Category: Business & Entrepreneur
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Carolyn Whigham
1949- Carolyn Whigham owns and runs Whigham Funeral Home and is known for skill in organizing funerals including for celebrity clients. She became director of Whigham Funeral Home in 1986 and has run over 6000 funerals including for Houston family and Congressman Donald Payne. She also hosted How to Conduct High Profile Funerals” seminars across New…
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Pamela E. Goldstein
1946- Pamela Goldstein worked in public relations for the City of Newark from at least 1976-2004, serving as Communications Director under Mayor James from 1986-2004. Pamela grew up in West Orange and attended West Orange High , graduating in 1964. She graduated with a Bachelor’s in Journalism from Boston University School of Public Information. Pamela…
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Barbara Bell Coleman
1949- Barbara Bell Coleman is President of BBC Associates and a board member of the merged MCJ Amelior Foundation, Schumann Fund for New Jersey and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. She is co-founder and trustee emeritus of the Branch Brook Park Alliance, which she helped found in 1999. Barbara has served as CEO / Executive…
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Mariazinha (Maria) Coutinho
c. 1946- Maria Coutunho was born in Portugal and settled in Newark in the 1960s. In the early 1970s, her and her husband established Coutinho’s Bakery, which spread to multiple storefronts in Newark and Harrison. A 1995 profile stated she supervised every cake before it left Newark and sat down with every client. The bakery…
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Queen Elizabeth Bryant James
1924-1998 Known as “Queenie”, Queen James helped get Democrats elected, including Ken Gibson, Earl Harris, and Tom Giblin. Queenie worked for the Gibson administration for 16 years, and served as a Democratic County Committe leader, in the South Ward for 25 years. She was also: Vice Chairwoman of the South Ward Democratic Organization, Vice Chairwoman…
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Ella Van Steenburgh
c. 1871 – 1958 Ella Van Steenburgh was a registered nurse, who ran a successful Nurse’s Home and registry business for over 40 years. In 1906, Ella graduated from Newark City Hospital School of Nursing: Class Photo here from Newark Library. She began working a hospital nurse, however, in 1908 she acquired spinal meningitis and…
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Ruth C. Battles Dickerson
1867-1939 Ruth Battles was an early Black graduate of Newark High School, in 1891. In 1894 and 1895 she is listed as running a Select School in Newark at 187 Commerce. Ruth married Rev. Charles Dickerson in 1895 but in 1901 sued him for desertion. He had to pay her $4 a week (later revised…
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Debra Holmes
1953- Holmes was one of the first women in NJ to graduate as a Journeyman, Machinist, Tool & Die Maker / Mechanical Engineer. She worked at Westinghouse and then Anhueser-Busch in Newark, where she was the only female Machinist and Mechanical Tech Planner in the history of the company. Holmes worked at Anhueser-Busch for 32…