeting, which has been an annual affair ever since. Not only was Abraham himself both a minister and a doctor; he had four doctor brothers, and four sons who became doctors. All of the living children of Andrew Taylor Still are osteopathic phy- sicians, as are most of his grandchildren. At the age of six, Andrew went with his doctor-preacher father and the rest of the family to New Market, Tennessee. When he was nine they removed to the still wilder country in Macon County, Missouri. His father was the first Methodist mission- ary in that part of the state. Dr. Still's father was transferred in 1853 from Missouri to a Shawnee mission near Kansas City, Kansas. The grown sons went, too, and Andrew, now a man of twenty-five, with a family, farmed, and with his father doctored the Indians and the few
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whites who had settled there. The country filled rapidly with whites, and Dr. A. T. Still was active in public affairs. Still he was devoting con- siderable time to the practice of medicine. He was becoming dissatisfied with drug medication as generally practiced then, and was beginning to seek something better. But during the war in which he served as a distinguished soldier in the Union Army, he had little time to think of these things. Very shortly after the close of the war, death, despite the best medical talent he could obtain, took three of his children. He then resumed the search he had begun in the 50's, but temporarily discon- tinued, for a better system of health and healing. We of this generation cannot realize how little truth was known and how much error was believed, up to sixty years ago, concerning the human body in health and disease. Skin eruptions of every kind were believed to be due to 'impurities' in the blood, and oceans of 'blood purifiers' were swallowed. The quantities of mercury salts sold, both with and without prescrip- tion, would stagger the intelligence of today. The people who had fever swallowed quinine, and such patients were generously bled, even as late as 1870. Into a world like that, Dr. A. T. Still came with the claim that nature had developed in the animal body its own defenses against disease, and no one can estimate how potent has been his influence in bringing about the improvements seen today even in the practice of non-osteopathic physicians. In the LADIES' HOME JOURNAL for January, 1908, the following appeared in an article under Dr. A. T. Still's name, sketching the history of, and something of the beliefs underlying, osteopathy: 'I believe that God has placed the remedy for every disease within the material house ... I believe that the Maker of man has de- posited in the human body, drugs in abundance to cure all infirmities; that all the remedies necessary to health are compounded within the human body ... ' This was the first of the two fundamental principles on which he founded his new school of healing. The second was that the body is a machine which can make and distribute these remedies to the best advantage only when it is in correct adjustment. These are the fundamentals, but they are by no means all of osteopathy. Osteopathic physicians recognize the fact that abuse of any organ or its work, over- eating, undernourishment, age, climate, and many other things, enter
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