www.gfwc.org
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A HOME-MAKER WHO WAS JUST THAT - By Wright A. Patterson
"RECENTLY I HEARD a woman say: "Whatever success I have achieved has been as a club woman."
Knowing that lady and her family, I would amend that statement. Her greatest success has
been as a home-maker and a mother. Thinking of that statement served to recall an incident of some years ago, in which another club woman, Mrs. John Dickinson Sherman, then president of the General Federation of Woman's Clubs, played a leading role.
I had known John Sherman two or three years before I met Mrs. Sherman. He was a newspaper man and writer of much more than average ability. For a number of years he was city editor of the Chicago Daily Tribune. The only thing of which he was inordinately proud was that of being the husband of Mrs. Sherman. He never wearied of the subject of her brilliance and achievements, though during the years in which she was actively engaged in club work he saw but little of her. Mrs. Sherman's activities caused her to live in Washington. He lived in a room in a Chicago boarding house. Their home was a mountain cabin on the side of Long's Peak in Rocky Mountain Park, Colorado. There Mrs. Sherman spent her summer months, and he spent his two-weeks' summer vacation with her.
From hearing so much of Mrs. Sherman I had formed quite a definite idea of her personality and appearance. To my imagination she was a portly, austere dame with a commanding presence. She would have gray hair, worn in a tight
wave "permanent do." Her dress would be a dark colored, severely tailored suit, with a touch of the feminine in the while ruching at the throat- and cuffs. Mrs. Patterson was spending a summer at Estes Park and knew Mrs. Sherman. Dropping off there while on a western trip, Mrs. Patterson and I walked down the business street of the village, and she was telling me that before I left we must call on Mrs.. Sherman. As she talked I noticed a chipper little lady walking toward us. She wore a reasonably broad brimmed light straw hat, cocked jauntily on one side of a head covered with fluffy, reddish brown hair, and was wearing a brightly flowered dress of light material. As Mrs. Patterson looked up the lady stopped in front of us, and I was introduced to Mrs. John Dickinson Sherman. "Not the president of the General Federation of Woman's Clubs?" I said. "That's me," said the lady. "But woman, it just cannot be," I insisted. "You look like you could cook a meal." "At noon, tomorrow, I will demonstrate that I can," she replied. "Mrs. Patterson and you are to be at the cabin for lunch."
That mountain cabin was a comfy, homey home for a man and woman. No frills, no fancy furnishings, but an attractive, comfortable place in which to live. It had every evidence of the home-maker's deft touch, with a thought for the man of the house. The lunch was the kind a man enjoys. A generous quantity of mountain trout, fried to perfection. Mrs. Sherman had caught them, as well as cooked them. There were french fried potatoes, hot rolls, mountain berry pie and coffee. She did it all. "Yes, woman," I commented, "you are a success as a home-maker, and knowing your son, I can also say as a mother, and I had thought of you only as a club woman."
Mrs. Sherman explained that the first essential to success in woman's club work Is ability as a home-maker. She possessed that first essential. I could understand John Sherman's pride."
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Women and Social Movements in the United States
https://www.inthefirstperson.com/wam2/wam2.object.details.aspx?
MARY KING SHERMAN, 1924-1928
Though Mrs. John Dickinson Sherman did not become president of the General Federation until 1924, she had been actively identified with the organization for more than twenty years. She served as recording secretary, 1904-1908, and was elected second vice-president in 1908. In this capacity she accompanied Mrs. Philip N. Moore on the official trip to clubs in the Canal Zone. During this visit she was stricken with an illness which almost cost her life and left a permanent legacy of physical suffering. She resigned from the vice-presidency in December 1910, after having been re-elected in the spring.
Of this period of her service, Mrs. Percy V. Pennybacker commented, "Her knowledge of the Federation [p. 88] was phenomenal. It grew to be a custom in the Board when any disputed point as to the past arose, to say, ‘Ask Mrs. Sherman, she will know’ and she did know."
As her health improved, Mrs. Sherman returned to Federation work. During Mrs. Pennybacker's presidency, she asked for the creation of a committee on natural scenery in the Conservation Department. Mrs. Pennybacker did better than that; she made Mrs. Sherman chairman of the Department in 1914.
Here was the opportunity to serve the cause she loved best. Since the removal of the Sherman family from Chicago to Estes Park, Colorado, for the improvement of the health of the only child, John King Sherman, the mother had developed a passion for the conservation of the natural resources of the country.
Their cottage, Tahosa, "dwellers among the mountaintops," was on a stone and timber claim which Mrs. Sherman "took up" from the government in 1909. Because of an accident to her shoulder, she spent months in a plaster cast here. Long's Peak was framed in the window by which she spent the long hours and she determined to climb to its top when her strength returned. When she finally stood at its summit, she solemnly vowed to devote the rest of her life to saving such beauty spots for the enjoyment of all the people.
Her first efforts had a large part in the creation of the Rocky Mountain National Park in 1915. This was the only national park up to that time to receive a formal dedication. The General Federation was represented by Mrs. Sherman and the Estes Park Woman's Club served refreshments to the crowd.
Mrs. Sherman then threw the support of the Federation [p. 89] to the creation of the National Park Service in 1916 and by 1920, when her service as Conservation chairman ended, she had supported the creation of six national parks. No wonder she became known as the "National Park Lady."
Her work for the preservation of forest lands was equally noteworthy. While she was GFWC president, there was a widespread movement to plant "Mary Sherman Forests" in every state.
In September 1918, Mrs. Sherman was appointed by the Secretary of the Interior as special assistant director of the United States School Garden Army of the Bureau of Education. She was in charge of women's organizations to arouse interest in the establishment of children's gardens under school supervision throughout the country. She also served during this war period as the one woman member of the National War Gardens Commission. She is credited with the establishment of National Garden Week.
When the General Federation consolidated its Conservation and Education Departments into the Department of Applied Education, Mrs. Sherman became the chairman of the new department and it was from this position that she advanced to the office of president. For the election, the Nominating Committee presented the names of Mrs. Sherman and Mrs. Wallace T. Perham of Montana, the current second vice-president. The first vice-president, Mrs. W. S. Jennings of Florida, was nominated from the floor but withdrew her name.
Mary Sherman was a beautiful woman with the unusual coloring which accompanies red hair. She was a ninth generation American, being a direct descendant of
[p. 90]
John Whitney who settled in Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1635. She was born in New York state, later lived in Chicago where, in 1887, she married John Dickinson Sherman, a distinguished journalist. Her club work began in the Chicago Woman's Club, which she served as recording secretary, and as chairman of the press and legislative committees. She became an authority on parliamentary law, a subject which she taught at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago. She was author of Parliamentary Law at a Glance, a handbook which had a wide circulation.
Mrs. Sherman had a most orderly mind and was a creative planner. As GFWC president, she used these powers to knit together the loose ends of the organization and make it more efficient. She started with reorganization of the offices at the new Headquarters on a strict basis of efficiency and recognized business methods. She was the first president to spend a large part of her time at the Washington headquarters and her presence there gave her knowledge of its needs. Since this building was acquired to be the center of Federation activity, she determined to make it so in fact. The office of the Treasurer was established there and an assistant treasurer employed to handle the work. The office of corresponding secretary was abolished and its work taken over by the Headquarters secretarial staff. Mrs. Sherman also recommended the raising of a new endowment fund, the Foundation Fund.
A Federation news service was established during this administration and the editorial offices of the Federation magazine were moved to Headquarters.
A program as dear to Mrs. Sherman's heart as that of [p. 91] conservation was the improvement of home life. This became the major policy of her administration. She felt that the average woman's place is in the home but that the home is the heart of the community, giving it the life blood of human power. At her request the Federation created the Department of the American Home and Mrs. Sherman bent her energies to its development.
As a result, one of the finest projects ever developed by the General Federation took form — a nation-wide survey of homemaking facilities and equipment in city and rural homes, followed by a campaign for better equipped homes throughout the nation.
After her term of office as president, Mrs. Sherman was made chairman of the American Home Department. The General Federation's efforts during her administration and chairmanship had much to do with bringing about United States Census recognition of the homemaker; also the granting by insurance companies of special policies against accidents occuring to women in the home.
Mrs. Sherman took great pleasure in her contacts with clubwomen during her visits to state federation conventions. She tried always to meet their demands on her. At one time, both she and a state federation broke precedent that they might get together. Sunday was the only day open in the schedule of the president's western tour so Idaho took that day to hold its convention. The clubwomen said they didn't know when they would ever have the president of the General Federation in the state again and they weren't going to miss seeing her. And one woman told her that she hadn't
[p. 92] missed church for two years but she did it that day to see "the president."
"I tried to get over to them the sense of their obligation to the Federation, because it can only help as it is helped. And lastly, I pointed out that this was the way for them to ally themselves with women everywhere who are truly trying to serve America and make this country the emblem of perfection to all the world. As the result of this meeting, Idaho came into direct membership."
In spite of the success and value of the home equipment survey, the Federation was severely criticized in some quarters as commercializing its influence and Mrs. Sherman was criticized for accepting payment for the syndicated magazine articles she wrote on the subject. Being so sure of her own honesty and sincerity of purpose, she was hurt by the lack of understanding of her motives and her last months in office were saddened by the necessity to defend herself.
Her friends said of her:
"I have never known a more genuine, a more sincere human being. Next came her superb courage. It mattered not the ordeal to be faced, whether it was physical, mental, or spiritual, she never shirked. She met what came with her head up and her eyes upon her goal."[note]
1. Mrs. Pennybacker
"She walked straight toward the truth and right, as she saw it, fearless of results to herself, so long as she believed good would result for the cause she espoused."[note]
2. Dr. Clara B. Burdette
[p. 93]
While she was still president, Mrs. Sherman was appointed the only woman member of the Advisory Council of the National Broadcasting Company, a position she continued to hold as long as she lived. Later she served as Presidential Commissioner of the George Washington Bicentennial celebration and was put in charge of women's activities.
Because of these duties, she spent much of her time in Washington. As she was crossing the street near her hotel in October 1934, she was struck by a bus, thrown to the street and suffered a severe concussion. After weeks of suffering, she rallied sufficiently to be taken to her son's home in Denver, where she passed away on January 15, 1935.
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Mrs John Dickinson Sherman - Notable American Women:a biographical dictionary
Edward T. James, Janet Wilson James
Harvard University Press, 1974
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Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park Then& Now, James H. Pickering, 2006
Westcliffe Publishers, Inc. P.O. Box 1261
Englewood, CO 80150
Printed in China by C & C Offset Printing Co., Ltd
www.redesignllc.net/images/EstesThenNow.pdf
"In 1911, the Lambs sold the property to John and Mary Belle King Sherman. John Dickinson Sherman, a prominent newspaperman, had come out from Chicago for reasons of health and decided to stay. It was while living at Wind River that Mary Belle King Sherman launched her career as a conservation lobbyist through the General Federations of Women’s Clubs. It would earn her the title “National Park Lady.” The ranch was sold again in 1924, this time to Chicago doctor James Gay and his wife Bessy, who built seven cabins for use by family members and expanded the property to 525 acres by purchasing land on both sides of today’s Highway 7. Althoughit was the Gay’s daughter and her husband who first began taking in paying guests, Wind River Ranch, as the property was by then known, did not become a full-fledged dude ranch until 1944, when it was purchased by the Robert Hutchinson family. The Hutchinsons expanded the number of cabins, built a recreation hall (photographed above), making use of the stone fireplace that had been part of the Lambs’ “Mountain Home,” and for nearly
30 years made Wind River one of the most successful and popular guest ranches in the Estes region, a tradition continued by its subsequent owners." p. 158
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Their son John K Sherman:
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Enos Abijah Mills - 1916 - 62 pages - Free Google eBook - Read
| TO MARY KING SHERMAN AND JOHN KING SHERMAN WHO KNEW AND APPRECIATED SCOTCH ... |
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American Automobile Association - 1916 - Free Google eBook - Read
| ... DC under Act cf March J 187y Copyright 1916. by AAA Publishing Co. table £°NTENT5 PACE Estes Park and the Rocky Mountain National Park— Scenic Wonderlands for Touring Motorists— By John King Sherman |
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[PDF]
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
Photograph by John King Sherman. CHASM LAKE AND LONGS PEAK. ADISTINGUISHED feature of the park is its profusion of cliff-cradled, glacier-watered val- ...
ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/.../PartThreeNat_Par_Por.pdf?...3
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