Looking back in Lewisboro: Edith Lawrence Black Bailey

Suffragist, poet, dramatist – A lady for her times

Edith Lawrence Black Bailey was a writer, poet, dramatist, and early supporter of women’s suffrage. PHOTO COURTESY OF MAUREEN KOEHL

By MAUREEN KOEHL

“From the four winds come, O Spirit, and breathe into those slain that they may come to life ... and the Spirit came into them, they came alive and stood upright a vast army” (Ezekiel 37:9-10). From these words of Ezekiel came the name of the country home of Dr. Pearce Bailey and his talented wife, Edith Lawrence Black Bailey. Their circa 1900 home, built on a peaceful hilltop plateau above the village of Cross River, became, in time, a respected hospital for children, teens and adults in need of mental health treatment. At first a summer home, by 1910, Four Winds was the permanent residence of Pearce, Edith, and their four young children. 

Maybe with the construction and upheaval of recent weeks and travel being slower through Cross River, more notice has been given to the stone seating area at the intersection of Routes 35 and 121 across from Fifth Division Market. Originally a pausing place for travelers and a watering trough for horses, this roadside respite was built as a memorial to a remarkable woman. 

As is often the case, in searching for information on one topic, something else of interest sticks its nose up itching to be scratched.That something, or someone, in this case, was Edith Bailey. Much easier to find is information on her husband, a noted physician and alienist (psychiatrist in modern parlance), who served in World War I and developed many of the psychological tests used by the military important for “the efficiency and morale of the army through the elimination of the mentally unstable and unfit”. 

Bailey was a writer, poet, dramatist, and early supporter of women’s suffrage. She was the mother of four young children, and in addition, a sufferer of diabetes, a disease that in 1910 had a diagnosis of death. Through this all, she took a very active part in the suffrage movement, marching in an early New York City parade, giving stirring speeches at Carnegie Hall, and hosting at least one suffrage gathering at her Cross River home. She believed the only way to change a person’s view on women’s suffrage was to convince them when they were young. Rebuking a religious argument, Bailey declared the pope an “old bachelor.”

This fascinating woman came alive through her words reported in the North Westchester Times, a Katonah-based newspaper from the early 1900s, from which the following excerpts have been taken. 

Jan. 21, 1910. Bailey showed an early interest in the women’s suffrage movement and observed it firsthand during a trip to England. She sent her thoughts to the local newspaper. Speaking of the ardent English activists, she wrote, “They hold meetings in large and small halls and on street corners almost daily. Their sandwich women parade the streets. Can we no longer avoid this issue? Is not a question of women’s suffrage a moral one? Once sow the seed of moral responsibility, and there will be no rest for womanhood till the question is threshed out.”

Oct. 7, 1910. Bailey spoke of the difficulty of convincing the immigrant women with whom she had worked in the tenements of New York City of the value of the suffrage movement. “Where women of today show numbness of interest in public affairs or a shrinking of public duties, it is rather through long centuries of ignorance and harem-like seclusion rather than from natural inability.” 

Nov. 4, 1910. Bailey addressed a suffrage gathering at Carnegie Hall that included her childhood friend, Sen. George Agnew, who strongly opposed the suffrage movement as did most of the legislators in Albany in 1910. “Over 3000 years ago, there was a celebrated promoter who prepared a set of rules for the conduct of the world in which there was very little said about women. If there had been a Mrs. Moses on hand at the time perhaps things would have been arranged differently. Let us have an eleventh commandment, gentlemen, give the women a fair deal.” 

Dec. 1, 1911. The North Westchester Times reporter described Bailey’s introduction of an English suffragette who had served time in an English prison for her activism to a gathering in Bedford in the following words: “Mrs. Pearce Bailey is always happy in her choice of words and has a sense of humor which pleasantly relieves the more serious part of her message.”

Feb. 9, 1912. During the spring of 1912, the newspaper serialized a humorous work by Bailey, titled “Portia Politics.” The poem was originally published in The Woman Voter, a journal produced by Carrie Clinto Lane Chapman Catt, the leader of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Too long to quote here, I would strongly recommend the reader of this column to access the Katonah Village Library’s homepage, search their research dropdown and open the archives of the North Westchester Times with the search words “Edith Bailey” and the year “1912,” for starters. Bailey’s humor is worth sharing. It is hard to believe that seven months later, Bailey died, succumbing to diabetes.

Sept. 13, 1912. Her obituary stated: “Mrs. Pearce Bailey died peacefully after a lingering illness at her home near Cross River on Sat. Sept. 7. Her funeral service was read by Rev. Dr. Luquer … in the flower decked court of the house ‘Four Winds.’” A great many friends assembled from far and near to do honor to her memory. The burial was in the little village graveyard. “Small of body and with no great power of voice, it was given her to hold the largest public gathering by a spell of impish wit and a sense of humor that was at once fine and broad … a stirring satirist of the cause,” said one written account.

A memorial fountain for Bailey was placed at the intersection of Routes 35 and 121 in Cross River by Pearce Bailey. It reads: “Spirits of Water, Earth, and Sky, All gather here, Where once dwelt one who like the spring, Was sparkling, sweet, and clear. When you have a moment, stop and listen for her spirit.”

Her grave, and those of her husband and daughter, can be viewed atop the hillside of the Reynolds Cemetery, less than a mile from her beloved home. 

Maureen Koehl is the Lewisboro town historian.

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