Hildegard E. Peplau (September 1, 1909 – March 17, 1999) was an American nurse and the first published nursing theorist since Florence Nightingale. She created the middle-range nursing theory of interpersonal relations, which helped to revolutionize the scholarly work of nurses. As a primary contributor to mental health law reform, she led the way towards humane treatment of patients with behavior and personality disorders.
Ellen Beatriz Griffin Dunne (January 28, 1932 – January 9, 1997) was an American activist. After the death of her daughter, Dominique Dunne, Dunne founded Justice for Homicide Victims. In 1989, she was recognized for her advocacy work by President George H. W. Bush.
Frances L. Janssen [Big Red, or Little Red] (January 25, 1926 – November 27, 2008) was an American pitcher who played from 1948 through 1952 in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Listed at 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m) and weighing over 155 lb, she batted and threw right-handed.
She was a well-traveled pitcher during her five-year career in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. She moved constantly from one city to another because the league office shifted players to help teams stay competitive. Janssen was also cut twice from the league, but she kept playing for seven different teams for different periods of time and different stays.
Born in Remington, Indiana, Frances was the daughter of Fred and Anna (née Petersen) Janssen, who emigrated from Germany in the mid-1910s and settled in the farmlands of Indiana. She had a brother, Paul, and four sisters, Betty, Tinie, Wilma, and Anna. Almost six feet tall, Frances played basketball and organized softball while attending Gilboa High School. She later received an associate degree in business from South Bend IUPUI and attended the International Business College of Fort Wayne. She graduated in 1944 and immediately went to work in an office. [3]
By this time, several girls from her local softball team had been scouted and signed by the league. Frances gave it a tryout in 1946, but she did not make the grade. She then insisted again in 1948 and was accepted. After spring training, she was assigned to the South Bend Blue Sox for a couple of days before being sent to the Grand Rapids Chicks. She went 4–4 with a 3.98 earned run average in 11 games and was released after one month of action. I got released because I couldn't throw a curveball, she recalled in an interview. [1] But Janssen did not give up and accepted a demotion to the Chicago Colleens/Springfield Sallies rookie touring teams to work things out. The Colleens and the Sallies had lost their franchises after their poor performances the previous year. Both teams played exhibition games against each other as they traveled primarily through the South and East, traveling through 20 states and playing in 46 cities. We traveled more than 10,000 miles in 1949 from Illinois to Texas, across the Gulf States, and up to New Jersey and Pennsylvania, she later explained in an interview with Jim Sargent for the Society for American Baseball Research. We played in minor league parks in Tulsa and Baltimore, as well as in city parks, and we drew good crowds.
In two of those games, she was asked to switch to the Sallies and serve as playing manager as well as chaperone. She handled both jobs well while also leading her Colleens team in pitching. By the way, she came along fine and hurled two one-hitter shutouts against Springfield at Oklahoma and South Carolina ballparks. She finished the tour with a 16–6 record in 23 pitching appearances. Nevertheless, since the league counted the whole tour as exhibition games, no official statistics were kept.
Janssen was promoted to the Peoria Redwings in 1950 and ended up pitching for the Fort Wayne Daisies in the postseason. She went 3-3 with a 3.87 ERA in 19 games for Peoria and Fort Wayne and pitched 12 innings of shutout ball without a decision in three playoff games, even though the Daisies lost to the Rockford Peaches in the best-of-seven final round.
She opened the 1951 season with Fort Wayne and returned to Peoria early in the year, which made her feel like the end of the world, according to her own words. Then she was sent to the Kalamazoo Lassies during the midseason and finished the year with the Battle Creek Belles. Through her lengthy and arduous journey, Janssen posted a career-best 26 games pitched, only six behind Belles teammate Migdalia Pérez, while also setting career-highs in ERA (2.67), innings pitched (145), and strikeouts (43). She had a very good season overall, although this was not reflected in her 6–10 losing record. [1]
Janssen spent the entire 1952 season with Battle Creek and was used in relief duties, a seldom-used role in the league. She appeared in only five games, going 0-1 with a 5.00 ERA in 18 innings of work. [1]
Following her baseball days, Janssen played center for the South Bend Rockettes women's basketball team and volleyball with the South Bend Turners for more than a decade. She helped the Rockettes win five national championships and won a national champion title with the Turners. She was also an insurance representative for Laven Insurance Company in South Bend for 25 years and retired in 1991. [4]
Elizabeth Wason (March 6, 1912 – February 13, 2001) was an American writer and broadcast journalist; a pioneer, with such others as Mary Marvin Breckinridge and Sigrid Schultz, of female journalism in the United States. She worked for and with Edward R. Murrow during World War II, although despite her significant contributions she, along with a handful of other journalists closely associated with Murrow, were rarely recognized in the famed group of war correspondents known as the Murrow Boys. She also wrote numerous books on food and cooking from the 1940s through 1981.
Elaine Roth [E] (January 17, 1929 – May 25, 2007) was a female pitcher and outfielder who played from 1948 through 1954 in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. She batted and threw right-handed.A native of Michigan City, Indiana, Elaine Roth joined the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League with her twin sister Eilaine in 1948, and they played together for three seasons as the dynamic duo (E and I).Roth spent her career as a pitcher, playing for the Peoria Redwings for two years, before joining the South Bend Blue Sox (1950) and Kalamazoo Lassies (1951–1954). A spot starter and dependable reliever, she posted a career record of 45–69 and was a member of the Champion Team during what turned out to be the league's final 1954 season.In the first round of the playoffs, fourth-place Kalamazoo surprised second-place South Bend in three games. Pitcher Gloria Cordes hurled and lost the opener, but Nancy Warren and Roth won games two and three, respectively. In the final series, the inspired Lassies defeated the favored Fort Wayne Daisies in five games. Roth was a key contributor in Game 2, pitching 8⅔ innings of relief.Roth died in Springfield, Michigan, at the age of 78.
Carolyn Wood Sherif (1922–1982) was an American social psychologist who helped to develop social judgment theory and contributed pioneering research in the areas of the self-system, group conflict, cooperation, and gender identity. She also assumed a leading role in psychology both nationally as well as internationally. In addition to performing seminal social psychology research, Wood Sherif devoted herself to teaching her students and was recognized for her efforts with an American Psychological Association award named in her honor that is presented annually.
Taylor Drysdale (January 14, 1914 – February 9, 1997) was an American competition swimmer and swimming coach. Drysdale represented the United States at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. He competed in the men's 100-meter backstroke, and finished fourth in the event final with a time of 1:09.4.Drysdale attended the University of Michigan, where he was a member of the Michigan Wolverines swimming and diving team in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) competition from 1932 to 1935. During his college swimming career, he won three individual NCAA national championships in the 150-yard backstroke (1932, 1934, 1935), and was also a member of Michigan's NCAA-winning teams in the 300-yard medley relay (1932, 1935) and 400-yard freestyle relay (1935).He later earned master's degrees in nuclear physics and mathematics from the University of Michigan, joined the U.S. military, worked on the Manhattan Project, and retired from the U.S. Air Force as a colonel. He was also the manager of the 1956 U.S. Olympic swim team.Drysdale was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an "Honor Pioneer Swimmer" in 1994. He died in 1997; he was 83 years old.
Bonnie Lu Nettles (née Trousdale; August 29, 1927 – June 19, 1985), later known as Ti, was co-founder and co-leader with Marshall Applewhite of the Heaven's Gate new religious movement. Nettles died of melanoma metastatic to the liver in 1985 in Dallas, Texas, twelve years before the group's mass suicide in March 1997.
Dorothea Towles Church (born Dorthy Mae Towles; July 26, 1922 – July 7, 2006) was the first successful black fashion model in Paris.
Emma Beatrice Tenayuca (December 21, 1916 – July 23, 1999) was an American labor leader, union organizer, civil rights activist, and educator. She is best known for her work organizing Mexican workers in Texas during the 1930s, particularly for leading the 1938 San Antonio pecan shellers strike. She was also known for her involvement with the U.S. Communist Party to advocate for Mexicans and Mexican Americans.