As we saw in my last post, only two women out of seventeen in the Norwalk High School Class of 1907 went on to a degree-producing college, Florence Davidson and Harriott Wickham.

Florence Davidson attended Oberlin College beginning in the fall of 1907, just after graduation, and studied there for at least two years. [1] Her story is an interesting one, and frustrating. As we’ll see when I get around to publishing her biography, she was adopted after her father died by her mother’s new husband, Charles Davidson. [2] By 1909, the Davidson family moved to Massillon, Ohio, [3] and by 1910 were living in San Bernardino, California, where her adoptive father was a machinist in a railroad roundhouse, and Florence was a music teacher. [4] Then, she disappears. I cannot find any record of her at all after the 1910 Census.

All of this raises more questions than answers. How did Charles Davidson afford to send Florence to college on a machinist’s pay? Because Florence was a music teacher in California, I assume that she studied music at Oberlin, but have not found proof of that. I like to imagine that she had a part in the beginning of the movie industry in California and changed her name. But that is only a fantasy. Her life is a mystery I would love to solve.

Harriott Wickham studied one additional year at Norwalk High School and then taught in a one-room school in Peru Township, just outside of town. Not long after the end of the 1908-1909 school year, she received startling news, Her uncle, oil magnate and philanthropist Louis Severance (brother-in-law of Harriott’s grandfather, David Benedict), had decided to pay her way at Wooster College. It was a dream come true. Years later, she wrote about her school experience:

That fall [1909] I entered Wooster College – and spent 4 “school years” there – very good years! – that prepared me for teaching in high schools of S. Dakota & Wyoming – the years that made a “westerner” of me, & years in Deer Creek Canyon, with Angus & the children. [5]

And that’s all the women in the class who went on to college: two out of seventeen female students in the Class of 1907. Three other women attended a technical school after graduation: Lillian Smith went to a teaching school in Toledo and Chicago. [6] Florence Bascom attended nursing training at a hospital in Lakewood, Ohio. [7] Irene Bragdon went to a “normal school” for teachers in Ypsilani, Michigan. [8] Lillian and Florence married soon after completing their schooling. Irene Bragdon never married, and had a career teaching in Minneapolis.

Higher education was beyond the reach of most women graduates of the Norwalk High School Class of 1907. That was not the case for the men of the class, however. In my next post, we’ll see where they went to college, and how that opportunity shaped their lives.

Footnotes:

[1] The only evidence I have that Florence attended Oberlin are from short newspaper accounts reporting that she returned to Norwalk for a visit from attending school there. For example: “Personal Mention,” Norwalk Daily Reflector, May 9, 1908, page 3, column 5.

[2] Cuyahoga County Archive; Cleveland, Ohio; Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Marriage Records, 1810-1973; Volume: Vol 56; Page: 109; Year Range: 1903 May – Oct.

[3] U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. Massillon, Ohio, City Directory, 1909.

[4] U.S. Census: 1910: San Bernardino Ward 3, San Bernardino, California; Roll: T624_94; Page: 3A; Enumeration District: 0120; FHL microfilm: 1374107.

[5] The story of Harriott Wickham’s education at Wooster College are mostly from her diaries, 1908 to 1914.

[6] “Personal Mention,” Norwalk Daily Reflector, January 6, 1908, page 3, column 5 and “Personal Items,” Norwalk Evening Herald, August 14, 1911, page 4, column 4.

[7] US Census 1910; Cleveland Ward 10, Cuyahoga, Ohio; Roll: T624 1169; Page: 1B; Enumeration District: 0175; FHL microfilm: 1375182

[8] “Deaths and Funerals: Irene Bragdon,” Norwalk Reflector Herald, November 17, 1944, page 8, column 4.

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