"You can use my name as long as you do a great job,” longtime local volunteer Elizabeth Zepf is said to have told admirers years ago when they asked if they could name a community mental health center for her.
Members of the Lucas County mental health board and the board of the newly established center agreed to the deal, and apparently have lived up to it. Since 1974, the Elizabeth A. Zepf Community Mental Health Center, 6605 West Central Ave., has been serving the severe and persistently mentally ill.
Mrs. Zepf, who is in her 90s and living in Toledo, was prominent at the local, state, and national level of the March of Dimes, a member of the mental health board, and active in more than a dozen other organizations. The Zepf Center is one of numerous places in northwest Ohio that are named for women..
At least one person believes there should be many more such places.
“Maybe they're not as obvious as men, but there are a lot of women who have made major contributions to the community and have not been recognized,” said Ann Hurley, chairwoman of the Women Alive! Coalition and a reference librarian in the local history and genealogy department at the Main Library.
But she noted that many of those women haven't worked in fields from which names usually have been plucked, such as high government office.Most of the places that are named locally after women are related to the fields of education, social service, and health - the “invisible career fields,” says Barbara Floyd, University of Toledo archivist.
Even an exception - Ella P. Stewart, the first African-American woman pharmacist - was hailed not for her business acumen but for her work in human rights, she pointed out.
Toledo has a rich history of strong women.
“Toledo was a hotbed of the women's suffrage movement,” Ms. Floyd said. “A lot of those women are perhaps lost to history because their contributions have been forgotten.”
Today, “one of the areas that is striking is our prominence in the political field,” she said, citing U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, State Sen. Linda Furney, Lucas County Commission President Sandy Isenberg, and State Reps. Teresa Fedor, Jeanine Perry, and Edna Brown. “That's an amazing success for women in this area.”
Many of the area's prominent women have been profiled in a series of books written by the women's history committee of the Women Alive! Coalition. Volume I of In Search of Our Past: Women of Northwest Ohio was published in 1987; Volume VIII is in the works.
“We are a treasure trove of women's history. We don't ever see these volumes ending,” said Susan Coburn, editor. She is the manager of the humanities department at the Main Library, and predicts that in the future women's names will be seen increasingly on government, professional, and technical buildings.
Here are just some of the places in the area named for women, with information on what inspired the honors:
Mildred Bayer (1908-1990) “was always helping somebody,” a classmate from the St. Vincent School of Nursing recalled in Volume III of In Search Of Our Past: Women of Northwest Ohio. From Mrs. Bayer's concern for others came medical clinics for migrant workers in Lucas County, Mobile Meals of Toledo, and mobile medical clinics in Nigeria. The Toledo clinic provides dental, vision, and primary health care to the homeless.
The center was founded in 1978 and in 1980 was named in honor of Catharine Eberly (1922-1979), who served on the UT board of trustees from 1974 until her death in an automobile accident. Its services include career counseling, support groups, and leadership training for students and community women.
Every St. Patrick's Day, staffers at Fassett Middle School in Oregon put a green balloon on the office portrait of Josephine Fassett, born March 17, 1884. The school's namesake was appointed supervisor of schools in Oregon and Jerusalem townships in 1914 and later, when the districts were consolidated, was superintendent of Oregon schools until she retired in 1954. Miss Fassett died in 1975. The school has just over 500 students in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades.
The University of Toledo had a library collection of about 8,100 volumes when Mary Gillham (then Mary Mewborn) joined the staff in 1921. When she retired in 1969, it had grown to 600,000. Gillham Hall, now used for classrooms and faculty offices, was the first free-standing library building at UT. Designed by Mrs. Gillham herself, it opened in August, 1953.
Aurora Gonzalez (1924-1991) was the first Hispanic woman elected to the Ohio Hall of Fame. The neighborhood outreach center named for the activist hosted two presidents last year: George Bush and Mexico's Vicente Fox. It provides a food pantry, clothing locker, youth athletic and job-readiness programs, and family counseling.
A nearby stretch of South Avenue between Broadway and the Anthony Wayne Trail honors Aurora's sister, Ruth Gonzalez Garcia.
Eleanor M. Konieczka Kahle (1916-1995) was an advocate for seniors who was elected to Toledo City Council in 1987, 1989, 1991, and 1993. Until 1993 she was director of the West Toledo Senior Citizen Center, which was named for her after her death. The center offers a variety of programs and activities - from computer classes to line dancing, bingo to flu shots.
Lott Industries, Inc.
Hers is a familiar name to area residents, since two organizations have honored Josina Jones Lott (1898-1973), an educator and advocate for children with mental and physical disabilities.
Lott Industries, chartered in 1955, serves Lucas County residents with mental retardation and other developmental disabilities through sheltered workshops and a vocational training center.
Josina Lott Residential & Community Services, a separate entity, also serves adults with mental retardation and other developmental disabilities. It includes group homes and life-skills training programs for people living independently.
Cordelia Martin (1915-1999) was devoted to providing health care to Toledo's poor. The center is one of 10 sites (including the Mildred Bayer Clinic for the Homeless) administered by the Neighborhood Health Association. Primarily serving low to moderate income, uninsured and underinsured people, the center includes doctors' offices, dental care, a lab, pharmacy, the federal WIC program, and social service education and referrals.
Anna C. Mott (1835-1902) was a founder of the Toledo Woman Suffrage Association in 1869 and in 1884 was one of the founding officers of the Toledo Humane Society. The Mott Library opened in 1918. Originally 6,000 square feet, it now is almost 14,000 square feet. Circulation has increased 45 percent over the past five years.
Sofia Quintero (1948-1994), active in politics and public affairs, was the first Hispanic president of the Toledo board of education. The mission of the nonprofit organization is public education about Latino heritage through the arts and events such as the Day of the Dead celebration, when Latinos remember loved ones who have passed away.
The school was named in 1961 for Ella Nora Phillips Stewart (1891-1987), civil rights crusader and Toledo's first African-American woman pharmacist. She and her husband, William, were the first African-Americans to own and operate a drugstore in Toledo. The school has 340 students in first through sixth grades, and a museum honoring Mrs. Stewart with items such as dolls from her collection, medicine bottles from her pharmacy, and a shirt signed by President John F. Kennedy.
Dedicated in 1941 as the Harriet Whitney Vocational High School for Girls, the building is named for Harriet Whitney (1814-1903), Toledo's first woman school teacher. The building was closed as a high school in 1991 and now houses Toledo Public Schools' Adult Education Center and the Center For Change.
Based there is the Adult Basic Literacy Program/GED and one of 22 local class sites, plus other services for adults such as vocational programs. There's also a night school for youths in day classes who need to make up credits and a program for at-risk students
First Published March 17, 2002, 3:52 p.m.
