Category: 1910-1929 (Born)
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Marie Foster Whigham
1923-2006 Marie Whigam helped her husband Charles Whigham to found Citi National Bank (1973) and Whigham Funeral Home. Mayor Sharpe James called her “the queen of our city”, saying “she was a role model for young and old”. Marie also founded the Women’s League, which raised money for scholarships and was active in the Boys…
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Amealia Steward
1915-2001 Amealia Steward owned Steward’s Restaurant and later redesigned Peppermint Lounge. She was a self-made millionaire. “She was our queen in the city said Mayor James, “She had wealth, beauty and fame.” Steward’s Restaurant first opened in 1949 on Prince Street and later moved to Avon Ave. Black Mirror News wrote, “When most people become…
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Ella Wright Moncur
1919-1999 Ella Moncur was born in Newark, lived in NYC in 1930. She was the wife of jazz artist and owned the Theatrical Beauty Salon in Newark, and also a salon called Monte’s Powder Puff. Ella later retired to Florida and taught there, her going away party featured in New York Age. She also was…
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Eugenia “Jeanne/Jean” (Byrd) Dawkins
c. 1926-1978 Eugenia Dawkins owned the Key Club, one of Newark’s most famous jazz clubs, with her husband. She ran the club after her husband died In 1976 she was named Newark’s Woman of the Year and received a Key to the City. In 1977, she organized the “Newark Salutes Jazz” festival. Eugenia was a…
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Jennie Caputo
1918-1996 Jennie Caputo was a gymnast who competed in the 1936 Olympics with the first US women’s gymnastic team. She won the all-around 1st prize in Olympic tryouts. She said of the Olympics, “Everything was grand, the ship, the people…everything! I didn’t have any trouble during the competition….Would I like to go back for the…
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Sally Carroll
1922-2019 Sally Carroll was one of the first Black policewomen in Newark along with Rhoda Daniels and Eleanor M. Stokes in 1949 . She was the first Black woman detective with the Essex County Sherriff’s Office. She was active with the Batons. After entering the police in 1949, she took the Civil Service promotional exams…
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Mildred Preen
1918 – 1979 Mildred Preen, graduate of West Side High in Newark was the first woman to graduate in Electrical Engineering at Newark College of Engineering, was an Assemblywoman (the first woman to do so in Hunterdon County), private pilot, and served with the WAVES in WWII. Mildred graduated Newark College of Engineering in 1938.…
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Gladys Barker Grauer
1923-2019 Gladys Grauer was a Newark artist called “Newark’s matriarch of the arts”, who launched the Aard Studio Gallery in Newark in 1971, on Bergen Street. She also was a commercial art teacher in the Vo-Tech schools for 15 years. Her work has been displayed locally and nationally. Gladys also ran for office with the…