Mary Corinne Quintrell
Mary Corinne Quintrell (January 8, 1839 – July 18, 1918) was an English-born American educator and clubwoman, based in Cleveland, Ohio.
Early life and education[edit]
Mary Corinne Quintrell was born at St Austell, Cornwall, the daughter of Thomas Quintrell and Emma Brewer Quintrell. She moved to the United States with her parents as a child, and grew up in Cleveland. She was the first girl to graduate from Cleveland Central High School, in 1857.[1] Among her schoolmates were Mark Hanna and John D. Rockefeller.[2]
Career[edit]
Mary Quintrell taught at Cleveland Central High School for more than a quarter century, and trained fellow teachers in her method of reading education. Quintrell developed an early phonics-based approach to literacy, including a chart she devised. She also supported Bible reading in public schools. She ran for the Cleveland School Council in 1895.[3] One local historian wrote of her work, "Cleveland has had no nobler, more generous and effective citizen than Miss Mary Corinne Quintrell."[4]
Quintrell was further involved in community literacy projects, especially at Lakeside Hospital, where she was a longtime volunteer, leading singing and providing books and magazines for patients. She was a founder and charter member of the Cleveland Sorosis Society (organized 1891), and a longtime member of the city's Novelist Club. In 1893, she represented the Science Club of Cleveland at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.[4] Quintrell "strongly favor[ed] woman suffrage" and wrote poetry for local publications.[2]
Personal life[edit]
Mary Corinne Quintrell lived in a large home on fashionable Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, as a "bachelor woman" who enjoyed painting seascapes [5] and doing needlework.[6] She died in 1918, aged 59 years, and her remains were buried at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland.[1]
References[edit]
- ^ a b "Mary Corinne Quintrell" in The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History (Case Western Reserve University, 1997).
- ^ a b John William Leonard, Woman's Who's Who of America (American Commonwealth Publishing 1914): 668.
- ^ "Women in Schools: Their Increasing Prominence in Local Matters" Harrisburg Telegraph (June 17, 1895): 3. via Newspapers.com
- ^ a b "Miss Mary Corinne Quintrell" in Elroy McKendree Avery, A History of Cleveland and Its Environs: The Heart of New Connecticut (Vol. II: Biography) (Lewis Publishing Company 1918): 242-243.
- ^ Mary Sayre Haverstock, et al., eds. Artists in Ohio, 1787-1900: A Biographical Dictionary (Kent State University Press 2000): 701. ISBN 9780873386166
- ^ "Keeps Her Kitchen Cozy: Original Idea of a Cleveland Bachelor Woman as to a Den" Saint Paul Globe (May 31, 1897): 12. via Newspapers.com
