Alfreda Locke Irwin

  Thompson, B. Delores.  "Remembering Alfreda" Jamestown (NY) Post-Journal, 24 March 2001.
        The Post-Journal website:  http://post-journal.com/

Remembering Alfreda

AAUW selects former historian as Circle of Distinction honoree

     By B. Dolores Thompson

They called her Alfreda, not Mrs. Irwin. She is remembered as a one of a kind woman by her family, friends and colleagues.
   The Jamestown Branch of the American Association of University Women has selected Alfreda Locke Irwin as its 20th Circle of Distinction honoree. Alfreda was the recipient of many honors and accolades throughout her long and illustrious life. She was a person to whom the term "lady" applied and to whom the term "Chautauqua" applied as well, according to Dr. Daniel F. Bratton. Robert Plyer has characterized her as "a good, good woman."
   The Circle of Distinction was initiated in 1982 by city of Jamestown Historian B. Dolores Thompson as AAUW's celebration of Women's History Month. The Circle recognizes local women's accomplishments and contributions to our cultural heritage. The long list of women includes educators, physicians, civic leaders, attorneys, aviators, suffrage advocates, pioneer women and underground railroad activists. Most of the honorees have crossed over into several categories of recognition.
   Alfreda was born in Dunkirk on March 16, 1913, the daughter of Methodist minister Rev. Alfred C. and Nellie Hess Locke. She graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1933, with a degree in English and journalism, and continued as an English graduate assistant in 1934. She married attorney Forest B. Irwin on Oct. 12, 1935, and settled in Franklin, Pa., to raise their family of one son and five daughters.
   Her career as a writer and journalist began during these years. She was a staff writer for the Franklin New-Herald and authored a column, "Spring Back Lightly" under the pen name Wilda Mayer. The column recounted the adventures of a family of six active, growing children. She hosted "Aunt Mae's Story Hour" from 1959 to 1963 on WFRA Radio on Saturday mornings. She wrote some of the stories for the half-hour children's program and read many stories by other authors to a live audience with a simultaneous broadcast. She appeared as a guest story teller on "Dimple Depot" on WQED-TV in Pittsburgh and she also visited many schools and children's groups as a story teller. She had an uncanny ability to bring any story to life for children of all ages.  

Alfreda came to Chautauqua first as a child with her parents. Her 41-year professional association with the institution started soon after 1955, when the family began spending their summers at Chautauqua. She was quickly drawn into the historical and journalism life of the institution. She became a reporter for the Chautauqua Daily in 1958, assistant editor in 1959, and editor in 1966. Retiring from the post in 1981, she was named editor emeritus and Chautauqua's official historian, a post she held until 1999. Upon retirement she was named historian emeritus and honored by the renaming of the Chautauqua Archives to the Alfreda Locke Irwin Archives. As editor of the Daily, she introduced daily new photos, coverage of the total program, articles by guest columnists, the question-and-answer format and the intern/apprentice system. She also wrote most of the editorials.

Local archivist Karen Livsey, who is currently cataloging Alfreda's extensive archival material, states that she had correspondence with a "whole network of people" with all kinds of connections to Chautauqua. What comes through loud and clear in the letters is her abiding "interest in and love for people, and especially her love for Chautauqua." Dr. Ross Mackenzie corroborates that love, stating that Chautauqua was "her first great love apart from her family."
   As an historian, Alfreda authored Three Taps of the Gavel in 1970, with a second edition published in 1977 and a third edition in 1987, titled Three Taps of the Gavel : Pledge to the Future. Taps is considered the standard, modern introduction to Chautauqua.

   Alfreda also authored or edited a number of other histories about different groups and organizations on the Institution's grounds, such as the opera company, the symphony orchestra and the women's club. She also wrote the Chautauqua Institution chapter for the 1980 update of Chautauqua County History. According to Dr. Mackenzie, she produced an "incredible volume of work which interprets Chautauqua's history in a remarkable way." As her successor, he hopes to build on that and to advance the work she did.
   June Miller-Spann, former librarian at the Chautauqua Library, affirms Alfreda's sincere interest in people and her unique ability to make interconnections between individuals and their communities, and, then especially, Chautauqua. She maintains that Alfreda was "enthralled with documenting the past for the future." The two women shared a deep passion for history and preservation and worked together on projects that resulted in "significant achievements in escalating awareness of Chautauqua's history." In 1998, they traveled to Albany to receive a New York state award for excellence with an historical records program. Ms. Miller-Spann states that Alfreda "lives on through the discipline she adored; every contribution we make to Chautauqua's history is a tribute to her."
   Dr. Daniel F. Bratton, retired president of Chautauqua, declares that Alfreda was very important to him personally. She introduced him to Chautauqua and throughout his tenure as president, she constantly affirmed his work by connecting his thoughts and observations with his predecessors and other important people in the Institution's history. He states that she had a "great knack for finding anecdotes, writings, speeches" which she would send to him to help him better understand Chautauqua, its people, and its history."
   In 1983, Alfreda founded the "Chautauqua Network," a network of surviving independent Chautauquans and other groups tied to the original Chautauqua Movement, which was based on the concept of self-improvement and life-long learning through independent reading, the basis of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. She served as network director from 1983 to 1999, edited the Chautauqua Network News, and traveled extensively, representing Chautauqua at many network conferences.

The May 2000 edition of the News contained five pages of tributes to Alfreda from Chautauquans all over the country.
   A gifted and prolific writer, she authored many articles for religious publications and other journals and newspapers. She also wrote many church plays, and one of her works, Stone Against the Heart, published in 1983, is part of the U. S. Library of Congress holdings.
   She was an inspiration and unwitting mentor to other aspiring and established writers. Janette Martin has written, "I admired

 the way she could turn a phrase, I liked her simple and direct sentence structure." She "took a lesson in ´less is more` from Writer Irwin." At least two reporters who worked for Alfreda on the Daily have gone on to top careers in journalism. Nancy Gibbs is an editor with Time magazine and writes feature articles for the publication. Clinton Wilder is with a computer technology magazine. Undoubtedly, there are others who honed their skills under Alfreda's quiet and expert guidance. Robert Plyer wrote that "(S)he rarely changed words in a piece of writing submitted to her," as she "understood that a good writer doesn't just put words together, he chooses a feast of specific words which create a perfect (for him) expression of an idea." Plyer also points out that although Alfreda could not pay her writers very much, she "also treated people as though they had value and their ideas had merit." She always made it clear that "she understood the quality of the work... and respected the thought and effort involved."
    Alfreda was a member of many historical agencies and writers groups and the Lakewood United Methodist Church. She had been an active member of the Venango County Republican committee and Women's Club.  

Alfreda is one of two people in Chautauqua's history to twice receive the Chautauqua "Salute" (a literal sea of people in the Amphitheater, all waving a white handkerchief - a fantastic sight), in 1978 at Old First Night and again in 1999.
   At that time Dr. Bratton also presented her with the Chautauqua Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the Institution. 
   The medal, designed in 1974, had not been presented since 1985. For that award ceremony, she wore her great-grandmother's cape - her great grandfather, Dr. James Galagher, was the family's first Chautauquan.
    In 1994, 20 of her friends and colleagues at the Institution nominated Alfreda for the "Wall of Fame" at the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, N. Y. 
  

 A plaque in her honor will hang there as long as the hall exists, attesting to her outstanding accomplishments and to the love and esteem in which she is held by literally countless people.  This quiet, modest, genuine, kind, gentle lady was a rabid baseball fan. Her favorite team was the Chicago Cubs. Her daughter, Maggie of New York City, shared that baseball enthusiasm, though not necessarily the Cubs enthusiasm. However, she dutifully accompanied her mother twice to Florida and once to Arizona to the Cubs Spring Training Camps. Dr. Bratton, in his eulogy at Alfreda's funeral, stated her passion and devotion to the Cubs was her only character flaw. (He was not a Cubs fan, either.) Her

favorite player, however, was Lou Boudreau, who is associated with the Cleveland Indians and the Boston Red Sox. At some point, Maggie came across an autographed photo, purchased it, and gave it to her mother for Mother's Day. Alfreda looked at the photo and asked "Who is this?" Boudreau played in the days prior to television coverage of baseball and Alfreda had never seen him and did not recognize him. She had come to appreciate his abilities solely through radio broadcasts.

   Alfreda Locke Irwin died Jan. 22, 2000. In addition to her six children, she is survived by 11 grandchildren, five great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild. Her husband, Forest, preceded her in death on March 15, 1989.
   Robert Plyer wrote two weeks after her death, "I have not the slightest doubt that by now she has revamped Heaven's histories, and knows what Noah wore on the day the Ark came to rest and what other observers thought of it." He was also sure she is busy "raising funds to better showcase that information and to make it available to anyone who might need to know it."
   An unpretentious and unassuming lady, Alfreda was never too busy to greet anyone who appeared at her door with her wonderfully warm and welcoming smile.
   This writer has experienced that welcome. Everyone was treated as though they were the most important person in the world, and to Alfreda, they were.
   She was passionate about Chautauqua, its history, and the preservation of the archival materials which document that history. She was eager to see that the archives' substantial beginnings continue to grow, hoping more people will contribute memorabilia which illustrate Chautauqua's history.
   She created a "charitable lead trust" to benefit the archives and the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, stating, "I revere its past, but I believe in Chautauqua's future."
   Chautauqua/people/history/author - all are terms which personify Alfreda Locke Irwin and which are interchangeable with her name.
   The Jamestown branch AAUW adds its own "salute" to this very remarkable lady and proudly welcomes her to the Circle of Distinction.

Editor's Note

By Brigetta Overcash
Saturday/Family Editor

   She was one of a kind. That's what people say about her with the added comment, "I miss her."
   Alfreda Locke Irwin was a woman who marched to her own beat. She respected her time on earth and used it wisely. She left behind a trail of historically preserved life - especially that in Chautauqua Institution. 
   She was a young woman when she first became smitten with the Institution through visits there with her grandparents. As she left her position as Historian of Chautauqua and was given the Chautauqua Medal, the Institution's highest honor - perhaps the "salute" ranks one step above because of its intangible essence - Alfreda wrapped herself in her grandmother's black cape. Not so much as for the chill of the evening, perhaps, but for the multigenerational threads of love for Chautauqua its cloth contained.
   Alfreda's spirit and need for the practical use of her talents brought for her ingenuity. As a journalism major she was driven to express life a she saw it through her pen, which is well known to many in this area through her publications about Chautauqua. But in earlier times, when it wouldn't be socially acceptable for her to be known as a working woman while a wife and mother, she hid her sense of expression behind pseudonyms.
   That tells much about her. It was the accomplishment that was important to her, not the compensations or recognition. It's probably why you see her smiling so broadly at the podium on Page S-1 when the residents of the Institution gave her a spontaneous Chautauqua "salute" upon her retirement as editor of their daily newspaper. Their silent waving handkerchiefs were the thunderous applause that would fill the soul of someone like "our Alfreda."
   It is the same gratitude and recognition by one's peers that makes Alfreda and Mary Ann Pappalardo, Jamestown's newest Woman of the Year, the same kind of people. They don't look for the praise, just the satisfaction of a job well done and a community well served. 
   While these women are shining examples they are only two among a sea of good people who live in our region. That fact is what makes our communities so unique in a country that seems to spin ever faster looking for the quality of life we have right here. Sometimes you have to go away to appreciate it.
   Our young come back to the area - in spite of the employment compromises some have to make - to live here. Yes, you hear it time and again. It's the quality of life that they love and respect.
   That is a good thing. Let's all work hard to keep it that way.
   Now, that's a history Alfreda would like us to preserve.
[Pamphlet File]

10/31/2003

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