Aging in America- Our Heritage of Wisdom
a series of thirty-six pencil drawings by artist jim branscum

 

I went to Westborough to meet the two sisters.  Eleanor's health prevented my meeting with her;   however,   Jean agreed to give me the information I needed for background research on their lives.  To list the accomplishments of either sister would take a book rather than a page or a single interview.  Because I was unable to meet directly with Eleanor,   I decided to focus my attention on the life of her sister's equally accomplished and compassionate life.

Jean Atherton Flexnor was born November 27, 1899,  in Louisville,  Kentucky.  Her father was an educator and her mother a dramatist.  They gave Jean and her sister a life of private schools in Cambridge,  MA,  Berlin,    Paris,  London and New York.   She received her Bachelor's Degree in 1922 and attended graduate studies at the London School of Economics then the Robert Brookings Graduate School of Economics and Government. 

The images in the photograph in the background of Jean's drawing was taken in 1927,  the year she and Paul Lewinson,   another student of economics at what is now known as the Brookings Institute,   were married.  Paul earned his Ph.D the same year.  Two years later,   Jean also earned her Ph.D in economics at Brookings.  Paul went on to become an assistant Professor at Swathmore.  Paul's career took him to the Library of Congress,  where he arranged the papers of President Howard Taft.  He later became the Deputy Examiner in the National Archives and retired from that position in 1960.  His chief published work,  Race, Class and Party-- A History of Negro Suffrage and White Politics in the South,  which took six years to write,   was published by Oxford University Press in 1932.

While Jean followed Paul's career and assisted him on some projects,  she achieved many accolades in her own career and life.  Jean became a research assistant at the Brookings Institute of Economics,   instructor,  Economics Department,  at Ohio State University.  After leaving Ohio State University,  Jean became an analyst at the Department of Labor where she worked for the first female cabinet member in U.S. history,  Secretary of Labor,  Frances Perkins  (1933 -45).  Jean work in various departments within the Department of Labor from 1932 until her 1961 retirement.  Both she and Paul were writers and were widely published by numerous prestigious universities and literary publications.  Paul translated operas from the original Italian and German manuscripts and wrote opera reviews for the New York Evening Post,  N.Y. Call and The Music Digest.  Their lives were centered around intellectual pursuits,  friends and their love for each other.

I have ask forgiveness of Jean for reducing the illustrious careers of both she and Paul to one paragraph for each.  I want to return to the story that originally caught my interest.  The aspect of the story that seemed so out of context was the fact that the sisters,  both residents of long term care,  would establish a substantial education fund to assist inner city youths in achieving a higher education.  I was intrigued by the generosity and concern the demonstrated by this gift of knowledge to those less fortunate.

Jean's interest in the struggle for survival in the working poor began during her days with the labor department.   She worked with this segment of society seeking ways to improve the lot of children and women during the depression.  She helped develop labor laws to protect both.   A poem in her 115 page autobiography caught my eye.  It explained how a lady of letters and refinement never separated her life from those less fortunate.  Among the "favorite poems" copied during her late teens was Louis Untermeyer's Prayer containing the following: 

                                                                    Open my eyes to visions girt
                                                                    With beauty and wonders lit-- 
                                                                    But let me always see the dirt 
                                                                    And all that spawn and die in it,  

                                                                    Open my ears to music, let 
                                                                    Me thrill with springs first flute and drums--
                                                                    But never let me dare forget
                                                                    The bitter ballad of the slums.

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