Remembering Kentucky Women: Recent Episodes
Danna Estridge
Remembering Kentucky Women is a history podcast that provides listeners with true stories about Kentucky women whose lives impacted their families and communities, and sometimes the state, the nation, and even the world. These women run the gamut of human archetypes – from saints to sinners and everything in between. While listeners may have heard about some of these women before, many of them are unknown to anyone except their families – and researchers looking for interesting stories to tell. New episodes are released every Thursday.
Lawrenceburg native Anna Mac Clarke (1919 - 1944) was one of the first African American women in Kentucky to enlist during World War Two. She joined the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps in 1942, and was commissioned as a First Lieutenant in 1943 in the newly established Women's Army Corps. While stationed at Douglas Air Field in Arizona, she led the movement to desegregate the base theater. She was also the first African American officer – male or female – to command an all-white unit in the U.S. Army. Listen for more about her remarkable life.
Please Note: This episode contains terminology which may be considered by some to be culturally insensitive and/or potentially offensive. While this podcast strives to create content that fully embraces diversity, inclusivity, and equality, I also wish to acknowledge our past by using historically accurate wording when it is appropriate and in context in order to use the lessons of history to move forward and make the world a little better for everyone.
Please visit my website at www.dcestridge.com
If you like what you hear, please share the link to this podcast with anyone you think might be interested in listening. Thank you.
At the risk of boring my listeners by talking about the same woman I remembered in the previous episode on January 26, I have decided to tell you more about Miss Jane Gibson – also known as Blind Jane* – from Laurel County, Kentucky.
If you have not yet listened to the January 26 podcast, Episode 15: Remembering Jane Gibson, I suggest you listen to that episode before you finish this one, because you'll have a much better context with which to understand Jane's story.
Please Note: This episode contains terminology which may be considered by some to be insensitive and/or potentially offensive. As language, perceptions and social mores change rapidly, it is becoming increasingly difficult for journalists and other communicators to know how to refer to people with disabilities. Even the term “disability” is not universally accepted. I only the highest regard for Jane Gibson and other people who live with physical, mental or emotional challenges. I stand in awe of Jane Gibson's achievements in a time when it was difficult enough to be a woman surviving on her own, much less a woman with a physical challenge such as blindness. The name "Blind Jane" is not meant in any way to be derogatory to anyone who is vision impaired or otherwise differently abled. This is the name she was known by during her lifetime, and is used here only as a preservation of historical context.
Please visit my website at www.dcestridge.com
If you like what you hear, please share the link to this podcast with anyone you think might be interested in listening. Thank you.
Miss Jane Gibson was born in Laurel County, Kentucky, in either 1827 or 1831 to unknown parents. She was blind from birth, and lived most of her life in the county Poor House, the only refuge at the time for people who were unable to care for themselves.
But after more than 30 years in the Poor House, Jane decided to change her life. She left the Poor House, became a flax-breaker and later a laundress. By the time she died in 1893, she owned one acre of land, a small, but comfortable log home, and a pet cat.
This episode looks at her remarkable transformation from a pauper cared for by the county to an independent woman able to care for herself.
Please Note: This episode contains terminology which may be considered by some to be insensitive and/or potentially offensive. As language, perceptions and social mores change rapidly, it is becoming increasingly difficult for journalists and other communicators to know how to refer to people with disabilities. Even the term “disability” is not universally accepted. I only the highest regard for Jane Gibson and other people who live with physical, mental or emotional challenges. I stand in awe of Jane Gibson's achievements in a time when it was difficult enough to be a woman surviving on her own, much less a woman with a physical challenge such as blindness.
Please visit my website at www.dcestridge.com
If you like what you hear, please share the link to this podcast with anyone you think might be interested in listening. Thank you.
Sarah Ann Cox's claim to fame is being the mother of well-known Lexington, Kentucky, madame, Belle Brezing. In this episode, I'll explore Sarah's beginnings in rural Woodford County, Kentucky, to a controversial life of her own in Lexington. Join me as I remember Sarah Ann Cox, seamstress, mother to two illegitimate daughters, wife, divorcee, alcoholic, prostitute, and Roman Catholic, among other things. Her story, apart from that of her infamous daughter, deserves to be remembered. Join me as we look at the life and times of Sarah Ann Cox Brezing McMeekin.
Please visit my website at www.dcestridge.com
If you like what you hear, please share the link to this podcast with anyone you think might be interested in listening. Thank you.
In the previous episode of Remembering Kentucky Women, which was released on December 8, 2022, I remembered a woman named Daisy Brown Mathews, and I included some information about Daisy's equally adventurous husband, Joseph Bruce Mathews.
In this episode, I'll be remembering three women who were related to Daisy – one by birth, and two by marriage – not Daisy's marriage, but her father, Cortez Brown's second marriage to Lydia Belle Vaughn, commonly known as Belle.
WARNING: This episode contains descriptions of suicide, murder, and physical violence. Listener discretion is advised.
Please visit my website at www.dcestridge.com
If you like what you hear, please share the link to this podcast with anyone you think might be interested in listening. Thank you.
On September 21, 2022, I posted an episode titled “Remembering Five Laurel County Women.”
One of those women was Daisy Mathews, a Laurel County deputy sheriff who, after the sheriff and posse failed to do so, succeeded in capturing a fugitive moonshiner, Frank Helton, who escaped from police custody in 1922 while working on a road crew.
I told you in that episode that I would revisit Daisy's story if I found anything else interesting about her.
Well, I recently discovered much more about Daisy, and with this episode I'm making good on my promise.
Listen for more of Daisy's story.
Please visit my website at www.dcestridge.com
If you like what you hear, please share the link to this podcast with anyone you think might be interested in listening. Thank you.
Episode 11: Remembering Early Women Graduates of the University of Kentucky College of Law
The first woman student graduated from the University of Kentucky College of Law in 1915, five years after the College's first graduating class. By the end of the 1920s, nine women received their Bachelor of Laws Degree from the College.
In this episode, I give listeners a brief profile of each of these first nine women graduates, who were:
1] 1915 -Mary Catharine Love Collins
2] 1917 - Lena Madesin Phillips
3] 1919- Rebekah Maxine Paritz
4] 1921- Marianna Devereux
5] 1923- Chloe Gifford
6] 1924- Lulu Agnes Northcutt
7] 1925- Bertha Klein Miller
8] 1925- Louise Mary Carson Drake
9] 1925 - Lucy Ellen Edens
Please visit my website at www.dcestridge.com
If you like what you hear, please share the link to this podcast with anyone you think might be interested in listening. Thank you.
This episode is a departure from my normal format. It is not specifically about women. It is, instead, about a pivotal time in Laurel County, Kentucky's past which had a major impact on everyone in the county – and the entire eastern portion of the state. It impacted the lives of women, men, and children, as well as playing a huge part in business, industry, and the quality of life for everyone in the county in the late 1800s up to today.
This episode is about the impact the arrival of the railroad had on Laurel County, specifically, and eastern Kentucky generally.
This is a talk I presented to the London Rotary Club on Wednesday, November 9. I hope you find it interesting.
Please visit my website at www.dcestridge.com
If you like what you hear, please share the link to this podcast with anyone you think might be interested in listening. Thank you.
I have decided to reorder my episodes in light of the midterm elections taking place this week. Instead of profiling one individual woman, I want to take a look at several of the women who played a role in Kentucky politics over the past two centuries and mention some of the women who have been elected to public office in Kentucky.
Please visit my website at www.dcestridge.com
If you like what you hear, please share the link to this podcast with anyone you think might be interested in listening. Thank you.
In this episode I'm remembering some of the women who established what became the Laurel County Public Library.
This episode is a little different than my usual episodes, because it was recorded live at a program I gave at the library on Monday, October 24th, 2022.
It's also a bit longer, almost one hour, so grab your favorite beverage, put your feet up, and relax as you listen.
Before I begin the recording, I want to let you know that I now have a website which covers not just my podcast, but my writing projects and research projects, both past and present.
The website address is www.dcestridge.com
Please stop by and take a look.
If you have questions or comments related to this podcast, you can reach me by email at rememberingkywomen@yahoo.com. I will answer all emails that are respectful and stay on topic, and if it's something I think other listeners will be interested in, I'll also address it in an upcoming episode.
If you like what you hear, please share the link to this podcast with anyone you think might be interested in listening. Thank you.
In this episode I'm remembering Florence Campbell, a teacher at Sue Bennett Memorial School in London, Laurel County, and Director of the Music Department at Union College in Barbourville, Knox County, Kentucky.
In 1904, Campbell wrote a series of letters advocating a new jail for Laurel County, referring to the current jail, which had been condemned by the Circuit Court four years earlier, "a dungeon" which was unsanitary, filthy, and unfit for human habitation.
This is not the same episode I posted in 2020, so if you think you've heard it before, you haven't.
If you have questions or comments related to this podcast, you can reach me by email at rememberingkywomen@yahoo.com. I will answer all emails that are respectful and stay on topic, and if it's something I think other listeners will be interested in, I'll also address it in an upcoming episode.
If you like what you hear, please share the link to this podcast with anyone you think might be interested in listening. Thank you.
Effie Waller Smith, a native of Pike County, Kentucky, was the first published African American poet from Kentucky. This is her story.
In 1922, Mary Elliott Flanery was the first woman to serve in the Kentucky Legislature. She was also the first women elected to a state legislature south of the Mason–Dixon line. This episode explores her time in the Kentucky House of Representatives, her campaign for Kentucky Secretary of State in 1923, and other aspects of her public and private life.
Corinne Harmon was a native of Williamsburg, Whitley County, Kentucky, and spent much of her early life in London, Laurel County, Kentucky. Corinne displayed a talent for the piano at an early age, and with her mother's encouragement developed into a concert pianist who eventually played at the White House on two occasions, in 1914 and 1916. She went on to teach piano at her own studio in Boston.
Due to other obligations this week which took more time than I anticipated, the in-depth biography I had planned to present on Mary Elliott Flanery was not completed in time to be uploaded for this week's podcast.
Instead, I prepared short biographies of five women with ties to Laurel County, where I was born, grew up, and returned to more than a dozen years ago. My interest in Laurel County women from the past runs deep, and was the seed which sprouted into the larger view which became Remembering Kentucky Women.
Hopefully, I will present Mary Elliott Flanery next week.
As always, thanks for listening.
In this episode we remember Mary Willie Arvin, the most decorated Kentucky woman veteran of World War I.
Margaret Willie Arvin was born on April 21, 1879, the second of eight children born to William Meade Arvin and Elizabeth Hopkins Towles Arvin of the town of Henderson, Kentucky, the county seat of Henderson County, located in the north-central portion of the county in Western Kentucky, along the Ohio River, 10 miles south of Evansville, Indiana, and 30 miles west of Owensboro, Kentucky.
Though her birth name was Margaret, everyone called her Mary throughout her life.
Mary grew up in Henderson, and attended the School of Nursing at the Owensboro City Hospital. She graduated in 1904, and by 1906 she was a general practice nurse in Memphis, Tennessee.
On June 11, 1917, while in Richmond, Virginia on a visit, she decided to assist the war effort by joining the American Red Cross.
Mary was assigned to Base Hospital Number 5 as an Army nurse and sent overseas to join the unit in France, arriving at the hospital on July 18, 1917.
During the first six months the hospital was stationed in France, they treated over 15,000 patients.
The hospital was bombed twice by German aircraft -- once on September 4, 1917, and again on June 30, 1918.
Mary survived both events and was decorated for her bravery by all three Allied nations -- France, the United Kingdom, and the United States -- making her the most highly decorated Kentucky woman veteran of World War I.
She was also one of the first women veterans to be awarded a Purple Heart.
After the war, she married twice, but both husbands preceded her in death.
Mary died on September 9, 1947, and was buried in Fernwood Cemetery in her home town of Henderson, Kentucky.
In 2006, Mary was honored by Kentucky Women Remembered, an exhibit in the Kentucky State Capitol curated by the Kentucky Commission on Women, which honors the contributions of women from the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
The exhibit currently consists of more than 60 watercolor portraits of outstanding Kentucky women, and Mary Willie Arvin, in her nurse's uniform, is one of them.
The following year, 2007, the Kentucky Historical Society and Kentucky Department of Highways placed a Kentucky Historical Highway Marker honoring Mary Willie Arvin at the main entrance of Fernwood Cemetery. It was presented by Kentucky Women in the Military Committee, KDVA.
In the fall of 2014, Mary became one of the first four women to be honored for their accomplishments at Women's Honor Court Park in Henderson, the only park in Kentucky — and one of only five in the United States — devoted to women.
Women who have contributed to the betterment of Henderson County are honored by having their names inscribed on a granite wall or, like Mary, are recognized with a bronze plaque describing her accomplishments and contributions to the community.
All these tributes to Nurse Mary Willie Arvin means she is one Kentucky woman who will be remembered for a long time to come.
In this episode, I'm remembering Esther Whitley, “First Lady of the Wilderness,” who came to Kentucky in 1775 and by some accounts was the third woman of European-American descent to cross Cumberland Gap into Kentucky, the first two being Daniel Boone's wife, Rebecca, and his daughter, Jemima.
Please Note: Due to the time period, this episode contains descriptions of violence which might offend some sensitive listeners. Listener discretion is advised.
Born on May 10, 1755 in the Holsten River area of Virginia, Esther Gill Fullen married William Chapman Whitley in 1770 or '71 in Augusta, Rockbridge County, Virginia. William was born August 14, 1749 in Augusta County.
The young couple seemed to be a perfect match. Esther, described as “strong and determined, resourceful and utterly fearless,” was a perfect counterpart to William, who was characterized as “possessing the spirit of adventure and enterprise.”
The couple endured many hardships during their first few years in Kentucky, but in spite of that, Esther gave birth to a total of eleven children, all of whom lived to adulthood.
Their magnificent brick home near Crab Orchard, in what is now Lincoln County, was completed between 1787 and 1794. It was the first brick house west of the Allegheny Mountains, and was unique, since William built the house to be a fortress within which he could protect his family.
The Whitley House was a Kentucky State Historic Site from 1938 to 2019, when the State of Kentucky donated the site to Lincoln County officials. The house is open for tours, so you can visit the place where Esther Whitley once lived and raised her family.
It's not an exaggeration to say that Esther Whitley has had a lasting impact on Kentucky. It seems she is still with us in spirit, reminding us that it took strong women – as well as men – to make Kentucky what it is today.
This episode is an introduction to "Remembering Kentucky Women," a podcast by Danna Estridge, a researcher, writer, and an amateur historian deeply interested in Kentucky's past – especially the women in Kentucky's past.
Why women specifically? Because so often women's roles have been among those overlooked, downplayed or, even worse, ignored in recorded history.
Many remarkable women have called Kentucky home, whether by birth or by choice, whether for a season or a lifetime. This podcast will explore the lives of some of those women – but not the famous women everyone knows about.
Instead, I'll look at some of the less well-known Kentucky women -- the obscure, the overlooked, the forgotten. They're mostly ordinary women. Women who lived their lives day-to-day, just following their instincts and acting on their own convictions and beliefs.
That's not to say they never did anything out of the ordinary. On the contrary, most of these women made great achievements – achievements that were considered extraordinary at the time, achievements worth remembering.