My husband's sister's husband's aunt, "Auntie," Ruth Rhoads Lepper Gardner, passed away on April 16, barely two months shy of her 106th birthday. A memorial service was held for her in the Southport Methodist Church on a rainy Saturday morning last weekend, and as I sat there, celebrating her life, my mind went to the other women I've known in my life who were born, as Auntie was, in 1905.
Were I an astrologer, I might know and not just suspect that there was something radical in the stars that year that created a cohort of amazing, unusual women. Not just smart, but bold, eager to break the molds they came out of, and independent, more than able to stand on their own. My mother was one of these. Born in October of that year, she earned her B.S. degree in Economics from Depauw University and went on to get her Masters in Marketing and Retail Management at Simmons University in Boston. While she was at Simmons, she might have met my husband's aunt, Eleanor, also a 1905 woman. John's mother, Martha, was born that year, as well; after graduating from Park College in Missouri, she went on to Radcliffe and got her Master's degree in, I think, Chemistry.
These women gave me a lot to look up to, much to admire and aspire to. Auntie's passing made me sad to think she was really the last of an era. But it also made me happy that I had had the chance to know her and so many other strong women of her era and learn from their spunky examples to embrace life and break molds.
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