Celebrating the notable women of Mount Kisco

MOUNT KISCO, N.Y. - Folks recently gathered in droves to reflect on and praise the contributions that women – past and present – have made to Mount Kisco, and beyond.

Hosted by the local historical society on March 23 at the library, the Women’s History Month event and exhibition was part of the village’s ongoing Sesquicentennial, aka 150th anniversary, celebration.

The list of female notables was long … and could have been much, much longer.

 Squeezed into the hour and a half program were sixteen trailblazers from times gone by and 25 who continue to make a difference in the community.

Amazing Women of the Past

Amazing women of the past, the categories they fell under, and their presenters, were:

·  Mayor Betty Potter, Mayor Patricia Fox Reilly. (Politics, presented by Jean Farber):

·  Dr. Hildegard Friede-Gablinger, Dr. Ruth Geissinger-Robertson, and Jane Stewart. (Health, Joan Stewart):

·  Deborah Clark-Hardy, Suzanne Grant, and Beth Mannion. (Volunteers, Patricia Lee).

·  Beatrice Hoffman and Julia Jefferson. (Volunteers, Ralph Vigliotti).

·  Lillian Greneker, Martia Leonard, and Juliane Biro. (Artists, Jessica Colón)

·  Laura Flewellyn, Agnes Meyer, Lila Wallace, and Emily Wood. (Environment and social justice, John Rhodes).

Awesome Women of the Present

Jill Becker, Renée Robin Buergler, Judith Chinitz, Linda Cindrich, Beth Vetare-Civitello, Jessica Colón, Jean Farber, JoAnne Hochstein, Roberta A. Horowitz, Linda Picaro Mann, Eva Talley Marshall, Linda McCartney, Lisa Mitchell, Shirley Cheatham Mosley, Ruth Moy, Karine Patiño, Shirley Porter, Patricia Rosafort, Dolores Vidal-Roy, JoAnn Scherer, Karen Schleimer, Joan Fox Stewart, Nicole Sturomski, Dar Williams, and Cece Yozzo.

To watch a video of the event, visit the Village of Mount Kisco's Facebook page, posted on March 27.

“Each of them made Mount Kisco the place it is today,” said the society’s president, Ralph Vigliotti, of the honorees before introducing the first speakers: Mayor J. Michael Cindrich, Assemblyman Chris Burdick, and County Legislator Erika Pierce.

Both Cindrich and Burdick spoke lovingly and admiringly of their own personal sheros, their mothers.

The mayor’s graduated from nursing school – No. 1 in her class. She had aspirations to be a doctor, but back in the 1940s, women’s opportunities and roles in the medical field were significantly limited compared to their male counterparts.

“The scholarships went to men, the accolades went to men, and women didn’t get that acknowledgement,” Cindrich said.

After raising her kids, his feisty Irish mom went back to college, earned two degrees, and became an ICU specialist.

One day when she had her nose in the chemistry books, Cindrich asked her why she hadn’t become a doctor.

She responded simply: “That’s the way it was in those days.”

Cindrich found it “very sad that brilliant people were discriminated against.”

He pointed out that Mount Kisco has had three female mayors (so far): Betty Potter, Pat Reilly, and Gina Picinich not to mention that -- at one recent point -- the entire Village Board was made up of women.

Cindrich also noted that White Plains, the county seat, has never had a female mayor and Westchester itself -- although it’s had plenty of female legislators -- has yet to elect a woman as county executive like its neighbor, Putnam. (MaryEllen Odell was Putnam’s first, holding the position from 2011 to 2017.)

“So, as we go along, we correct the errors we made. The people we are recognizing today all contributed to this village and I for one am proud to have served the village for as many years as I have and I hope that we see future mayors in Mount Kisco that are women,” he said to applause and cheers.

“Let me finish on that note; I’m going to be here for as long as I can,” Cindrich added with a smile.

Burdick said it was his mother, Mary, who inspired him to go into public service.

While raising him and his two brothers in Fair Lawn, N.J., she worked as a librarian, was active in the League of Women Voters, and had served on the local Board of Education.

In 1987, the Democrat was recruited to run for the town council. She won and served through 1995 when she was 80, having been selected as mayor three times.

No one would doubt that Mary possessed the political chops to go on to higher office.

When Burdick asked his 90-something mother why she hadn’t, her answer sounded familiar: “It just wasn’t like that then.”

“She would tell a great story about the time she was first elected to the Board of Education. She was the only woman at the time. At a work session, the president turned to her and said: ‘Mary, could you serve the coffee?’ She replied: ‘I’d be happy to … and I’ll do it the next time round when it’s my turn.”

“She pushed back …in her way … and did it without offending,” he added.

Burdick’s 93rd Assembly District has hosted the Women of Distinction Award ceremony since 2022.

He repeated what he’s said often during those events: “Like the women of the past, only too often, the women of today are doing so quietly, without looking for acclaim, without looking for a pat on the back, but rather because they want to give back to the community.”

Pierce gamely tackled the massive task of tracing Westchester women’s contributions from the very earliest residents to the present day’s.

Her theme: conservation, agriculture, and gardening.

Going back 7,000 years, indigenous women were agriculturists “doing amazing work.”

“While men traveled to hunt, fish or fight, it was the women who tended the crops in addition to all their other responsibilities. They were ahead of women elsewhere in the world. They held real positions of leadership,” she said.

Things weren’t any easier for the first female European settlers, especially the married ones.

The winters were cold, the soil rocky, and in other ways – especially legally, their lives were precarious.

That’s because they were treated largely as the possession of their husband’s and father’s. In practice, “women owned nothing,” Pierce said.

Naturally, life was far, far worse for enslaved and Native American women.

Fast forward to the Revolutionary War.

“Some women followed their men off to battle. Others joined outright to sew for the troops. Some even hid their sex so they could join the men on the field in battle, including Deborah Sampson, who was shot in a battle in Tarrytown,” she said.

It was hard for the women who stayed behind too. They ran the farms and had to deal with raids on their crops and livestock. Houses and fields were burned. Homes were requisitioned for military headquarters and field hospitals.

In 1776, records showed 10 women owned their own farms.

During WWI, the U.S. was struggling to keep agriculture going.

Enter Dr. Ida Ogilvie, early 20th-century professor of geology who became involved in the Women’s Land Army of America during WWI.

The WLAA was organized to fill the labor shortage with “farmerettes,” who supported the war effort by cultivating and harvesting crops.

She and her partner, Delia West Marple, established the Bedford Women’s Agricultural Camp at Marple’s family farm.

It was such a success that similar programs sprouted up in 25 states. This eventually led to more than 20,000 female agricultural workers taking the place of the men who were off fighting in Europe, Pierce said.

With the help of Eloise Luquer, a botanist and conservationist, Marple went on to raise funds to build the Trailside Museum at the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation, hire its first naturalist, and establish its trails.

The pair started the Bedford Garden Club, one of the first such organizations in the country.

That bought Pierce’s talk to the present with North Salem’s Annie Farrell, a master farmer and sustainability guru who was among the first to grow and market specialty crops and livestock.

She has consulted for private and noteworthy farms, including Martha Stewart’s in Katonah. Farrell also worked with the Rockefellers to develop the master plan for Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills and spent a decade developing The Farm at Cabbage Hill in Mount Kisco.