Women of Nevada: Part III

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Mar 20, 2001

The third and last in a three-part series of articles honoring women in Nevada. In this article, we'll discuss women in art, literature and education.

Not long ago a woman's primary accepted function was to care for her family. If she did have interests outside the home, they were generally focused on church, community and her children's schools. As a consequence of this and the work of many women to expand their place in society, some women found themselves concentrating their efforts in fields relating to education, literature and writing.

Whether their focus was on creating and building library systems, pushing for better educational resources for women, or on managing the educational system on state and local levels, these women made an impact on the way our schools and libraries are set up today.

Often thanks to women citizens in Nevada, education is still a primary concern and is often the source of new legislative action in our government.

Beda Cornwall

Beda (Tabitha) Brennecke was born in South Dakota in 1907 to a German Evangelical Lutheran minister and his wife. She was educated at the Universities of Idaho and Denver, and majored in education and social services.

She taught school for a few years in Colorado before marrying Charles Cornwall in 1932. After moving to Las Vegas ten years later with their two children, Charles served as City Attorney for four years. During her first years in Nevada, Beda became involved in teaching, USO work and the Red Cross. She helped form the Citizen's Library Association and worked on fund raising efforts to build a city library.

The CLA used creative methods to raise the funds needed to build the library, and in the end raised enough money to represent $3.00 per person of the population of Las Vegas at that time. In addition to these funds, the City donated the building site and $30,000, and the new library was dedicated to the City in 1952.

Beda continued through the rest of her life working closely with the various library associations and served within several other social and community organizations promoting education and public safety.

Jean Ford

Imogene Young was born in Oklahoma in 1929 and spent her youth in Missouri. She and her husband and two daughters moved to Las Vegas in 1962, and Jean quickly fell in love with Nevada and all it had to offer. She set about learning everything she could through exploring the state's vast areas and cities, and found things she felt needed to be improved.

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