The Healdsburg Museum’s next offering is “She Persisted.” The exhibition highlights notable women in local history. Their colorful lives and significant achievements in the 19th and early 20th centuries helped shape the character of our community. The exhibition will include historic artifacts, narratives and photographs, plus an extensive display of local historic artwork by Jane Raabe, Myra Hazen, Ollie Gaddini Bacigalupi, Maude Needham Latimer, Alice Haigh Dixon and Rosinda Holmes.
Among the profiles displayed are:
- Josefa Carrillo de Fitch, Californio owner beginning in 1849 of the Sotoyome Rancho, the 48,800-acre Mexican land grant that included and pre-dated the city of Healdsburg
- Ellen White, founding prophetess and spiritual leader of the Seventh-Day Adventist faith, 1870s-80s
- Dr. Margaret Kimball, first female physician in Healdsburg, 1880s
- Lizzie Livernash, editor of Healdsburg Enterprise, 1890s
- Fanny McGaughey Martin, teacher, principal, attorney, County Superintendent of Schools, suffragist, circa 1900
- Lucy Smith, renowned Pomo basket weaver of the mid-1900s
- Constance Cooke, WWI Red Cross nurse, 1910s
- Isabelle Simi, owner and manager of Simi Winery from the early 1900s, who created the first wine tasting room in Healdsburg after repeal of Prohibition
- Nercilla Harlan, co-founder and superintendent of Healdsburg Hospital, 1920s
- Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman, Olympic champion and “First Lady of Tennis,” 1920s
Influential early women’s organizations will also be featured in the exhibition, such as the Albanian Literary and Military Society, a literary group active in the late 1800s, which took up a health regimen of marching and calisthenics for which they dressed in uniform.
The society later evolved into the Ladies Improvement Club, tauntingly labeled the “Lady Imps” by the local press, who promoted civic amenities such as a municipal water system and the naming and sign-boarding of the Healdsburg streets, but who also axed down the bandstand in the Plaza to eliminate its unsavory influence as a gathering place for the imbibing of alcohol.
The Healdsburg Women’s Suffrage Club, the Alexander Valley Ladies’ Aid, and the Dry Creek Neighbors’ Club will also be featured.
“She Persisted” will open to museum members with a reception at 5:30 on Wednesday, Jan. 24. It will open to the public beginning at 11 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 25. The exhibition will continue through Sunday, April 15.
The Healdsburg Museum is open Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is always free. For more information visit www.healdsburgmuseum.org.
— submitted by Tom Devitt
