The Board of Directors for the Greater Grand Rapids Women's History Council combined their December business meeting with a social celebration of the holidays at the home of one of the members.  

At the meeting, we reflected back on events and projects of 2015.  We thank all of you supporters of women's history in this community for coming out to the events.  Many of you came to the annual reception in March at the Women's City Club when we celebrated the two Grand Rapids scientists, Grace Eldering and  Pearl Kendrick, and their work on the whooping cough vaccine.

This fall we noticed many of our members attended the viewing of the  GVSU  documentary film, A Team of Their Own, and again at the prohibition presentation at the Public Museum, Spirited Women: Grand Rapids and the Push for Temperance.  And finally, we were overwhelmed by your enthusiastic response to our invitation to a private showing of The Suffragette movie, augmented with remarks by Dr. Gretchen Galbraith followed by a question and answer session. It was a great night.    Thank you!

Looking ahead, save these dates in 2016 

Saturday, January 23:  History Detectives, at the Grand Rapids Public Library, Main.  GGRWHC made arrangements for the 9:30 presentation in this day-long event, Kindergarten and "Radical" Women in 1890s Grand Rapids, with Scott Bultman

Thursday, February 11: Teaming up with the Grand Rapids Historical Society, we are presenting Community Builders: Early African American Women in Grand Rapids at the John F. Donnelly Conference Center at Aquinas College, 157 Woodward Lane SE, with Yvonne Sims, Grand Rapids Study Club, along with Jo Ellyn Clarey. 

Tuesday, March 1:

A Grand Rapids Women's History Sampler featuring a woman cartoonist, the Berkey and Gay girls and other women in the furniture industry, with three members of the Public Library's Local History staff, Drew Damron, Heather Edwards, and Julie Tabberer, at the Grand Rapids Public Library, Main. 

Wednesday, March 30:  Our annual reception  at the Women's City Club.  Deirdre Toeller-Novak will present five firsts, examples of women in elective politics in Grand Rapids history, culminating with the recent election of our first woman mayor, Rosalynn Bliss.