Gladys Brown West: Every Driver’s Angel

Posted on June 1, 2026 by lhsittig@verizon.net

By Linda Harris Sittig

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I, along with thousands of other drivers, should be eternally grateful for Gladys Brown West.

Why? Has GPS ever helped you find your way to a destination? If you answered yes, even once, you need to thank Gladys Brown West.

Born and raised in rural Dinwiddie County, south of Richmond, Virginia, Gladys was born just as the Great Depression began and solidly in the era of Jim Crow segregation.

Her family ran a small farm in a mixed community of sharecroppers, and Gladys grew up working there. In addition to the farm, her mother often worked in a nearby tobacco factory, and her father worked on the railroad.

As one of four children, Gladys concluded at an early age that only an education would provide her with a way to escape the drudgery of the farm for a better way of life.

She studied hard and graduated as the Valedictorian of her high school in 1948, thereby earning a full scholarship to attend Virginia State College (now University), traditionally an HBCU (historically Black college or university). Free to pursue any major, she chose mathematics, even though it was mostly a male domain. Numbers fascinated her.

She taught high school math and science for a few years, returned to Virginia State for a Master’s Degree in Mathematics, and then got hired by the U.S. Navy as a computer programmer at the Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgren, Virginia. This proved to be a fortuitous move because it launched her lifelong career as a pioneering mathematician and led her to meet her future husband, Ira West.

While at Dahlgren, Gladys began studying orbital trajectories, which led her to conclude that the Earth was not a perfect circle but bulged slightly at the Equator. As she perfected her studies, she was able to create mathematical models of the Earth’s correct shape accurately.

 She then went on to use complex algorithms to account for the differences in the gravitational pull of tides and other forces on the Earth.

Eventually, Gladys’ work and subsequent updates shaped the future of GPS as we know it today. First designed for military use, GPS has become a household tool, or should I say a navigational tool.

It is interesting to note that Gladys Brown West’s achievements were not well known due to the highly classified nature of her military research. While other Black women became famous as ‘Hidden Figures’ in math and science, Gladys worked behind the scenes, helping improve the realism of the Earth geoid model.  And it was this Earth geoid model that helped the Navy improve the accuracy of their satellite mapping positions. Which, in turn, enhanced GPS.

Gladys passed just a few months ago, at the age of 96, and to her credit, she has been included in the Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame, and was the first woman to win the Prince Philip Medal, given by Britain’s Royal Academy of Engineering, for her work on the GPS satellite orbit.

 And, may I say, that throughout her illustrious working career, she also raised three children and earned a Ph.D. AT THE AGE OF 70!

If you are interested in learning more about Gladys in her own words, look for her memoir: It Began with a Dream. Available online and in traditional bookstores.

By the way, GPS stands for Global Positioning System.

If you enjoyed learning about Gladys and GPS, and are not yet a follower of this blog, please sign up on the right sidebar. You will receive an email once a month with a story of another fascinating, strong woman.

I usually thank blog followers who send me ideas for women to research, but this month the idea came to me in my car while I was looking for directions to a new place. My exact thought was…Hmm, I wonder who created GPS, which gives much-needed directions when we are searching for an address. Hmm, I wonder if that was a woman?

And voila, I discovered Gladys!

Here are my books whose characters are based on strong, relatively unknown women in history. You can read about them in depth on my website: www.lindasittig.com.

Cut From Strong Cloth – Civil War era

Last Curtain Call – coal mining wars of the 1890s

Counting Crows – the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918

B- 52 DOWN – the Cold War of bombers carrying nuclear bombs

Opening Closed Doors – the desegregation of US libraries starting in the 1950s

Chasing the Tides  (forthcoming)

~ linda😊

Posted in short biographies, women who made a difference | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Lillian Moller Gilbreth: Thought Provoking Engineer

Posted on May 1, 2026 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

I grew up in the 1950s and ‘60s with certain family traditions. One was that we ate dinner together at the kitchen table every night, except on Sundays when we were allowed to pull out the TV trays. Then we dined on Swanson’s Chicken Pot Pies in front of the TV, and watched a program together: usually Bonanza.

But on certain occasions, we gathered in front of the TV on an alternative night and watched a family movie together. One of my favorites was Cheaper by the Dozen. Based on the real life of the Gilbreth family, the plot involved how the eccentric father was always trying to make the home more efficient for his wife and twelve children, sometimes to hilarious results.

I remember one scene where the wife went shopping and when she came home the husband had rearranged the entire kitchen for efficiency. Even as a kid I instinctively knew this was not a good idea – to rearrange a woman’s kitchen without her input. And I remember my mother giving my dad the stink eye – just in case.

But what I did not know, was how incredibly well educated the real Mrs. Gilbreth had  been. And how she was a talented efficiency engineer, all on her own.

LILLIAN’S STORY

Lillian Moller Gilbreth was born in May, 1878, the oldest of ten children, to parents in Oakland, California. From an early age it was quite apparent how bright she was and she sailed through her classes in public school. When it came time to think about college, her merchant father vetoed the idea for any of his daughters. Lillian, however, convinced him to let her try just one year and see how she would do.

At the end of that first year at the University of California, Lillian had one of the highest grade point averages in the freshman class. Her father relented and allowed her to stay and earn a degree. However, she still had to live at home and help out with the other children. As graduation neared, she was asked to speak at the Commencement Exercises, the first female to ever hold that honor. And the first of many honors she would receive in her lifetime.

She graduated from the University of California with a Bachelor’s Degree in Literature and then stayed two additional years to earn a Master’s Degree in the same discipline. But then life changed in 1904 when she met Frank Gilbreth, a self-taught construction engineer who specialized in the fledgling field of motion study. Lillian was fascinated by Frank’s projects and took a keen interest in his studies.

LILLIAN BEGINS TO STUDY ENGINEERING

Although Lillian’s university degrees were in literature, she possessed an uncanny talent for psychology. She shared her insights with Frank and together they agreed that there was a lack of psychology in engineering, and that the field could benefit from such.

Lillian decided to pursue a Doctorate in Psychology and wrote her thesis on The Psychology of Management. The University of California, however, required at least one full year of residency in order to achieve a Doctorate.  This would be impossible for Lillian since she and Frank had already started their family (which in time would number 12 children). Frank helped her turn her thesis instead into installment papers which were published in 1912 – 1913, and later published as a book.

It is interesting to note that her publisher stipulated they would only publish her book, if she used the initials L.M. Gilbreth, so no one would realize the author was a woman.

Hmmm.

Soon afterward Frank was offered a job near Brown University in Rhode Island. He would help to install a plan for scientific management at a large factory.  Lillian became friends with the President of Brown, and subsequently applied to be admitted for a Doctorate. She did receive her Ph.D. and gave birth to her next child just a few weeks later.

Together, Lillian and Frank made an impressive team and were hired for their expertise in the psychology of worker efficiency. They analyzed their own home, particularly the kitchen, to see how the space could be used more efficiently and often tried out experiments involving the children as well. (This would later be the basis for the book written by two of their children, and eventually the Hollywood movie, Cheaper by the Dozen).

The Gilbreths were well on their way to becoming internationally recognized for their expertise.

But then, the unthinkable happed.

At the age of 55, preparing to deliver a speech at a conference in Prague, Frank Gilbreth died of a sudden heart attack. Lillian, now a single mother of twelve, never hesitated. She asked family members to take care of the children while she traveled to Prague and delivered Frank’s speech.

ON HER OWN

From that moment on, Lillian Gilbreth worked tirelessly to continue on with the work that she and Frank had started together. She wrote or co-authored ten books on efficiency in both the home and the workplace, she gave hundreds of lectures, and she secured patents for her inventions that would improve the efficiency of a woman’s kitchen.

By the end of her long life, she had amassed many honors, including being the first female member inducted into the American Society of Industrial Engineers and a professor at Purdue University. Looking back now at Cheaper by the Dozen, I wish I had known as a young girl just how prolific Mrs. Gilbreth had been in the field of industrial engineering.

Today, I, like many of you, use her inventions every day.

LILLIAN’S LEGACY

Does your kitchen follow the L shape efficiency design where the sink, refrigerator, and oven/stove are arranged in a pattern where they are only a few steps away from each other? Thank you Lillian Gilbreth.

Do you have a foot pedal trash can? Thank you Lillian Gilbreth.

Do you have shelves in you refrigerator doors? Thank you Lillian Gilbreth.

Do you use a special shelf in your refrigerator for butter and eggs? Thank you Lillian Gilbreth.

Does your kitchen utilize wall switches for electric lighting? Thank you Lillan Gilbreth.

And lastly, while you may not know this, before Lillian Gilbreth, the height of kitchen counter tops were calculated based on the height of an average man. Thank goodness Lillian campaigned for all kitchen counter tops to be built based on the height of an average woman.

Hollywood may have portrayed Lillian Gilbreth as the model housewife of an industrial engineer, but the truth is that Lillian Gilbreth was herself the model of industrial engineering.

A strong woman whose influence from the 1920s still enhances our lives.

I hope you enjoyed Lillian’s story. If you are not yet a follower of the Strong Woman blog, please sign up on the right sidebar. Once a month you will receive another Strong Woman’s story.

Writing about Strong Women is my passion, and the protagonist in each of my five books was a woman who fought to overcome obstacles in achieving her life’s dream. Book number six is out for consideration with a publisher and features a dual time narrative with two strong women who tell their stories, eighty years apart.

~ linda:)

Author of: Cut From Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, Counting Crows, B 52 DOWN (finalist for the 2025 CIBA International Book Award), and Opening Closed Doors. Each title can be ordered from any bookstore or online through Amazon.

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DorisMarie McCormick, Fay Payne, Diane Peedin, Gene Townley, and Carol Wooten: Strong Women by Fate.

Posted on April 1, 2026 by lhsittig@verizon.net

By Linda Harris Sittig

As this monthly blog enters its 15th year (!) I want to pay tribute to five women who became Strong Women not by choice, but by fate. What bound these five women together was their courage in the face of an appalling shared tragedy, a tragedy that befell their husbands and altered the lives of each family.

DorisMarie hailed from California, Fay from Oklahoma, Diane from North Carolina, Gene from Alabama, and Carol from South Dakota. But in 1964, they all lived on Turner Air Force Base in Albany, Georgia, where their husbands were stationed with the U.S. Air Force.

At age 39, DorisMarie was the tallest wife, standing over 6 feet. She loved to cook Mexican food and hoped to become a graphic artist. But then she met Tom McCormick near the end of WWII and swapped her artistic dreams for the life of a military pilot’s wife.

Fay, at 42, was the oldest of the five wives. She had been enrolled in secretarial school in Tulsa when she met Bob Payne. They soon discovered they had a shared love for dancing, and she won him over with her delicious home-baked cherry pies.

Diane, at 29, was the fashionista of the group. She had been voted Best All-Around Girl in her senior year in a North Carolina high school. She loved clothes and met Mack Peedin while still in high school, then dropped out of college to marry him. Marrying an Air Force co-pilot sounded exciting. She had no idea of the dangers her husband would face.

Gene, age 39, grew up in Alabama, where entertaining guests is considered an art. Gene perfected her reputation by concocting delectable peanut butter milkshakes that both guests and her husband, Robert Townley, loved.

Carol, at age 23, was the youngest of the five and the only wife in the small group not married to an officer. Carol met her future husband, Melvin Wooten, at a roller-skating rink while still in high school. Blonde and petite, Carol’s life quickly centered on marriage and then on children.

DorisMarie was the mother of two boys; Fay was the mother of two boys and a daughter; Diane had one son; Gene had two sons; and Carol had a son and two daughters. All five women had lived on various Air Force bases before they found themselves together in 1963 at Turner Air Force Base in Georgia.

The turning point in their lives started on January 12, 1964.

It was a balmy Sunday in Albany, Georgia. All of their husbands had the day off, and then the phones rang. A B-52 bomber in Westover Air Force Base in Chickopee, Massachusetts, needed to be ferried back to Georgia for repairs. A five-man crew was necessary for the retrieval flight.

One by one, the five husbands, Major Tom McCormick, Captain Mack Peedin, Major Bob Payne, Major Robert Townley, and Tech Sergeant Melvin Wooten, suited up, kissed their wives goodbye, and flew up to Massachusetts.

The return flight was supposed to be routine, but it didn’t turn out that way.

Leaving Massachusetts at 12:30 am, the crew made it as far as Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, when they encountered an unexpected blizzard, later called the blizzard of the century. Their plane collided with 167-mile-an-hour winds, and the rear tail and back wing sheared off. This force threw the aircraft (traveling at 500 mph) into Negative G, and it spiraled, then flipped upside down.

The men had no choice but to eject. At 30,000 feet. Into a howling blizzard. With ground temperatures below zero. And with 3-4 feet of snow already on the ground.

One by one, they ejected, only to find themselves landing and then stranded in the roughest terrain of the area, in the mountains of Garrett County, Western Maryland. It would have been helpful had they landed near each other. But as fate would have it, each man touched down approximately 2 miles away from anyone else. Two miles in deep snow in zero visibility with a blizzard still raging.

By 5:00 a.m., the base commander and chaplain had visited each wife back on base and alerted her of the assumption that the plane had crashed and the five men were listed as missing.

One can only imagine the emotions of each woman as she waited with a desperate hope that her husband might somehow, miraculously, be found alive.

Neighbors came and sat with the wives as they waited for the news. None of the women had family nearby other than their children. While DorisMarie and Gene had older children, Fay, Diane, and Carol had young children.

And the five wives would not know at the time that a combination of 1,000 volunteers – locals of Garrett and Allegany Counties plus military, were trekking the mountains trying to rescue the downed men.

By the end of the five-day search for survivors, some of the five wives became widows, and others would experience their husbands’ shared survivors’ guilt. All five had their lives permanently etched with the tragedy of the crash of the B -52. And, as with all strong women, they eventually picked up the pieces of their lives and continued caring for their families.

I am proud to say that the book I wrote about the B-52 Bomber, the crew and their wives, and the 1000 volunteers who gave up five days of their lives to try and find survivors, has been named a finalist for the 2026 Chanticleer International Book Award. B-52 DOWN: The Night the Bombs Fell From the Sky.

Last month, I was interviewed on late-night radio, 77ABC in New York City, with Dr. Sky about the story of the B-52 known as Buzz One Four. Click the following link, to hear a shortened version of the interview and how I came to write the book.

To read the entire story with all the crash and rescue efforts details, look for B-52 DOWN! Available from your favorite bookstore or can be ordered through Amazon at www.amazon.com/dp/1940553105.

Remember that, amid all the worldwide tragedies, strong women are often on the sidelines, but their stories are every bit as important.

~ linda

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Women’s History Month

Posted on March 1, 2026 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

In celebration of Women’s History Month, a Windows Update released gremlins that have incapacitated my computer. Until it comes back from the shop, I am giving you this inspirational quote from Jane Walker that I keep in my office.

To Future First Women –

Against all odds, women have continued to break ground that shouldn’t have needed breaking, blazed trails that should have been well traveled, and shattered glass ceilings that shouldn’t have existed in the first place.

Fearless women, past and present, brave enough to follow their passions.

Don’t just open the door, rip it off its hinges so it can’t be closed again.

signed Jane Walker.

So, to all the brave girls out there, regardless of age, I salute you!

signed Linda Harris Sittig

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Florence Merriam Bailey: Protect the Birds!

Posted on February 1, 2026 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

I am sitting by the back windows in our home, overlooking a grove of trees and the bird feeders attached to the deck railing. It’s bitterly cold, and the birds have been ravenous. Suddenly, a bluebird alights. His plumage is the most luminous shade of blue, and I find myself transfixed by his colors. This has been one of the perks of moving south to North Carolina, where bluebirds in winter are a daily delight.

However, years ago, especially during the Gilded Age of America (1870-1900), my friend the bluebird and countless other bird species were the victims of unregulated slaughter for their feathers.

Feathers? You may wonder. Yes, it was the beginning of the fashion trend in which women wore hats adorned with bird plumage.

How did this come to be?

THE FEATHER TRADE

In the late 1880s, store-bought women’s fashions first became available to the masses through department stores. No longer having to sew her own dresses, a woman could easily buy them in stores. But with identical outfits now available in various sizes, how would a woman stand out, so to speak, in her fashion choice? The answer: by her hat.

This conundrum helped the millinery business explode, and along the way, bird feathers became the rage. At the time, few people saw the huge injustice done to millions of birds each year and the future extinction of multiple species, all in the name of fashion.

Enter Florence Merriam Bailey, whom everyone called Merriam.

MERRIAM

Merriam was born near Utica, New York, in 1863, and, due to ill health, was educated at home. However, her family’s house was quite near the Adirondack Mountains, and from an early age, Merriam went on long walks with her brother in the nearby woods. Nature fascinated her, and most particularly the birds.

In 1882, Merriam was allowed to enter Smith, a women’s college in Massachusetts. However, she was only allowed to participate as a ‘special student’, meaning she could attend classes, but not receive a degree, since she did not possess a high school diploma. This turned out to be a boon, because as soon as the college offered science courses, Merriam signed up for any that would help her study ornithology.

The more she studied birds, the more diligent she became in their protection. Along with a friend, Fanny Hardie Eckstrom, they organized a club to observe and protect wild birds. Merriam began writing articles on the protection of birds and, at age 26, published her first book, Birds Through an Opera Glass. Today, her book is recognized as the first field guide to bird-watching intended for the general public. For Merriam, it was her first professional attempt to attract the public to watching birds in the wild.

After college, she spent several winters with her parents in New York City. Once more, she became ill, and on the family doctor’s advice, she and her mother journeyed out west for cleaner, fresher air. To her delight, not only did her health improve, but she became a diligent bird-watcher of western birds. And she continued to submit articles on bird protection. Her greatest talent was making the study of birds a pastime accessible to the general public.

MERRIAM’S CRUSADE

In 1899, she married a fellow naturalist, Vernon Bailey. The couple moved to Washington, D.C., and it was there that Merriam became involved in the conservation movement. Not just involved, she became an activist and supported the Lacey Act of 1900, which prohibited the trade of wild animals, including birds that had been killed illegally. She also taught workshops at the National Zoo.

The National Audubon Society was founded in 1905 by two female environmentalists in Massachusetts. Their goal to protect wild birds was a direct result of the widespread slaughter of waterbirds. It took four birds’ dead bodies to produce 1 ounce of plumage for a hat. The Audubon Society was a natural choice for Merriam, and she helped to co-organize several local chapters.

Merriam traveled extensively with her husband whenever his work took him to the American West, and she continued her study of birds of the western states. In 1916, the Biological Survey asked Florence to travel to New Mexico and compile a book on the birds of that state. Her Birds of New Mexico earned her the Brewster Medal from the American Ornithologists’ Union in 1931. She was the first woman to receive this award.

MERRIAM’S LEGACY

Merriam spent the rest of her life studying and writing about birds and their need for protection. She published her last book in 1939 and was the first woman elected a fellow of the American Ornithologists’ Union. She died peacefully in Washington, D.C., at the age of 85.

So, the next time you glance up and see a bird perched on a branch, feasting at a feeder, or soaring through the sky, remember Merriam Bailey and her lifelong passion for protecting birds and making birdwatching an enjoyable activity for everyone.

If you enjoyed this month’s highlight of Merriam Bailey and are not yet a follower of this blog, please sign up on the right sidebar. Once a month, a Strong Women in History story will appear in your email inbox.

~ Linda

For those of you who have asked… my newest book, Chasing the Tides, is now in the hands of 12 publishers (in manuscript form). It is about two strong women, eighty years apart, who are both part of a legacy through a beachside cottage on St. Simons Island, Georgia. Stay tuned:)

In the meantime, you can find my other books in bookstores and online.

Cut From Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, Counting Crows, B52 DOWN, Opening Closed Doors: the Story of Josie Murray.

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Carol Green: and The Women’s Bank

Posted on January 1, 2026 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

It may be hard for younger American women to truly appreciate the Herculean task that Carol Green undertook in the mid-1970s.

But I do.

I clearly remember, as a newlywed in 1973, applying for my first credit card. It was from Sears, Roebuck. I filled out the application, mailed it off, and waited for the card. When it came, it was written under the name of Mrs. Sittig, only my married name, my identity with my husband, not my full name. I remember the feeling of disappointment. But I was a newly married woman, and apparently, my husband’s name carried more credence than mine alone. I shrugged off the feeling and used the card.

Then, in 1975, with a B.A. in History and an M.Ed. in Education under my belt, I decided to enter a Ph.D. program at a university in Washington, D.C. I filled out the application and then came to the last page. For a married woman, this university required the husband’s signature as a form of permission.  This time, I wasn’t disappointed; I was furious. I switched my intentions elsewhere.

By the 1980s, when I decided I wanted my own checking account, in addition to our combined account, I should have written a thank-you note to Carol Green. Before her groundbreaking fight, married American women could not open an independent bank account or apply for a bank loan without the co-signature of a male family member. Under the old coverture laws, when a woman married, her property now belonged to her husband. Property, including money.

In the mid-1970s, Carol Green was already the CEO of a highly successful local franchise business. Weight Watchers. You may have heard of it 😊, but she could not get a loan from any bank in Colorado without her husband co-signing, despite the passage of the 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act. She did not cave to disappointment; instead, she sought support from other business-minded women she knew in Denver, and together they opened the first women’s bank in Colorado.

In 1976, this group of ten women had put up $1,000 each and applied for permission to open The Women’s Bank. The individuals were: Wendy W. Davis, Loretta Norgren, Leslie Friedman Davis, Betty Sue Freedman, Beverly A. (Martinez) Grall, Barbara Grall, Barbara Welch Sudler, Edna Mosley, Judith Foster, and Carol Green. Each woman was valued for her individual expertise, and together they were a formidable force.

Of course, they ran into challenges; they had traversed a four-year gauntlet of paperwork before securing a national bank charter. And it was a gamble – would the Denver female population support them in their novel endeavor? When the bank opened on the morning of July 14, 1978, the group must have held its breath. But, within the early morning hours, a line of women stretched down the street, waiting for the doors to open. Some women came with a substantial deposit; others came with folded dollar bills taken out of their kitchen coffee cans. But they came, and when the bank closed after that first day, the deposits totaled $1 million. A lot of money in 1978 – the equivalent of $4.97 million today. Not bad.

The impact of The Women’s Bank in Denver was built on earlier attempts in other states to secure a bank where women could participate in their own finances, such as The First Woman’s Bank in Clarksville, Tennessee, which opened to women in 1919. But it was absorbed by a larger bank in 1926. And think of Maggie Lena Walker, the first African American self-made millionaire who started the St. Luke’s Penny Saving Bank in 1903.

The Women’s Bank in Denver, though, was one of the first commercial banks that was successfully owned and run by a group of women. The gift of Carol Green and the other women who tirelessly championed women’s financial opportunities is that they were fighting for women’s financial independence and economic equality. They knew they were attempting to smash a glass ceiling.

While we may be able to secure a loan, open a bank account, and manage our own finances today, American women still earn only 83 cents for every dollar men earn.

I recently found a letter my mother wrote to me shortly after my wedding. In it, she tells me to get my own checking account, separate from my husband, so I can control some of my own money. The date is August 1973. I smile, thinking how much my mother would have loved to have met Carol Green.

If you enjoyed Carol’s story and are not yet a follower of this blog, please sign up on the right-hand sidebar. The blog will appear in your email inbox once a month. Then, forward the blog to a friend, or better yet, several friends.

Wishing everyone a healthy, happy, and prosperous new year.

linda:)

Author of Cut from Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, Counting Crows, B-52 DOWN, and Opening Closed Doors. And soon…Chasing the Tides.

Posted in short biographies, strong women, Uncategorized | Tagged , | 14 Comments

Odette Sansom & Krystyna Skarbek: Freedom Fighters

Posted on December 1, 2025 by lhsittig@verizon.net

by Linda Harris Sittig

Germany map (Europe)

While researching my current work-in-progress, a WWII-set novel, I find myself drawn to stories of strong women during that war.

Although Odette Sansom and Krystyna Skarbek may never have met during the war, they were both engaged as spies for the British Special Operations Executive, the SOE.

They came from different nationalities. Odette was French and the mother of three daughters; Krystyna was Polish by birth, married, but had no children. They were also close in age; Krystyna was born in 1908, and Odette in 1912. Both were athletic and attractive brunettes. And each woman would go on in life to have multiple husbands.

Here are their stories.

ODETTE

Odette married Roy Sansom, an Englishman, and by 1942 had applied for SOE training. She was sent into Nazi-occupied France in late 1942 under the code name Lise. There, she collaborated with Peter Churchill of the French Resistance based in Cannes, acting as his courier, carrying messages back and forth.

Captured by the Gestapo in the French Alps in April 1943, she was sent to prison in Paris, where she claimed she and Peter Churchill were married and that he was Winston Churchill’s nephew. In prison, she was tortured and kept on a starvation diet. When she still refused to reveal names, she was sent to Ravensbrück, the notorious concentration camp for women. She remained there for the rest of the war.

When the war ended and Ravensbrück was liberated, Odette was emaciated, weak, and ill. However, she had survived. She testified at the War Crimes Tribunal, returned to her family, and lived until the age of 82. During her lifetime, she received several awards, including both the British George Cross for bravery and the French Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.

KRYSTYNA

Krystyna arrived in London with her then husband, Jerzy Gizycki, in 1939. By 1940, she had joined the SOE and was sent to Hungary under the pretense of being a journalist. Her husband, also an intelligence agent, accompanied her.

Working to provide surveillance of all roads, rail, and river traffic in Budapest, Krystyna traveled back and forth between Hungary and Poland. She organized a system of couriers to deliver intelligence reports.

Briefly detained in 1941 by the Hungarian police, Krystyna feigned tuberculosis and fled Hungary with the assistance of a friend who transported her into Yugoslavia. Moving on, she worked in Bulgaria and eventually in Turkey, smuggling microfilms showing the German military buildup along the Soviet border.

From the end of 1941 through 1943, Krystyna was in Egypt, collecting intelligence information and passing it on to various resistance groups. Then, in July 1944, she parachuted into France, where she helped to organize multiple French Resistance groups in Southeast France.

Before the war ended, Krystyna managed to free several resistance fighters from prison, yet she never became captured herself. After the war, she joined the British WAAF as a flight officer and was awarded the George Medal from Britain and the Croix de Geurre from France, among many other distinctions.

Krystyna was most likely one of the most daring spies in the SOE. Tragically, in 1952, she was stabbed to death by a former obsessive lover.

Both these women, Odette Sansom and Krystyna Skarbek risked everything for the sake of achieving freedom.

Thank you to Bucky Schriver and Harley Gamble, two followers of this Strong Women in History blog, for passing me the names of Odette and Krystyna.

If you enjoyed the stories of Odette and Krystyna and are not yet a follower of this blog, please sign up on the right sidebar. Once a month, you will receive the blog via email.

December is traditionally the month when we send holiday cards and messages. My message to all of you is a wish for Peace on Earth.

~ Linda

Author of Cut from Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, Counting Crows, B-52 DOWN, and Opening Closed Doors. To be released in 2026 – Chasing the Tides.

WWW.LINDASITTIG.COM

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Annie Moore: First Ellis Island Immigrant

Posted on November 1, 2025 by lhsittig@verizon.net

By Linda Harris Sittig

I have often said that many of the Strong Women I write about find me. As did Annie Moore.

A few weeks ago, while browsing YouTube for exercise videos, I came across a mention of a group called Celtic Thunder. OK, maybe not random?

Intrigued, I clicked on the video and started listening to a song from one of their concerts,“Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears”. As I listened, I realized it was a song about the first immigrant to step onto Ellis Island’s threshold on January 2, 1892. She was Annie Moore, a 15-year-old girl from Ireland.

Like many Irish ballads, it plucked my heartstrings and left me wanting to know more.

IRELAND

Human habitation of Ireland dates to 9,000 BC, at the end of the great Ice Age. By 4,000 BC, prehistoric hunter-gatherer groups dominated, and by 600 BC, the people we know as the Celts existed throughout the island.

Ireland was always an island of turmoil, controlled by many powerful individual chieftains and their clans. And while even ancient Rome considered taking over the island, total conquest did not occur until 1601, when the Irish lost to the English at the Battle of Kinsale, and Ireland became the first English territory to be colonized.

Cap that with the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, with William III of England, the victor. This secured all of Ireland for England, and Irish Catholics whose families had owned their land for decades, or even generations, were suddenly forced to become tenants of English landowners.

And then the Famine, known in Ireland as The Great Hunger. Almost all the crops grown in Ireland, grains, corn, wheat, etc., were shipped to England for sale by the English landlords. The only crop the Native Irish were allowed to keep was potatoes.

In 1845–1851, a six-year blight hit potato crops across the island. Since it was the only crop the tenants had for themselves, the famine was a disaster of gigantic proportions. One million Irish died of starvation and disease (while other crops were still sent by the British landlords back to England). Another 2 million Irish fled the island, leading to a massive influx of immigrants to America and other countries.

Even after the Famine, the Irish who had survived were mainly poverty-stricken and still under the thumb of British rule.

ANNIE MOORE AND THE BALLAD

Annie was born in 1874 (or thereabouts) in County Cork. Her parents had emigrated four years earlier, leaving their three children with relatives back in Ireland. Hoping, I assume, to establish themselves before sending for their children.

In 1892, Annie came by ship, holding the hands of her two younger brothers, Anthony and Philip. After being processed at Ellis Island, the three children were reunited with their parents in Manhattan, New York City. And Annie passed into America as a relatively unknown immigrant.

Annie and her family settled on Monroe Street in one of the many tenements on the Lower East Side of New York City. And there they stayed, eking out a hardscrabble immigrant life while counting pennies and stretching food.

Annie married a local, Joseph Schayer, son of German immigrants, and together they had eleven children: only five of whom survived childhood. Then, at age 50, Annie died of heart failure.

ANCESTORS

And that made me think of my Irish ancestors.

My mother’s Irish family landed in Philadelphia in 1851, where signs in shop windows proclaimed: “No Irish Need Apply.” But because they were weavers with a knowledge of textiles, the family quickly found work and settled in Kensington, the Irish section of Philadelphia.

They were part of chain migration, meaning that a cousin or two were already in Philadelphia and could sponsor them for naturalization. In fact, as late as 2004, a Philadelphia joke went, “If you’re looking for ancestors from County Tyrone, just go to St. Michael’s parish in Kensington.

I am not related to Annie Moore, but her immigrant journey has been repeated by almost every immigrant group that leaves behind intolerable conditions and comes to America seeking freedom and sanctuary.

ANNIE’S LEGACY

The song “Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears” was composed by Irish songwriter Brendan Graham after a visit to Ellis Island in 1995. He was so touched by standing where so many Irish had entered America, and especially about young Annie Moore, that he wrote the song on the airplane while flying home

Some of the details in the song weren’t exactly correct. Annie was 17 when she immigrated, and only 12 million immigrants passed through Ellis Island. But the heart of the song about Annie is really about the heart of immigration.

Today, an estimated 40% of all Americans can trace their ancestry back to Ellis Island, and 98% of us have immigrant backgrounds.

And if you think about it, unless your heritage is Native American, then we are all a product of immigration.

 ALL OF US.

Below is the link to “Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears” performed by Celtic Thunder on YouTube. You may have to click the link twice. Once there, go to full screen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93-s5xDQ5j4.

I hope you enjoyed Annie’s story. If you are not yet a follower of the Strong Women blog, please sign up on the right-hand side. You will receive the blog once a month in your email.

And I hope you will be inspired.

~ Linda

Author of Cut From Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, Counting Crows, B-52 DOWN, and Opening Closed Doors. All available in bookstores or online, and all celebrating Strong Women.

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Josephine Porter Winter: Ambulance Driver in War

Posted on October 1, 2025 by lhsittig@verizon.net

By Linda Harris Sittig

I have found in life that nothing really happens by pure chance, and the people you meet come into your life for a reason.

Two weeks ago, I met a fellow writer, and during the discussion of “So what is your current project?” he mentioned a young woman who was an ambulance driver in France during WWII. Then he elaborated to say that she left her studies at the Sorbonne and drove for the American Volunteer Ambulance Corps.

I knew nothing about the American Volunteer Ambulance Corps, but my antennae went up with the prospect of discovering a new Strong Woman.

Josephine Porter Winter was 25 years old, finishing her third year at the Sorbonne, when Hitler was storming through Europe. And, like many young, idealistic people, she wanted to do something meaningful. Helping in the war effort by driving an ambulance intrigued her.  

Born in 1915 into a well-to-do family in St. Louis, Missouri, Josephine’s father was a world-renowned dentist and former President of the American Dental Association. Her mother was a socialite. Josephine’s older sister had stayed stateside when Josephine went off to France to study political science and history at the Sorbonne. Josephine lived in the American House with other American students.

To refresh your memory on WWII, Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. By May of 1940, the Nazis had also invaded Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France.

On June 3, 1940, the Paris air raids began.

Josephine went into action. After reading an ad in Harry’s Bar, she ventured to the American Hospital in Paris, where an all-female Ambulance Transport Service had already been established. From there, she became a driver for the American Volunteer Ambulance Corps, started by members of the American Legion in Paris. The Corps was one of approximately eight services established in France, primarily by expatriate Americans and British citizens.

Having been raised as a young lady in Missouri with access to a farm, Josephine could already drive a tractor, which helped her with driving a Ford ambulance and maintaining the vehicle. But now, as a volunteer driver, she had to navigate during blackouts, carrying wounded soldiers from the front lines to the nearest train station for transport to a hospital.

To say the missions were dangerous would be an understatement.

Twice she found herself under a prolonged bombardment—each time for a duration of 10 days of continual bombing.

By late November of 1940, the intrigue of war had given way to pure exhaustion, and Josephine had missed both her sister’s wedding and the untimely death of her father. It was time to return home. Carrying official papers that allowed her to travel throughout France, she headed southwest to Spain.

She was arrested at the Spanish border in Frejus on suspicion of being a spy. Why else would a single woman be carrying so many suitcases? (Remember, she had been living in Paris for three years, so numerous suitcases would not be unusual). Sent as a political prisoner, she entered a jail cell that was 30 x 40 feet, designed to hold several prisoners. In fact, Josephine and 80 other women were put there together.

The days dragged on over Christmas, and finally, after eleven days of imprisonment, the U.S Consulate in Barcelona obtained her release with orders for her to return to America. How she was connected to him is not reported. As soon as she left the prison, she managed to escape to Madrid, where she boarded with some influential friends. After a few months, Josephine set out for Lisbon with the hopes of booking passage back to the States. She returned to St. Louis on July 24, 1941.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch quoted her as saying she had learned more Spanish and information about Spanish history in her eleven days in the Spanish prison than she had in 3 years at the Sorbonne. She also mentioned her admiration for the other female political prisoners (all Spanish) for their passionate beliefs in the end of tyranny in Spain.

It is interesting to note that the newspaper felt compelled to mention that Josephine was a slender blonde, weighing only 100 pounds.

The drivers in the American Field Service and other volunteer ambulance drivers continued their efforts throughout World War II. Josephine Porter Winter was just one person who contributed to the cause of defeating Nazism.

Thank you, Larry Roeder, Jr., who is working on a novel based on Josephine’s life. I’m sure it will be fascinating to read, especially since Josephine was part of his extended family and his father was also a volunteer ambulance driver during World War II.

If you enjoyed reading Josephine’s story and are not yet a follower of this blog, please sign up on the right hand side bar and you will receive the blog once a month in your email.

While working on my newest book, Chasing the Tides, not yet in print, I have found myself fascinated with the historical details of WWII. The people involved and how the war changed their lives.

~ Linda:)

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Marion Harland: a.k.a. Mary Terhune

Posted on September 1, 2025 by lhsittig@verizon.net

By Linda Harris Sittig

I discovered Marion purely by accident.

Last month, I stumbled upon a used book warehouse that advertised old, historic books. The temperature outside blistered at 98 degrees, and the AC inside the cavernous space was temporarily out of order, but several fans blew air around. I couldn’t resist. The owner asked what area of history I liked, and I replied that I write about Strong Women.

He pointed me to an area of stacks, and off I went. Not long afterward, I discovered an old book, first published in 1893 and then reprinted in 1903. The title was “Women Authors of Our Day in Their Homes.” Intrigued, I opened to the Table of Contents and saw the first chapter devoted to Marion Harland. I had never heard of her, but her residence was listed as Pompton, New Jersey – fourteen miles from my childhood home.

I recognized Pompton, not only for its proximity to our family house, but also because it was where the celebrated author Albert Payson Terhune had lived. And I knew all about Albert Payson Terhune because his books made me a reader. He penned three novels about his beloved collie, Lad, and I had read and reread each one.

Now, could it be a coincidence that Marion Harland and Albert Payson Terhune both lived in the same area and knew each other?

I quickly googled Mr. Terhune in the hopes that Ms. Harland might be mentioned. But, no. Then I dove into the chapter of the Women Authors book that focused on Marion Harland and read that her summer home was known as Sunnybank.

Whoa, Sunnybank was the setting for the Lad stories. This could not be a coincidence. I knew every detail about Sunnybank from the Lad novels. For my 10th birthday, my father even drove me to Pompton to stand at the foot of the drive to Sunnybank, where Lad had roamed the fields.

HOW I FINALLY FOUND MARION

I read the entire chapter on Marion, and A.P. Terhune was never mentioned, but her husband’s name was Dr. Terhune. The plot thickened. Next, I googled Marion Harland. Her real name was Mary Virginia Terhune, born in late December 1830 in Amelia County, Virginia. Mary must have been a remarkable child, as her first novel was published at the age of fifteen.

At the age of 26, she met and married Edward Payson Terhune, who had recently been ordained as a Presbyterian minister. Mary was now the busy wife of a minister, but she continued to write and kept her pen name, Marion Harland. By 1859, the Terhune family had moved from Virginia to New Jersey and, in 1861, decided to build a summer home overlooking Pompton Lakes in Wayne, New Jersey. Mary christened the estate Sunnybank because she loved watching the sunlight shimmer on the banks of the lake.

Throughout her entire life, as a minister’s wife and mother of six children, Mary never stopped writing. In the 1870s, she wrote A Common Sense in the Household: A Manual of Practical Housewifery. It became an instant bestseller, and stayed in print for another 50 years. Although Mary already had several novels to her credit, she switched to cookbooks, biographies, travel guides, and histories, where her trademark practicality and witty text encouraged readers to broaden their knowledge.

Sadly, three of her children did not survive childhood, and Mary openly admitted that she channeled her grief through writing. Mary Virginia Terhune died in her nineties, and despite eventually going blind, she completed her last novel at the age of 88 and dictated her final works to a secretary. During her lifetime, Mary wrote twenty-five novels, twenty-five homemaking books, three volumes of short stories, an 18-year newspaper column for female readers, several nonfiction books, as well as numerous essays and articles for magazines.

And she passed her love for writing onto her three surviving children, all of whom became authors themselves. Albert Payson Terhune was her youngest child.

Today, in northern New Jersey, there are nine elementary schools named after her son, Albert Payson Terhune, including Payson Road, Terhune Avenue, and even a Ladd Street.

MARION/MARY AND HER LEGACY

However, it seems that the only lasting tribute to Mary Virginia Terhune is the existence of Sunnybank, which was donated by the Terhune family to the town of Wayne for development into a public park in 1969. Mary’s writings are now only available through rare book channels, and the house at Sunnybank was razed. But the sunlight still shimmers on the banks of Pompton Lakes.

I am so grateful to two people for this month’s blog: Judith Gage and Steve Herring, who guided me to Steve’s warehouse, The Alcove, in Tarboro, NC, where I discovered Marion.

If you enjoyed learning about Marion/Mary, and are not yet a follower of this blog, please sign up on the right sidebar. You will receive the blog once a month via email.

As I sit in my writing office today, the heat of summer has finally broken, and I am doing my last ‘read through edit’ of my next to be published book. Here is the blurb to entice readers: In CHASING THE TIDES, two women separated by eighty years find refuge and strength at the same weathered beach cottage on the windswept Georgia coast. Bound by blood, bravery, and the tides, past and present collide at Comraich-by-the-Sea.

STAY TUNED!!

~ LINDA😊

CUT FROM STRONG CLOTH

           LAST CURTAIN CALL

COUNTING CROWS

B-52 DOWN

OPENING CLOSED DOORS

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