Vivian Bullwinkel: Testifying to a Massacre

Posted on April 1, 2024 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig and Elinor Florence

This month’s blog on Strong Women was co-written by me and Elinor Florence, a Canadian blogger, author, and advocate of remembering strong women. We both are in awe of the dedication and bravery of military nurses.

In 1942, after a bullet from a Japanese machine gun tore through her body, Australian nurse Vivian Bullwinkel floated face down in the sea and feigned death. She was the sole survivor of the Bangka Island Massacre, in which 22 Red Cross  nurses were forced to wade into the ocean at gunpoint and then shot in the back.

The Early Years

Vivian Bullwinkel was born on December 18, 1915, in the small town of Kapunda in South Australia, to George and Eva Bullwinkel. She had one brother, John. Vivian excelled at sports and acquired the nickname “Bully,” which stuck throughout her life.

Vivian trained as a nurse and midwife in New South Wales and worked in several locations before volunteering with the Australian Army Nursing Service. “I felt if my friends were willing to go and fight for their country, then they deserved the best care we could give them,” she said in a later interview.

Vivian Arrives in Malaysia

In September 1941, Vivian sailed for Singapore. After a few weeks, she was assigned to the 13th Australian General Hospital in Johor Bahru, a large city at the southern tip of the Malaysian Peninsula. Here, she nursed Australian servicemen who contracted tropical diseases or were injured in accidents.

In December 1941, just days before Vivian’s twenty-sixth birthday, the unthinkable happened. Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and declared war on the Allies. Immediately, Japanese troops invaded Malaysia and began their advance southward.

Soon afterward,  the 13th Australian General Hospital staff and patients were ordered to leave Johor Bahru and seek sanctuary on the nearby island of Singapore, in the mistaken belief that Singapore could never be conquered.

After arriving in Singapore, the Australian nurses transformed a school into a makeshift hospital. Here, they were engaged in trauma nursing, caring for soldiers who suffered the most terrible wounds while the enemy continued its inexorable advance.

Soon, Singapore was under attack. The girls (most of them still in their twenties) were under continual bombing from Japanese aircraft, knowing that a direct hit to the hospital was imminent.

Fleeing the Enemy

As Singapore faced certain defeat, and with most ships commandeered for the war effort, a search began for seaworthy vessels to evacuate civilians, nurses, and wounded men.

Vivian was among the last 65 nurses and 265 terrified men, women, and children to board the final boat to depart from Singapore, a small steamship called the SS Vyner Brooke. By the time the ship finished boarding its passengers on February 12, night had fallen, and as they left shore, Vivian could see huge fires burning along the Singapore coastline.

The following day, the captain valiantly tried to conceal his ship behind various islands. Of the 47 ships that fled during those last chaotic days before the fall of Singapore, only five made it to safety. The captain made a dash for freedom during the night and sailed into the Bangka Strait. However, it was impossible to hide in broad daylight. At 2 p.m. on February 14, the ship was attacked by enemy aircraft and received three direct bomb hits.

The captain ordered to abandon ship, with civilians going over the side first. Then, the Japanese aircraft returned, firing at the lifeboats and people swimming in the water. Vivian made it to the beach on nearby Bangka Island by holding onto the side of a lifeboat. The exhausted survivors continued to drift ashore throughout the night and the next day.

By the morning of February 16, around 80 survivors were gathered on Radji Beach, including wounded men, civilians, and just 22 of the 65 Australian nurses who left Singapore on the SS Vyner Brooke.

No Choice but to Surrender

The survivors sent out a small search party and located a local village, but the villagers were terrified of Japanese reprisal and urged them to surrender. However, the survivors decided to wait on the beach and hope for rescue.

That night, the survivors watched a fierce gun battle at sea, and soon, another lifeboat arrived, carrying about 20 British soldiers. Although they found a freshwater spring at the end of the beach, there was no food, and the children were crying with hunger. A group of civilians made the difficult decision to set off to the nearby town of Muntok and surrender to Japanese troops. The nurses, British soldiers, and wounded men waited on the beach with the expectation that the Japanese would take them prisoner.

Nurses Massacred in Cold Blood

Vivian recalled sitting quietly on the beach when a party of Japanese troops arrived and ordered the soldiers to march at gunpoint out of sight behind a headland. A few minutes later, the Japanese returned, cleaning their bloodied bayonets.

She now realized that all hope was lost.

The young nurses were motioned to walk out into the sea, still wearing their khaki uniforms and the Red Cross armbands that should have protected them. With them was an elderly British woman who had refused to leave with the other civilians. The women did as instructed bravely and calmly. None of them cried out or attempted to run away.

As the women were waist-deep in water, facing the horizon, the Japanese opened fire.

According to Vivian: “They just swept up and down the line, and the girls fell…”

Vivian was at the end of the line. A bullet struck her above her left hip, knocking her into the sea. She held her breath and remained motionless as the current carried her back to shore, surrounded by the floating bodies of her friends.

After the Japanese left the beach, Vivian dragged herself out of the water and staggered into the jungle, where she lay down and lost consciousness. The bullet had passed through her body, narrowly missing her vital organs. When she woke at dawn, hot and thirsty, she spotted Japanese soldiers on the beach and remained in hiding until they had gone. As she cautiously made her way to the freshwater spring on the beach, Vivian heard an English voice call out! It was a British soldier, Private Patrick Kingsley, who was badly wounded but had also survived the attack.

Twelve Days in the Jungle

Vivian and Kingsley then shared a terrifying 12 days and nights in the jungle while she tended to his severe wounds, making bandages out of whatever she could find.

Neither would have survived without help from some local women. When Vivian went to the nearest village to beg for food, the village headman sent her away. As she walked along the path, a local woman beckoned to her and quietly handed over rice, fish, and vegetables. Each time she returned to the village; the women secretly gave Vivian food.

Finally, Vivian broke the news to her companion that their only chance of survival lay in surrender. He asked her to wait one more day, as he wanted to spend his 39th birthday as a free man.

By then, Kingsley could barely walk but was determined to accompany Vivian to their fate. Leaning on each other for support, they hobbled out of the jungle. Vivian carried her water bottle over her hip to disguise her wound and the telltale bullet hole in her uniform.

After they surrendered, Kingsley was put into the men’s camp at Muntok. Too badly injured to survive, he died a few days later.

Vivian Survives Years in Prison

At the women’s prison camp, Vivian was overjoyed to find another group of 24 Australian nurses from the SS Vyner Brooke. They had failed to make it to Radji Beach and had landed on another part of the island, where they were captured.

For the next 3.5 years in the Palembang prison camp, Vivian kept her story a dark secret, knowing that she would be killed if her Japanese captors were aware that she had observed the war crime. She was determined to bear witness to the massacre so that her fellow nurses would never be forgotten.

Of the original group of 65 nurses on board the ship, only 24 returned home to Australia. Twenty-one were massacred, and 36 drowned after the ship sank. Conditions in the camp were so appalling that another eight of Vivian’s fellow nurses died of malnutrition and disease before the war ended.

After the War

Vivian retired from the Australian Army in 1947 with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. That same year, she gave evidence of her horrific experiences at the Tokyo War Crimes Commission trials so the world would know what really happened to the men and women on Bangka Island.

Vivian went on to a distinguished career. She became a pioneer in the nursing profession, devoted to improving the welfare of nurses. Vivian served on the council of the Australian War Memorial and later as president of the Australian College of Nursing.

She never forgot those local Malaysian women who had fed her and Kingsley. In their honor, she set up a program for women from that region to train as nurses in Australia.

And, she continued to be an active voice for veterans throughout her life.

Vivian was awarded the Order of Australia and the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for her bravery. She was also awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal, the highest medal in the world for nurses.

Although history has largely forgotten the women and children who were interned in Japanese prison camps, there are those of us who vow to keep the memory of strong women alive.

Thank you so much, Elinor Florence for being an advocate for strong women everywhere and a supporter of StrongWomenInHistory.com. Together, we are keeping these stories alive. You can follow Elinor’s wonderful newsletter, Letters From Windermere by contacting her: florenceelinor@gmail.com.

If you are not yet a follower of my blog, please sign up on the right side bar to receive one email a month about Strong Women.

You can find out more about me on my website www.lindasittig.com and how to order any of my published books. Currently I am writing a WWII novel about the American women who helped to build the liberty ships that carried supplies to our soldiers in Europe.

And… HAPPY BIRTHDAY BLOG! StrongWomenInHistory.com is now entering its 13th year!

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Mollie Burkhart: Worth an Academy Award

Posted on March 3, 2024 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

You may not recognize Molly Burkhart’s name unless you have read the book or seen the movie Killers of the Flower Moon.

She was, perhaps, the only survivor of the Osage Murders that continued from 1918 – 1931. During those years, sixty or more of the Osage people were murdered for their headrights, where each tribal member was guaranteed an equal share of the lucrative oil payments from their land.

Mollie was the only survivor of the ones targeted to be killed.

THE OSAGE NATION

To understand the impact of her life, let me digress a bit to fill you in on the history of her people. According to archaeologists and tribal lore, the Osage lived in the Ohio River Valley thousands of years ago. Then, around 200 to 400 A.D., they began migrating down the Ohio River into modern-day Kentucky. By 1000 A.D., they lived in modern-day St. Louis, Missouri.

Due to wars with the Iroquois or possibly searching for better agricultural land, several clans and tribes split off from the original large group. By 1300 A.D., the leading group of the Osage (People of the Middle Waters) started migrating west.

By the nineteenth century, the American government forced the Osage into Indian Territory, which is today Oklahoma. Then, in 1897, oil was discovered on their lands. Because they had shrewdly retained communal mineral rights, the tribe became wealthy.

Very wealthy.

Each person in the tribe could inherit the headrights of their family. Consequently, many white men married Osage women, possibly with the intent of inheriting the family headrights if the wife died.

BACK TO MOLLIE

Mollie was born into the Osage Nation in December 1886 to James Kyle and Lizzie Kyle, living in Indian Territory. She inherited her parents’ headrights, but the government declared she needed a legal guardian to oversee her finances. When she turned thirty, she met Ernest Burkhart, the nephew of William ‘King’ Hale, a local rancher who had managed to leverage vast amounts of funds from shady insurance claims. Ernest was Mollie’s chauffeur.

Mollie and Ernest married a year later, and Ernest legally became a part of Mollie’s family and was entitled to inherit her headrights if she passed on.  It was at this point that an increasing number of Osage Indians were suddenly found dead, either by supposed accidents or a strange ‘wasting illness” tied to their diabetes.

The deaths became more personal when it happened to Mollie’s entire family. First, it was her sister Minnie who died of the wasting illness, later suspected of being poisoned. Then, her sister Anna was found shot to death outside of town. Next, her mother suddenly fell ill and passed. Her sister Reta died soon afterward in an explosion that leveled her home.

Then Mollie fell ill. While her husband, Ernest Burkhart, gave her daily injections for her diabetes, she became sicker and sicker. When both Ernest and his uncle William Hale were finally arrested for the murders of Mollie’s family and others, Mollie was transferred to a hospital. She immediately began to get well due to overcoming the presence of poison from all her previous injections at the hand of her husband.

Whether Ernest knew that the injections contained poison or not has never been established. But, if Mollie had died, Ernest would have inherited her headrights, and then if Ernest died…. William Hale would possibly have been able to secure them for himself.

THE OUTCOME

As it was, the Osage Murders was the first big case for the newly established Federal Bureau of Investigation.

When both William Hale and Ernest Burkhart were found guilty of their involvement in the murders, Mollie divorced Ernest, but not before she suffered hurtful gossip from tribal members. Two years later, Mollie married John Cobb and petitioned the courts to relinquish her from legal guardianship. She won the case.

Starting over, but now with complete control of her money, Mollie Burkhart Cobb continued her life on the Osage reservation with her two remaining children, her health restored, and her headrights intact.

Like many other violent times, younger generations are unaware of the stories. Sometimes, it takes a book or a movie to bring back the characters who lived through such turbulent times – characters like Mollie Burkhart.

Thanks to Jennie Blumenthal, who suggested Mollie for a Strong Women feature. If you know of a woman who lived with integrity and whose legacy inspires others, please send me her name. linda@lindasittig.com.

I will celebrate March as National Women’s History Month by embarking on a research trip for my current WIP (Work in Progress). This will be the story of the women who built the Liberty Ships in WWII – a story many people do not know.

Please sign up on the right sidebar to follow Strong Women and receive the monthly blog in your email. Then, encourage friends to do the same. In the meantime, you can find my books featuring strong women in bookstores and online: Cut From Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, Counting Crows, B-52 DOWN, and Opening Closed Doors.

~ Linda

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Alice Hamilton: the Woman Who May Have Saved Your Life

Posted on February 1, 2024 by lhsittig@verizon.net

By Linda Harris Sittig

OK, raise your hand if you have ever worn a mask over your nose and mouth.

I am hoping for 100% participation. Covid 19, anyone?

But did you ever stop to wonder whose idea it was that we should wear masks in a medical pandemic?

Go back to 1905 and meet Alice Hamilton.

THE EARLY YEARS

Born in 1869 as one of four sisters and a brother, Alice was home-schooled and, by her teenage years, had decided to become a doctor.  This was a lofty goal, considering that at this time in American history, very few women had been admitted to medical school.

But, like many strong women, she persevered and was finally accepted at the University of Michigan Medical School. After graduating in 1893, she completed internships at the Minneapolis Hospital for Women and Children and the New England Hospital for Women and Children.

Alice might have chosen to go into a medical practice, but her current interest resided in research. Off she went to Europe to study bacteriology at universities in Germany. Even in Europe, she was an anomaly and sometimes had to sneak into university lectures reserved for male doctors.

By 1897, Alice had returned stateside and completed post-degree studies at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland.

Already interested in women’s rights and social justice, she relocated to Chicago and moved into the Hull House, a settlement house run by social activist Jane Addams.

THE CHICAGO YEARS

Her residency in the Hull House changed her life, and she ministered to neighborhood health needs there for the next twenty years. Understanding that poor women had little access to good health care, Alice witnessed firsthand how susceptible those women were to the diseases of city life and how factory work was rife with the spread of infectious diseases.

Working on a hypothesis in 1905 that airborne particles caused many factory diseases, Alice pulled several factory workers and had them blow their noses into Petri dishes. Then she tested their mucus and found almost every sample contained streptococcus bacteria. Concluding that respiratory diseases were transmitted from one sick person to others via droplets in the air, Alice began a campaign that all surgeons wear masks while in surgery to prevent catching or spreading respiratory germs.

The hospitals in Illinois that first adopted this practice saw their respiratory rates drop dramatically. Later, in 1918, when the Spanish Flu entered pandemic proportions, face masks were adopted on a national level to help curb the progression of the disease.

Alice had opened a well-baby clinic at the Hull House, but the mothers insisted on talking about their sick husbands who worked in nearby factories and all had the same symptoms. Alice began to suspect lead and mercury poisoning.

The factory owners, however, were opposed to her theory and altered their workplace data to minimize how much lead and mercury the workers were exposed to.

Alice then took some factory workers out after hours for a couple of beers. Once she gained their confidence, she asked them to sneak factory samples. All the samples she tested contained poisonous amounts of the metals.

Launching a statewide Illinois investigation in 1910, the U.S. Department of Labor concurred that dozens of factory operations had led to lead poisoning of the workers. Within a year, Illinois was one of the states that passed a Workers Compensation Law. A national law was passed a year or so later.

She had taken on industrial diseases and industrial toxins – what next?

THE HARVARD YEARS

In 1919, Harvard University instituted a new Occupational Health curriculum and asked Alice if she would join the school as an assistant professor, lecturing in this department.

There were a few caveats: she could not apply for tenure nor walk with the other (male) professors at graduation and would not qualify for free football tickets. Ahem.

However, Alice Hamilton was now officially the first female professor at Harvard. After retiring from Harvard in 1935, she was recruited as a medical consultant to the U.S. Division of Labor Standards.

THE LEGACY

She died in 1971 at 101, still championing women’s rights and workplace safety, improving community health standards, and living just long enough to see the inauguration of OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration).

Of all my research into Alice’s life, my favorite was the gentleman who asked her in the early 1900s, “But who will darn the socks if we let women become bacteriologists?” Her answer was not recorded, but I envision her arching an eyebrow and replying, “Yes, who indeed?”

In this winter of 2024, whenever you might travel, as you put on a face mask, please whisper – “Thank you, Alice.”

And thank you to blog follower Donna Haarz, who alerted me to Alice’s story.

If you are not yet a follower of Strong Women, please sign up on the right sidebar and encourage your friends to become followers, too.

You can learn more about me on my website: https://www.lindasittig.com. All of my books, Cut From Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, Counting Crows, B-52 DOWN, and Opening Closed Doors are available in bookstores or online.

I am currently working on a novel about the women who built the Liberty Ships in WWII. Stay tuned:)

linda:)

Posted in short biographies, women who made a difference | 10 Comments

Andrée Geulen and Ida Sterno: Angels of Mercy

Posted on January 1, 2024 by lhsittig@verizon.net

By Linda Harris Sittig

As we start another year and a worldwide wish for peace, I want to share with you the story of two remarkable, strong women: Andrée Geulen and Ida Sterno.

Their story starts in 1942 in Brussels, Belgium, with the Nazi military occupation in its second year. All Jews must wear a yellow Star of David on their coats, jackets, sweaters, etc., for instant recognition.

Andrée teaches in a private boarding school that also takes in day students. When the children enter the classroom, she suggests everyone remove their outer garments and put them in the coat closet. Then she has everyone don an apron. After the children comply and take their seats, it is hard to distinguish the Jewish children from the non-Jewish ones.

Under the watchful eye of the sympathetic headmistress Odile Ovart, Andrée is taken aside and introduced to a fellow teacher and Jewish activist named Ida Sterno. Madame Ovart explains that Ida works with a Belgian resistance group, the Committee for the Defense of Jews. This organization locates Jewish children in danger of deportation and transports them into hiding. The school itself is a safe harbor for twelve Jewish students. Madame Ovart then explains how Andrée, a non-Jew, can help.

Just a few months later, the boarding school is raided by the Gestapo. The twelve Jewish children are deported, and both Odile and her husband, Remy, are arrested. The Ovarts will later die in a concentration camp.

Andrée and Ida are now a team working with several other women of the CDJ. Their primary mission is to find safe harbors where Jewish children can be relocated. They quickly discover that the most emotional part of their job is to convince Jewish parents that their children would be safer living in a Catholic convent or on a rural farm with a surrogate family.

No parent wants to be parted from their children. When those parents beg to be given the address of where their children will be, Andrée and Ida have to stipulate that doing so would only compromise the safety of the children.

On several occasions, Andrée and Ida just missed being detected by Nazi soldiers. But because Andrée looks Aryan, the soldiers assume she is taking children on an outing when she is really chaperoning a group on their way to relocation.

Andrée and Ida maintain a complicated series of five separate notebooks that list each child in hiding by a code. Their real name, their new name, their actual address, their hidden address, and the names of their parents are all embedded in the code.

Ida Sterno was Jewish, and eventually, the Nazis were tipped off, and Ida was arrested. She was taken to a prison-like facility and tortured for four months, but she never gave up one child’s name or her compatriots in the CDJ.

Ida was finally freed when the Allies liberated Belgium, but the months of torture left her health compromised, and she died in 1964 at the age of 62.

Andrée lived to the age of 100, having died recently in 2022. In 1989, she was recognized by Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Center as ‘righteous among the nations’ for her heroic efforts. 

At the end of WWII, when the Allies liberated Europe, almost 3,000 Belgian Jewish children had safely survived the Holocaust, thanks to the efforts of the CDJ. Some children were reunited with extended family members, and others were adopted by their surrogate families. Sadly, many parents perished in the concentration camps.

But both Ida and Andrée reconnected through the years with many of the children they had rescued.                  

This story gives me hope that even in the face of pure evil, there are those human souls whose compassion transcends the political turmoil of the time.

Thank you to Rebecca Connolly, whose upcoming book, Hidden Yellow Stars, tipped me off to the story of Andrée and Ida. Shadow Mountain Publishing is publishing Hidden Yellow Stars and the book will be available in stores and online in early March.

If you enjoyed this month’s Strong Woman blog, please sign up on the right sidebar to become a follower. Once a month, you will receive a new story about a woman who should have become more famous.

I wish everyone peace, prosperity, and good health in the new year, and remember that even one person’s efforts can help to change history.

~ Linda

www.lindasittig.com

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Marie Dorion: Against All Odds

Posted on December 2, 2023 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

Everyone seems to remember the famous firsts: first man on the moon, first woman in space, first this, first that…. but how about the seconds? Those men and women who also accomplished an incredible feat but whose names are not famous.

Enter the story of Marie Dorion. If I put her in the same category as Sacajawea, you might have a vague idea of what she did, but you would not know the whole story.

In 1810, John Jacob Astor, the wealthiest person in America, sent an expedition out west to establish a fur trading post. Part of Astor’s incredible wealth was his fur empire. Not satisfied with how much he made, he yearned for more. And so, Astor met with President Thomas Jefferson to discuss the establishment of a trading emporium in the Pacific Northwest.

England, Russia, and Spain were already engaged in the fur trading business of the Northwest but without a permanent settlement. Astor planned to set up an outpost at the mouth of the Columbia River (present-day Oregon). He chose Wilson Hunt of New Jersey to lead an overland expedition following the same route Lewis and Clark followed in 1804. Then, he decided that Jonathan Thorn would simultaneously captain a seagoing route on the Tonquin to sail for the Pacific Northwest.

Like Lewis and Clark, Hunt found himself an interpreter, Pierre Dorion. Dorion insisted that his multi-lingual Native American wife, Marie, and their two small sons join the group.

Marie was pregnant when the expedition left the winter camp, 400 miles north of St. Louis, and began the spring trek in 1811. By May, Hunt decided to change the agreed-upon route and headed to an area in present-day South Dakota to obtain sufficient horses for the new overland trek. While in this location, Sacajawea and her husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, arrived with a rival trading party. It is plausible that Sacajawea and Marie would have met one another, even if they did not speak the same language.

By mid-July, Hunt had procured enough horses to set out. The two young Dorion boys were allowed to ride, but Marie, now almost four months pregnant, walked. Weeks went by, and the travel progressed. But by early October, when they reached the Wyoming territory, they encountered a large river (the Snake) and exchanged their horses for dugout canoes.

Traveling now by canoe, disaster struck on October 28 when one of the canoes smashed on the rocks in an attempt to run the rapids. One man was killed, and many supplies were swept downstream. Their food supply was running low, and winter was approaching.  They abandoned the canoes and struck out on foot through deep mountain snow. Marie was now seven months pregnant but kept pace with the expedition. The party was down to 32 white men, one pregnant Native woman with two small children, and three Native scouts. The few puny remaining horses would become their primary food source.

Marie gave birth in the Oregon territory in late December 1811, but the baby did not survive.

When the Hunt party finally reached the mouth of the Columbia River, the Tonquin had already arrived and helped to start the outpost they named Astoria.

Marie’s story might have ended there, but the War of 1812 broke out only a few months later. The threat of the British invading Astoria made the pioneers abandon the post and strike out for the interior.

Marie, Pierre, and the two boys left Astoria and eventually set up a trapping base camp along the Snake River. In January 1814, Pierre was killed by a hostile group of Shoshone, while Marie was able to escape with the two children. With nowhere else to go, Marie headed back toward Astoria. After a nine-day trek, she killed the horse and smoked the meat to feed herself and the children.

Realizing winter was near, she built a crude shelter and settled in. After almost two months, she set out again with the two children. They walked for 15 days and were fortunate to be found by a small camp of Walla Walla American Indians who took them in and fed them.

Eventually, Marie and the boys reached a fur outpost in the Washington territory. The years went by; she remarried twice, gave birth to three more children, and settled in the Willamette Valley of Oregon.

Marie died in September 1850 at the age of 65. She had been an interpreter, explorer, pioneer, community member, wife, and mother during her long life—certainly, a strong woman.

Thank you to Bill Hudgins, whose article On The Oregon Trail, American Spirit, November/December 2018, was the basis for my research on Marie. I referred to several geographic areas as territories to help you understand the locations.

Wishing everyone a joyous holiday season and peace on Earth for the new year.

~ Linda

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Johanna Bonger: Saving the Legacy of Vincent van Gogh

Posted on November 1, 2023 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

A few years back, while traveling in France, I stood at the foot of two tombstones: Vincent van Gogh and his brother Theodore van Gogh.

Little did I know that their fame and legacy were due to one strong woman – Johanna Bonger, Theodore’s widow.

THE BEGINNING

Born in Amsterdam in 1862, the fifth of seven children, Johanna grew up keeping an extensive journal of her life. While her sisters were groomed to become wives, Johanna earned enough credits in English to have the equivalent of a college degree. At some point, she taught English at a girls’ boarding school and ventured off to London to work at the British Museum for a while.

At about 25, Johanna’s older brother, Andries Bonger, introduced her to his art friend, Theo van Gogh. By all accounts, Theo was smitten with Johanna, but she was not particularly impressed with him.

The following year, Theo traveled to Amsterdam to try and court her.

It took a year and many letters back and forth, but Johanna fell in love with him. They married in 1889 and promptly moved to Paris, where he had started a career as an art dealer.

THEO AND HIS BROTHER VINCENT

With their marriage came the recognition that Theo was completely devoted to his brother, Vincent, and supported him financially. When Johanna gave birth to their child the following year, the little boy was named Vincent Willem van Gogh in honor of his uncle.

While Johanna and Theo were happy, Vincent van Gogh’s life had already begun to unravel. In December 1888, he had severed a substantial part of his left ear. Then, in July 1890, suffering from extreme depression, he shot himself in the chest and died two days later at the age of 37.

Theo went into substantial mourning, and Johanna began to worry that Theo’s mental health was being affected.

Theo steadily declined and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in December 1890. What Johanna did not and could not know was that Theo was suffering from late-stage neurosyphilis. Thankfully, he had not passed the disease on to her. Within a few weeks, Theo died at 33.

At age 28, Johanna was now left with only a small apartment in Paris and her infant son.

JOHANNA’S GIFT TO THE WORLD

However, she inherited over 200 of Vincent van Gogh’s paintings and all of Vincent and Theo’s letters. At the time, Vincent van Gogh’s artwork was completely worthless, and no art dealer was willing to take a chance on his unusual style. The Van Gogh family told her to burn the art and start her life over. One art dealer offered to buy Van Gogh’s canvases to scrape off all the paint and resell the blank canvas.

But Johanna was determined that Theo’s life had not been in vain. Theo had believed in Vincent and was convinced that one day, the world would see that Vincent’s art was visionary.

Johanna went to work. Using almost every last penny, she had many of the 200 paintings framed. Then she wrote to every art dealer in Paris, asking if they would be interested in showing some of Vincent van Gogh’s art. All of them said no.

Trying not to be discouraged, she bundled up two or three smaller paintings and went from gallery to gallery throughout Paris, showing the art with the hopes of selling some now and hopefully more later. Each gallery turned her down.

Running out of money, she returned to Holland and took much of Vincent’s art. She opened up a boardinghouse to support herself and display Vincent’s paintings.

She also worked as a translator to supplement her income, translating short stories from English and French into Dutch.

Dismissed by the art world, she nevertheless became Vincent’s relentless agent.

Finally, in 1892, she arranged the first formal exhibition of Vincent’s work. By 1914, she published a book of Theo and Vincent’s letters to each other.

Slowly but surely, Vincent’s artwork began to be exhibited throughout Holland and then in Germany and France. But Johanna did not stop; she worked until the end of her life to ensure that her son and grandson would continue with her work to showcase the brilliance of Vincent van Gogh and the legacy of her husband Theo in promoting his brother as an artist.

In June of 1973, the Van Gogh Museum opened in Amsterdam, Holland, and today contains the bulk of the artist’s work. His paintings are the most expensive on the art market today; even schoolchildren know his name.

Johanna van Gogh-Bonger died of Parkinson’s disease at 62 in 1925. But her extraordinary contribution to bringing Vincent van Gogh’s art to the public lives on.

To learn more about Johanna, read The Secret Life of Sunflowers by Marta Molnar or Jo van Gogh-Bonger by Hans Luijten.

I hope you enjoyed Johanna’s story. If you are not yet a follower of the Strong Women blog, please sign up on the right sidebar, and you will receive a monthly email with another Strong Woman story.

You can learn more about me on my website, www.lindasittig.com, and my five published books, Cut From Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, Counting Crows, B-52 DOWN! and Opening Closed Doors.

I am currently researching and writing my next book. The setting is WWII on the American home front. The protagonist is a woman working in a Georgia shipyard to help build the Liberty Ships to carry needed supplies to the soldiers overseas. At the same time, a family enemy stalks her every move.

~ Linda

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Jovita Idár: Fighting for Justice

Posted on October 2, 2023 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

I must admit that before this month, I had never heard of Jovita Idár. Nor did I know a Mexican-American Civil Rights Movement started in Texas back in 1911 and continues to this day.              

And I did not know that racial segregation of Mexican-Americans started in 1910.

As a history major in college, I am surprised and embarrassed that my educational training overlooked this facet of American history. Sure, I heard of Davy Crockett, but a Mexican-American woman fighting for human rights? No.               

I recently read this quote: ‘Authentic history, what really happened, often differs from what was recorded. It all depends on who is doing the recording’.

SO, I BRING YOU THE STORY OF JOVITA.

Jovita Idár was born in Laredo, Texas, in 1885. This was just 37 years after the end of the Mexican-American War and 40 years after the U.S. annexed Texas.

It might help to digress a bit here to record events important to the story. These events impacted the lives of Jovita and other Mexican-Americans living in Texas border towns.

As a part of Western Expansion (and perhaps the South’s hope that Texas would be admitted to the Union as a slave state), the United States government annexed the Mexican land of Texas in 1845. This set off the Mexican-American War lasting from 1846 – 1848. When Mexico lost the war, it also lost the land that today is California, Nevada, Utah, most of New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. Parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming were also deeded to the U.S. In exchange for all that territory, the U.S. government gifted Mexico the sum of $15,000,000.

Then, in 1910, The Mexican Revolution broke out against the 30-year dictatorship of the elitist Mexican government. Emigration from Mexico into the United States began to soar as Mexicans sought what they thought would be a better life in America.

However, they were met with segregation, unfair labor practices, economic and educational disparities, racial prejudice and violence.

THE BEGINNING OF HER ACTIVISM

Born into a middle-class family of eight children, Jovita grew up in a household where both her parents advocated for the human rights of Mexican Americans in South Texas. Jovita’s father was the owner/editor of the Spanish-language newspaper La Crónica. He ran articles exposing the oppressive conditions for Mexican-Americans in the border towns. Jovita’s mother was a firm believer in a woman’s right to vote and was politically active about her beliefs.

At the age of eighteen, Jovita earned a teaching certificate in 1903 and began a career of teaching impoverished Mexican-American children. She soon quit, dismayed at the deplorable conditions of no books, supplies, or adequate buildings for the children’s education.

She believed that she could bring about more change through journalism and joined her father’s newspaper staff.

Often writing about the racism in southern Texas, Jovita worked with her family to establish the first Mexican Congress in Laredo, Texas. The goal was to unify Mexican American citizens to fight the social injustices they were forced to live with.

As a recognized journalist, she turned her energies into community activism.

Within a month, she helped to establish La Liga Feminil Mexicaista, the League of Mexican Women. As President, Jovita aimed to secure an equal and bilingual education for the poor Mexican-American children of southern Texas.

Once the League of Mexican Women was on firm ground, Jovita decided to go to Mexico and volunteer as a nurse, tending wounded soldiers in the Mexican Revolution. By the time her father died in 1914, she had returned to Laredo and worked with her brothers to manage the continuing success of La Crónica.

In 1917, she married Bartolo Juarez and moved with him to San Antonio, Texas. Once there, she picked up again on her social activist goals. She helped establish a free kindergarten for Mexican-American children, and translated for Spanish-speaking patients at a local hospital.

HER LEGACY

Jovita Idár died in 1946, just shy of her 61st birthday. A strong proponent of women’s suffrage, she did not live long enough to see all Latina women gain the right to vote.

(In case this sounds confusing, the 19th Amendment of 1920 only gave voting rights to white women. Native American, Asian-American, Latina, and African-American women had to continue campaigning for additional decades to get their voting rights.)

But Jovita Idár died knowing she had spent her life helping women and children improve their lives. My favorite quote of hers is, “When you educate a woman, you educate the family.”

Jovita Idár has been recently honored, being chosen for the new 2023 American Women Quarters Series.

If you enjoyed Jovita’s story and are not yet a follower of this blog, please sign up on the right sidebar. You will receive an email once a month alerting you to a new posting for Strong Women in History.

You can find out more about me and my five novels by visiting my website, www.lindasittig.com.

I am now working on a new novel that takes place stateside in WWII. It is about the strong women who joined the war effort and helped to build the Liberty Ships.

~ Linda

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Betsy James Wyeth: Art Visionary

Posted on September 2, 2023 by lhsittig@verizon.net

By Linda Harris Sittig

I am always fascinated by accomplished women whose famous husbands often overshadowed their wives’ contributions to history.

Betsy James Wyeth meets that criterion.

You undoubtedly recognize her married surname: Wyeth. Her father-in-law was famed illustrator N.C. Wyeth. Her husband was Andrew Wyeth, and one of her sons is the artist Jamie Wyeth. Yet without Betsy, many of the Wyeth treasured paintings would never have been available to the American public.

IN THE BEGINNING

Betsy was the youngest of three siblings born in 1921 in East Aurora, New York.  She led a relatively normal childhood and vacationed with her family in Maine each summer. Then, during her teenage years, her family moved to Maine.

The Wyeth family, from Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, were also vacationing in Maine the summer Betsy turned eighteen.  Betsy met Andrew Wyeth, four years older than she, and within a year, the couple married.

They moved to Chadds Ford, and Betsy became Andrew’s muse, business partner, and confidant. A shy introvert, Betsy balanced his gregarious nature. She did not like being in the limelight and preferred working behind the scenes, embedding herself in promoting Andrew’s paintings.

Later in life, Andrew Wyeth said, “She made me into a painter I would not have been otherwise.”

CHADDS FORD AND MAINE

Often credited as the driving force behind Andrew’s commercial success, Betsy was also a preservationist of local architecture. She encouraged and collected pieces of architecture fashioned by local artists in Chadds Ford and the Wyeth summer home in Maine. She wrote and edited books about the Wyeth family and the extensive artwork of three generations of Wyeth art. In addition, she worked with filmmakers to help produce the award-winning documentary, “Andrew Wyeth Self Portrait,1995”.

Betsy freed Andrew to concentrate his energies on his paintings while she took over the business side of his career. She often offered suggestions for the titles of his paintings. She introduced him to a neighbor, Christina Olson, who became the subject of one of his most recognized paintings, Christina’s World. That painting still ranks among American history’s most widely reproduced art posters.

Betsy ensured that Andrew’s art became a commercial success and eventually bought him three small private islands in Maine where he could paint in total seclusion. It was on those islands that Andrew Wyeth painted some of his most iconic art. And it was in his studios in both Chadds Ford and Maine that Andrew painted his most realistic renditions of the buildings, landscapes, and people of his private worlds.

Betsy decorated their homes in stark detail to complement the surrounding landscape of their farm in Chadds Ford and their weathered home in Maine so that no clutter would interrupt the beauty of their surroundings. This stark interior design is often reminiscent in his paintings; however, like many artists, his large studio was always packed with canvases, frames, jars of paint, palettes, easels, tables overflowing with supplies, and collections of interesting objects scattered throughout.

Andrew Wyeth had an illustrious career in painting for over 44 years. When he died in 2009, Betsy donated his studio to the Brandywine Conservancy, which in the 1970s evolved into the Brandywine Conservancy and Museum of Art. Betsy was an early catalyst in helping to create the Brandywine Museum of Art, which was converted from an old grist mill and today houses the nation’s most extensive collection of Wyeth art.

BETSY’S LEGACY

Betsy was a creative force of her own. A testimony to this is the collection of Andrew’s work that she so carefully archived and documented for future generations to enjoy and bequeathed to the Brandywine Museum of Art.

And she did not restrict the donations to only Andrew’s art—many paintings of N.C. Wyeth and Jamie Wyeth are on display as well. This museum pays tribute to a unique niche of American art, thanks in part to the creative energy of Betsy James Wyeth.    

Betsy James Wyeth died in April 2020 at the age of 98. Andrew Wyeth’s Day Dream painting sold for 23 million dollars two years later. I’m sure Betsy was smiling.

Linda ~ I hope you enjoyed Betsy’s story. If you are not a follower of this blog, please sign up on the right sidebar for a once-a-month story to appear in your inbox.

I am busy on my next strong woman protagonist novel, set in WWII along the Georgia coast. In the meantime you can catch me on my website: https://www.lindasittig.com.

Enjoy September!

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Ruth Handler: Bringing Barbie to Life

Posted on August 1, 2023 by lhsittig@verizon.net

By Linda Harris Sittig

I know, I know. You might be thinking, “Barbie? Seriously?” But, yes, I am.

With the popular Barbie movie out and the Barbie doll still number one of the top ten best-selling toys of all time, I asked myself – “Who was this Ruth Handler who created Barbie?”

IN THE BEGINNING

Born the youngest of 10 children in 1916, Ruth Mosko Handler grew up in an immigrant Jewish family in Denver, Colorado, where perhaps she learned the pattern of a solid work ethic that would stay with her throughout her life.

Ruth married her high school sweetheart, Elliot Handler, in 1938, and they left for Los Angeles, California, where Elliot could study industrial design. Within a year, Elliot was manufacturing novelty goods made of the new plastic called Lucite. Ruth became the bookkeeper and office manager. In 1944, they branched out and designed costume jewelry made from Lucite.

THE BEGINNING OF MATTEL

One year later, in 1945, they joined forces with a good friend, Harold Matson, to form a new company to manufacture toys. Combining letters from Matson and Handler, the new company was named Mattel.

At first, they manufactured doll furniture and then musical toys. All products were assembled in the Mattel plant in Hawthorne, California.

Then the 1950s came along, and as the Mattel company grew, Ruth, now executive vice-president in charge of sales and management, began hiring more and more women. And the women she chose were from all races and various nationalities.

In 1955 Ruth convinced Elliott that they should take out a significant loan for mega-advertising. She chose the wildly popular Disney television show, the Mickey Mouse Club as the sole advertiser. With nationwide exposure, Mattel’s sales went from $5 to $14 million.

And this was all before Barbie.

THE INVENTION OF BARBIE

In early 1959, Ruth remembered how much their daughter Barbara had loved playing with paper dolls when she was young. Ruth conjured up images of Barbara cutting out the fashionable paper outfits and dressing the dolls up to interact with each other.

At this point, most American dolls were either baby dolls or made from soft materials. Very few, if any, were presented as teenage dolls with fashionable outfits you could buy and assemble a wardrobe.

And Ruth began to wonder…..what if?

She designed the new Mattel doll, named Barbie after her daughter, to be a doll girls would want to dress. Debuting at the March 1959 American Toy Fair in New York City, the original Barbie doll sold 351,000 copies in the first year of production.

Remember Disney? Barbie then became advertised on The Mickey Mouse Club show.

Two years later, Mattel invented the Ken doll, and Barbie and Ken soon accounted for a major proportion of the company’s sales.

AND LIFE WAS SWELL, UNTIL IT WASN’T

In 1970 Ruth was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a total mastectomy. Then in 1973, the SEC charged Mattel with issuing false financial statements. Ruth and Elliot resigned from Mattel in 1975, while the company sued the accounting firm Arthur Anderson for mismanagement.

Out of work for the first time since 1939, Ruth went into business with George Peyton to develop silicon breast prostheses for women like herself whose bodies had experienced the trauma of a mastectomy. Ruth stayed with the new company, Ruthton, until 1991. She campaigned in the media, made appearances in department stores, and shortly after starting the company, helped First Lady Betty Ford get fitted for a breast prosthesis.

In her lifetime Ruth Handler was the recipient of many awards.

And if you think back in time, Barbie was created in 1959, nine years after the first credit card was invented (the Diners Club Card). But it would take until 1974 before women in America could own a credit card in their name. Yes, twenty-four years after credit cards were established for men.

But what of Barbie?

THE LEGACY OF BARBIE

Don’t think of Barbie as only a pretty face… the Barbie doll of today is available in 176 different versions, representing 200 careers, nine body types, 35 skin tones, and 94 different hairstyles.

Ruth always said she wanted Barbie to be able to change with the times. And she did. By the 1960s, Barbie’s friend, Christy, was an African-American doll. By 2015 Barbie had given up wearing her signature high heels and now sports fashionable flats. In 2020 Barbie in a wheelchair, representing physically challenged women, premiered. And in 2023, the first Barbie with Downs Syndrome became available.

And what about Ken? He was initially designed as Barbie’s boyfriend and named after Ruth’s son. But the movie uses all the Kens to brilliantly showcase the absurdity of a society where one sex gets to make all the rules.

Like Strong Women everywhere – Barbie and the rest of us come in all skin tones, ethnic backgrounds, races, and religions. But what drives us is the passion to follow our dreams, even when obstacles are thrown in our path.

See the movie and enjoy the spirit of Ruth Handler. Thank you to Jennie Blumenthal and Eddy Delgado who both taught me about Ruth.

~ Linda

If you are not yet a follower of the Strong Women in History blog, please sign up on the right sidebar and once a month you’ll receive an email alerting you to a new story.

In the meantime, you can catch up with me on www.lindasittig.com to see my newest book, OPENING CLOSED DOORS: THE STORY OF JOSIE C. MURRAY and learn the story of the woman whose courage led to the desegregation of public libraries in Virginia back in the 1950s.

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Françoise Gilot: Strong Woman

Posted on July 1, 2023 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

I don’t usually profile a Strong Woman so soon after she has passed, but I am making an exception this month.

French artist Françoise Gilot died recently at 101, having led an extraordinary life. She became an accomplished painter and sculptor over her father’s vehement objections and wrote an internationally bestselling memoir about her years as Pablo Picasso’s mistress and muse.

Françoise was born in November 1921 and showed an early interest in art when most other children started school. Her strict father was determined she would become an exemplary student and had her tutored at home starting at age six, learning the fundamentals of Greek mythology. Her mother, a watercolor artist in her own right, countered by teaching Françoise art lessons.

By the time Françoise was a teenager, she was spending her free time visiting various art museums where she would study the paintings of the masters. Her father determined that she would become a lawyer and allowed her to matriculate with a degree from the Sorbonne in Paris, but then enrolled her in law school against her wishes.

Françoise spent a year in law school and dropped out to study art. Infuriated, her father forced her to enroll for a second year, and only after she failed her law exams did she gain the freedom to pursue her love of art.

Living in Paris, exhibiting her paintings and sculpting, she met Pablo Picasso one night in a restaurant. She was 21, and he was 61. I cannot say it was love at first sight, but Picasso became infatuated with her, and his strong magnetic personality and fame in the art world most undoubtedly attracted her.

She ended up living with him for ten years, giving him two children (Claude and Paloma) while he continued his artistic career of painting, making ceramics, and writing poetry.

And then, Françoise did the unthinkable; she left Picasso in 1953. Neither his first wife nor any previous mistresses had accomplished that. He was so enraged that he destroyed all her possessions in their shared home and attempted to sabotage her career by asking the galleries in Paris to refuse to exhibit her work.

But she kept painting.

In 1955 Françoise married fellow artist Luc Simon; however, the marriage was not destined to last. Picasso came to Françoise and told her that if she divorced Simon and remarried him, their children (Claude and Paloma) would become Picasso’s legitimate heirs.

Françoise went ahead with the divorce, only to learn that Picasso had recently married a second wife and had no intentions of making Françoise’s children his legitimate heirs.

So, in 1964, Françoise penned her memoir Life with Picasso, which sold over one million copies. Picasso did everything he could to stop its publication but to no avail. After the book’s publication, he abruptly stopped communicating with their children. Meanwhile, Françoise used the proceeds from the sales to mount a legal case for Claude and Paloma to claim legitimacy.

In 1969 while on a trip to California, Françoise met Jonas Salk, the medical pioneer of the polio vaccine. The two married in 1970 and continued to split their life between France and America until he died in 1995. While in America, Françoise exhibited her paintings at the Museum of Modern Art and designed costumes, stage sets, and masks for the Guggenheim Museum. She also taught art classes at the University of Southern California.

When Picasso died in 1973, his estate was worth the modern equivalent of 1.3 billion dollars. But it would not be until 1975 that Françoise’s longtime efforts came to fruition. In addition to the grandchildren of his one legitimate child, Paola, the grandchildren of his three children born out of wedlock became recognized by the courts as having a rightful claim to an inheritance.

And those heirs helped to establish Musée de Picasso in Paris, France.

Françoise continued to paint throughout her lifetime. In 2021 one of her paintings, Paloma à la Guitare, sold for 1.3 million at a Sotheby auction.

She may have started in Picasso’s shadow, but she emerged in the brilliant light of her own success.

Thank you to Susan Ewing of California who suggested I learn about Francoise.

If you enjoyed this month’s Strong Woman and are not yet a follower of the blog, please sign up on the right sidebar and you will receive notification once a month when the blog is posted.

I am busy right now marketing my newest book, OPENING CLOSED DOORS: THE STORY OF JOSIE C. MURRAY. It is the extraordinary story of a young African-American woman who back in 1957 forced the issue of segregation for the public libraries of Virginia. Written for 4th/5th grades, it is my hope to get it into every elementary library so the children of today will learn about the struggles we have gone through in America to ensure equality for all. It is available from bookstores and online. Here is the link to buy it from my website: https://www.lindasittig.com.

~ linda

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