The Women in My Family, for Women's History Month

Women's History Month is drawing to a close and I realized that I haven't written a post about the women in my family. I thought I'd honor some of my known foremothers by writing just one thing about each. Of the women in the collage below I knew personally only my mother and her mother, the two on the top left.

Left to right, top row then bottom row:
Audrey Meinzen Doyle, Emma Bickerstaff Meinzen, Mary Thompson Bickerstaff, Elizabeth Armitage Meinzen,
Beulah Gerner Doyle, Elvira Bartley Gerner, Tressa Froman Doyle, Elizabeth Laws Doyle
Audrey Meinzen Doyle, my mother, was probably the first woman in her family to receive a post-secondary degree. She became a nurse.

Emma Bickerstaff Meinzen, my maternal grandmother, had a four-leaf clover patch in her back yard. What luck!

Mary Thompson Bickerstaff, my maternal great-grandmother, worried that her husband wouldn't love her when she grew old.

Elizabeth Armitage Meinzen, my mother's paternal grandmother, immigrated to the U.S. in 1864 and was the mother of 15 children.

Beulah Gerner Doyle, my paternal grandmother, was a milliner before she married.

Elvira Bartley Gerner, my father's maternal grandmother, acted as a midwife and harnessed and drove her own rubber-tired buggy.

Tressa Froman Doyle, my father's paternal grandmother, made and gave my father a beautiful Double Wedding Ring quilt.

Other female ancestors include Elizabeth Laws Doyle, Catherine Saylor Froman, Elizabeth Stahl Gerner, Rebecca Smith Bartley, Eliza Hartley Armitage, Emma Nelson Bickerstaff, Lydia Bell Thompson, Martha Ray Doyle, Elizabeth Thompson Laws, Susannah Holmes Bickerstaff, Mary Richardson Thompson, and Lydia Fithen Bell.

Knowing these ladies lived means the world to me. I look forward to learning more about them.

--Nancy.

Copyright © 2015 Nancy Messier. All Rights Reserved.