With March being Women’s History Month, we thought sharing the stories of some of the women from both Excelsior’s past and present would be of interest. After a short trip to the Excelsior Springs Museum and Archives, Director Kathy Duncan had filled our hands full of interesting information about women who were pioneers in their own way, leading the way forward for Excelsior Springs women to come. Here are just a few examples, with many others to be shared soon!
Norma Ann Bailey
Norma Ann Bailey was born February 18, 1919 in Clay County, Missouri, to Harry Clevenger and Beatrice Madge Grace. She died on May 5, 1990. On March 30, 1942, she married George Newton Bailey in Cheyenne, Laramie County, Wyoming. He died on October 13, 1989.
Norma was a member of the Order of the Eastern Star. Beta Sigma Phi social sorority and past president of its chapter in Excelsior Springs. She was a member of Woods Memorial Christian Church in Excelsior Springs.
She was installed as president of the Missouri Federation of B.P.W. Clubs at the 57th Annual Convention at Crown Center Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri. There were 846 members in attendance, representing 131 clubs in Missouri.
In 1973-74, Norma was elected recording secretary of the Missouri Federation at its 52nd annual convention at Stouffer’s Riverfront Inn, St. Louis. She had served as president of the local club and also as director of B.P.W. District II North. Norma was also chosen as an alternate for the convention of the National Federation of B.P.W. Clubs to be held in Miami. Following the opening session of the convention, the Excelsior Springs B.P.W. Club hosted a reception in Mrs. Bailey’s honor, which was attended by approximately 275 women. Mrs. Shirley Knutter, the local B.P.W. President, was in charge of arrangements.
While president, Norma was in Washington D.C. for a luncheon honoring the nation’s 42.1 million working women, co-sponsored by the National Federation of B.P.W.Clubs and Kelly Services.
While state president, she appointed two Excelsior Springs B.P.W. members to the State Board, Eleanor Griffith as Corresponding Secretary and Edna Swafford as editor of The Missouri Business Woman publication.
While District II-North Director, Bailey attended the State Convention and the National Convention at Atlantic City, where she represented Missouri in the National Speak off and received the third place trophy.
In 1981, Norma was a member of the National Foundation Sears Loan Committee and B.P.W./PAC. She was a generous supporter of B.P.W./PAC and National Foundation. In 1983, Bailey was reappointed to the political action committee chairmanship by the new federation president, Clara Mae Hovey of Nevada, Missouri.
Norma’s work history includes branch chief of the manpower management division of the Army Corps of Engineers in Kansas City from 1967 to 1978. From 1961 to 1966, she was an administrative officer assigned to the Site Activation Task Force on the Minuteman missile project at Francis E. Warren Air Force Base, Cheyenne, Wyoming, where she had worked since 1952. She was chief of the industrial engineering division of the Directorate of Civil Engineering at the air base from 1966 to 1967. She was a residential real estate salesman and broker for Century 21 from 1978 to 1982 and for ERA Realty eight years prior to her death in 1990.
She was a member of the National Missouri and Kansas real estate boards. She was a past member of the Women’s Advisory Council of the Army Corps of Engineers. She was past president of the auxiliary of the Francis E. Self post of the American Legion in Cheyenne and a member of its Excelsior Springs post. She was past president of the Federation of the Federettes Toastmasters Club, Kansas City.
Betty M. Thompson
Betty M. Thompson was born May 9, 1922 in Dwight, Butler County, Nebraska. She married Stuart Andrew Thompson January 31, 1949. in Jackson County, Missouri. He was born on December 23, 1923 and died on February 4, 1988 in Kansas City, Jackson County, Missouri.
Betty grew up in Superior, Nebraska and graduated from Superior High School. She attended Doane College in Crete, Nebraska (1940-1942) and received a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia (1944).
Her early work history included being in the publications department at lowa State Teacher’s College. Cedar Falls, Iowa, and editing “Panhandle Lines,” the employee magazine for Panhandle Eastern Pipeline Company, Kansas City, Missouri, for seven years.
After moving to Excelsior Springs in 1956, she was actively involved in the community including:
Reporter, photographer, and columnist for Excelsior Springs Standard
Reporter, photographer, and society editor for the Liberty Tribune
Excelsior Springs School Board – President (1978), Board member (1973-1979)
Liberty Public School District Foundation Board member (1995-1997)
Liberty Area Chamber of Commerce – Manager (1979-1994)
Excelsior Springs representative for Welcome Wagon (1997-1998)
Chapter CJ, P.E.O. Sisterhood, Excelsior Springs chapter
Coterie Club, Excelsior Springs – Member and past president Excelsior Springs Federated
Republican Women’s Club – Member and past president
Liberty Federated Republican Women’s Club – Member and past president Liberty Rotary Club
Liberty Sertoma Club
Liberty Soroptimist International Club
Clay County Republican Central Committee (1960-2007) – Member and past officer First
Bipartisan Clay County Charter Commission
First United Methodist Church in Excelsior Springs – Member and Sunday School teacher Delta
Delta Delta Sorority – Northland Chapter
Delta Delta Delta Sorority National Organization
Betty has received many honors over the years including:
Republican National Convention, Miami, Florida – Delegate from the 6th Congressional District of Missouri (1972)
Liberty Rotary Club – First Woman member Liberty Sertoma “Service to Mankind” Award (1985)
Delta Delta Delta Sorority – Circle Degree recognizing 50 years of membership (1994)
Clay County Republican Central Committee – Lifetime Achievement “Woman of the Year” Award (2005)
In 2007, Betty moved to Denver, Colorado, to be closer to her children.
Judge Janet Sutton
Judge Janet Sutton was appointed as circuit judge in 2013. She received both her B.A. in communication studies and her J.D. at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She acted as assistant prosecutor for Clay County from 1990 to 2003 and was the chief assistant prosecutor for the years 2000 to 2003. She was a municipal prosecutor and later a municipal judge for the City of Excelsior Springs, as well as legal counsel to the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, before becoming a judge.
Judge Sutton is a member of the Kansas City Bar Association, the Missouri Circuit Judges Association, the Association for Women Lawyers of Greater Kansas City, the Clay County Bar Association and the State Circuit Court Budget Committee (2011 to present).
She was retained as a judge in the elections for the years 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2014.
Activities:
Response Team member
Kansas City Metropolitan Bar
Synergy Services Community Children’s Advocacy Center.
Advisory Board member Association Clay County Bar Association
Circuit Judges Assn. Missouri Probate and Associate
Liberty Church of Christ Sunday school teacher 3rd grade
Missouri Municipal and Associate
Circuit Judges Assn.
Association of Women Lawyers of Kansas City
Employment: Clay County Associate Circuit Court, Division Seven
January 2003 to present
Clay County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney: 1999-2003
Assistant Prosecuting Attorney: 1990 to 1999 City of Excelsior Springs
Municipal Judge: January 2001 to 2003
City Prosecuting Attorney: May 1994 to January 2001
Legal Counsel: January 1993 to January 1999
Clay County Sheriff’s Department
Janet Lodwick Sutton is married to Tim Sutton and has one son.
Lois Lorene Duncan
Lois Lorene Duncan was born on February 23, 1919, in Kansas City, Kansas. She was the daughter of Otto Robert Jenkins and Mabel Garvin. She died July 17, 1981 in Kansas City, Jackson County. Missouri. She married Willard Wilson Duncan July 19. 1946 in Troy. Doniphan County, Kansas, son of Charley Allen and Stella May Duncan. He was born on February 13,1919. and died on March 30, 1996, in Excelsior Springs, Clay County, Missouri. Lois Jenkins began teaching dance at age 13 in Harrisonville, Missouri. She became a championship ballroom dancer and had been a dancing instructor for 48 years in Harrisonville, Kansas City, Wichita Falls, Texas, and Excelsior Springs.
Lois moved to Excelsior Springs in 1943 and on September 20 opened “Lois Dance Studio” at 116 East Broadway. She taught children and adults a variety of dance forms including jazz and ballet. One of her own favorites was the tango. Her daughter, Tanya, appeared in each of her mother’s dance recitals since birth, walking onto the stage for her dance debut at one year old. Lois and her students had been featured in many Excelsior Springs Standard articles written by Edna Swafford for over 25 years. Several of Lois’ students became professional dancers, including her own daughter, Tanya; Howard “Bud” Crabtree who performed in City Ballet in Toronto, Canada; and Brian McGinnis who performed with the Kansas City Ballet.
Lois Duncan died in the Hyatt Regency hotel disaster in Kansas City on July 17, 1981. An estimated 1,500-2,000 people were gathered at the Hyatt for a tea dance. At 7:05 PM, a four story high walkway in the hotel collapsed. Death toll on that day was 113. The disaster was considered the “worst in Kansas City history”.
A scholarship fund for young dancers was set up in her memory.
Ella Jean Flanders
Ella Jean Flanders was born on September 15, 1863, in Missouri. The daughter of Solomon Musser and Marian Pettit. She died on February 1, 1953 in Fishing River Twp, Ray County, Missouri (1 mile east of Excelsior Springs). She married Clyde Eastman Flanders, son of Amos Flanders and Sarah Noker. He was born in September 1863 in Illinois, and died October 10, 1918 in Excelsior Springs, Clay County, Missouri.
Ella Jean Flanders was educated in the schools at Cameron, Missouri. Her college training was obtained at the St. Joseph Female Institute, in St. Joseph, Missouri.
In 1904, C. E. Flanders purchased a dry goods store, previously known as C. C. Carter Dry Goods. Flanders’ Dry Goods eventually became the largest department store in Clay County, prior to the development of North Kansas City. Ella Jean Flanders conducted the business from the beginning. After her husband’s death in 1918, she continued the business until 1926. She was considered one of the most successful business women in Clay County at the time.
She was active with her son-in-law, Carl Hinn, in founding and developing the Eastwood Farms Brown Swiss Dairy Cattle herd.
When she was Grand Matron of the Order of the Eastern Star in Cameron, she granted a charter in 1901 to the Excelsior Springs Eastern Star Chapter.
She was active in many civic and political projects, including the following:
First woman director of the Chamber of Commerce
Founded the Clay County Democratic Club in 1922
Charter member of the P.E.O. Sisterhood and president the first two years
President of the Civic Improvement Association
Raised money and obtained a grant from the Carnegie Foundation for the first public library in Excelsior Springs
Chairman of the building fund for the St. Luke’s Episcopal Church
Matron of the Order of the Eastern Star in Missouri
President of the Masonic Home Advisory Board for 30 years
Member of the Democratic State Committee
Delegate at large to the Democratic National Convention at New York in 1924
Delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1940.
Chairman of the women’s committee for Governor Loyd Stark’s campaign in 1940
Member of the Speakers Bureau of the National Democratic Committee
Member of the Speakers Bureau of the 1928 Presidential campaign
Cathy Johnson
Cathy Johnson, sometimes known as “Kate”, has worked as a naturalist, writer, and freelance artist for the past 30 years, and was staff naturalist and contributing editor for Country Living magazine for 11 years. She is a contributing editor to the Artist’s Magazine and Watercolor Magic and has had a regular column in Personal Journaling magazine, where she wrote on a subject she feels passionately about — realizing the importance of creativity in our lives.
She has written and illustrated- her own work and that of others — for a number of national magazines, including Science Digest, Harrowsmith Country Life, Sports Afield, Country Journal, Muzzlelader, Women’s History, Early American Life, Sketchbook, Woodworker, Woman’s Day, Threads, Mother Earth News, National Wildlife Magazine, Sierra, and additional magazines. Her writing and artwork has been included in a number of nature anthologies and art books.
She has written and illustrated 31 books of her own, and contributed to a number of others, working with a variety of national publishing houses. Those include North Light/F&W, Time/Life, Random House, Scholastic, Globe Pequot Press, Gibbs-Smith Publisher, Tehabi, Van Nostrand Reinhold, Walker Publications, Prentice-Hall Press, Penguin, Sierra Club, Stackpole and others. In 1993, she founded her own small publishing company, Graphics/Fine Arts Press, which primarily offers books of interest to the reenacting community or others interested in history and material culture. She published The Journal of the Middle Waters Frontier for five years: it focused on primary documentation about the lives of our forebears.
Her paintings are included in a number of private and corporate collections, including Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, MO, F&W Publications/North Light Books.
Cincinnati, OH: Early American Life Magazine, Harrisburg, PA: The Kansas City Life Insurance Co., Kansas City, MO and Newcomers Funeral Home, Kansas City, MO. She is a longtime member of the Author’s Guild and the Costume Society of America, chosen Conservation Communicator of the Year by the Burroughs Audubon Society in 1987, and won the Thorpe Menn Award for Creative Writing (AAUW) for The Naturalist’s Cabin: Constructing the Dream (Viking Penguin) in 1992. A resident of Missouri all her life, she was born in Independence and has lived in the Excelsior Springs area since 1969.
Martha Foley Jarman
Martha Jarman was born October 19, 1927, in Daviess County, Missouri. She was the daughter of Edward W. Foley and Maria O’Toole. She died June 6, 1991, in Excelsior Springs, Clay County, Missouri. She married Lindall Keith Jarman, son of Andrew W. and Mary E. Jarman. He was born on November 25, 1921.
Martha Jarman was a friend of Excelsior Springs and of everyone in it. When she played bridge in “Two Table Bridge Club”, she was always upbeat and jovial. She loved our town and was passionate about helping to make it better. She gave her all to anything she did. She was an outstanding member of the Missouri General Assembly and was intensely interested in the Excelsior Springs School Board. Martha was very proud of her husband and three children. They came first in her life. Martha was a jewel of Excelsior Springs!
Martha Jarman was actively involved in politics and community affairs including the following:
Represented the 29th district in eastern part of Clay County and western part of Ray County Chairwoman of House Local Government Committee in 1987, for nine years
Excelsior Springs School Board from 1974-1980 and was a former president, Greater Kansas City Cooperative legislative coordinator
Business & Professional Women’s Club (B.P.W.)
Chapter CJ of P.E.O.
Friends of Arrow Rock, Missouri
National and Missouri Orders of Women Legislators
National Committee of State Legislators on Education
Ray and Clay County Women’s Democratic Club
A resolution was given to Jarman by the Missouri House of Representatives as “Kind, Caring, and Compassionate Woman”
Ann E. Morgan
Ann E. Morgan was born June 22, 1874, in Ray County, Missouri, the daughter of James Robert Morgan and Elizabeth Dickey. She died July 12, 1950, in Excelsior Springs, Ray County, Missouri at the John Lee residence, 4 miles east of Excelsior Springs. She never married.
Ann Morgan, a teacher for more than 50 years, spent 41 years in Excelsior Springs grade schools. She was well known, having taught three generations of children, and was said to have been one of the outstanding teachers in the state of Missouri. She was the principal of Wyman High School when it opened in 1912.
Miss Morgan received her education at Woodson Institute at Richmond, Missouri, Warrensburg State College, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and the University of Colorado at Boulder. She first taught in rural Clay County schools. Later she taught at Lawson and then came to Excelsior Springs, beginning at Isley School and finishing at Wyman.
Her father, James Morgan, was considered to be a pioneer resident of the community. He had been born in Ray County in 1842 and his father, Nathan, settled in Ray County by 1837.
Ann lived for part of her childhood with her grandparents, Nathan and Anna Morgan, on the Morgan family farm east of Excelsior Springs. Anna’s half-sister, Margaret, was also a school teacher and taught school for several years in Ray County.
Many thanks to the Excelsior Springs Museum and Archives for the content of this article.
Do you know a woman living in Excelsior Springs that deserves to be recognized for their good deeds?
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