ANNE STARR: ~ABOUT HER~---document-links---pictures---related pages---site navigation
Anne Starr was a good friend of Alma’s. Her full name was Anna Morse Starr. She was born in Elyria, Ohio in 1867, and graduated from Oberlin College in 1906. It have been at Oberlin that Anna and Alma met. Like Alma, she was a botanist, getting an MA from Oberlin in 1907 and a PhD from the University of Chicago in 1911. She went on to work at Mount Holyoke College, like Alma.
Here's a mention of her by Alma in an early letter: 1905-08-07 LETTER FROM ALMA TO WILL
I came up here with Anne Starr who is going to be one of the Assistants [illegible] Botany in the College next year. She is very nice and we have had splendid times. We have a suite of two rooms which we sublet for a very modest sum from a student who was going away for the summer. They are very pleasant and in a good location - halfway between the University + Jackson Park and half way from the Midway which is now a grand Boulevard. We get our own breakfasts + lunches + take our dinners at the Men’s Commons - a pleasant as well as cheap arrangement.
From the letters I get the strong impression that the Stokeys considered her to be very much a member of the family, although she doesn't seem to have travelled with them for visits and holidays.
According to Anne's obituary, she did work at the MBL in Woods Hole before she got her Ph.D. - in other words, before she went to work at Mount Holyoke. Conceivably the MBL's connection to Mount Holyoke was one reason Alma ended up at Mount Holyoke.
I tried to find out more about Anne's family in Elyria, Ohio, but didn't get anything definite. I did, however, find out that there was a rather prominent citizen in Elyria named Horace C. Starr. The C stood for Clapp, so naturally I am wondering if Anne was related to Dr. Cornelia Clapp, one of the initial researchers at the MBL in 1888, and she ended up having a house in Woods Hole a few doors down from Alma's. So I wonder if the reason Anne knew about the MBL was because of a Clapp connection.
Anne died in early 1928, at the age of 60. Some illness befell her while she was travelling back to South Hadley from Seattle in the summer of 1927. She went to stay with her sister in Florida hoping to recover her health, but it didn't turn out that way. Alma was the administrator of her will. Among the letters from Alma on the Mount Holyoke website (which I haven't looked at as much as I should), there's one from 1930, when Alma was in India, which mentions Anne:
mtholyoke.com/dalbino/letters/text/alma09.html
There is one thing which I would like to ask - that is, if the little blue bowls which were Anne's could go to you. They are really good Chinese china and Anne was very fond of them. Miss Smith [who had recently died] wanted to buy them but when Mrs. Mallery found out that she wanted them she asked me to give them to her because Anne had been very fond of Miss Smith. I would like to see them go to one of Anne's friends as well as to some one Miss Smith loved; if Miss Smith had had them long enough for them to be thoroughly identified with her perhaps I would not feel that way. But it is not a really important matter.
So Alma was taking some care about Anne's estate.
Here's a mention of her by Alma in an early letter: 1905-08-07 LETTER FROM ALMA TO WILL
I came up here with Anne Starr who is going to be one of the Assistants [illegible] Botany in the College next year. She is very nice and we have had splendid times. We have a suite of two rooms which we sublet for a very modest sum from a student who was going away for the summer. They are very pleasant and in a good location - halfway between the University + Jackson Park and half way from the Midway which is now a grand Boulevard. We get our own breakfasts + lunches + take our dinners at the Men’s Commons - a pleasant as well as cheap arrangement.
From the letters I get the strong impression that the Stokeys considered her to be very much a member of the family, although she doesn't seem to have travelled with them for visits and holidays.
According to Anne's obituary, she did work at the MBL in Woods Hole before she got her Ph.D. - in other words, before she went to work at Mount Holyoke. Conceivably the MBL's connection to Mount Holyoke was one reason Alma ended up at Mount Holyoke.
I tried to find out more about Anne's family in Elyria, Ohio, but didn't get anything definite. I did, however, find out that there was a rather prominent citizen in Elyria named Horace C. Starr. The C stood for Clapp, so naturally I am wondering if Anne was related to Dr. Cornelia Clapp, one of the initial researchers at the MBL in 1888, and she ended up having a house in Woods Hole a few doors down from Alma's. So I wonder if the reason Anne knew about the MBL was because of a Clapp connection.
Anne died in early 1928, at the age of 60. Some illness befell her while she was travelling back to South Hadley from Seattle in the summer of 1927. She went to stay with her sister in Florida hoping to recover her health, but it didn't turn out that way. Alma was the administrator of her will. Among the letters from Alma on the Mount Holyoke website (which I haven't looked at as much as I should), there's one from 1930, when Alma was in India, which mentions Anne:
mtholyoke.com/dalbino/letters/text/alma09.html
There is one thing which I would like to ask - that is, if the little blue bowls which were Anne's could go to you. They are really good Chinese china and Anne was very fond of them. Miss Smith [who had recently died] wanted to buy them but when Mrs. Mallery found out that she wanted them she asked me to give them to her because Anne had been very fond of Miss Smith. I would like to see them go to one of Anne's friends as well as to some one Miss Smith loved; if Miss Smith had had them long enough for them to be thoroughly identified with her perhaps I would not feel that way. But it is not a really important matter.
So Alma was taking some care about Anne's estate.
ANNE STARR: about-her---~DOCUMENT LINKS~---pictures---related pages---site navigation
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ANNE STARR: about-her---document-links---~PICTURES~---related pages---site navigation
ANNE STARR: about-her---document-links--pictures---~RELATED PAGES~---site navigation
ANNE STARR: about-her---document-links---pictures---related pages---~SITE NAVIGATION~