In an era when women didn’t have the freedom to open a checking account or apply for credit, a group of dynamic women undertook an ambitious project: the removal of the 200-block of George Street, relocation of a major highway, and the reconstruction of North Carolina’s first permanent capitol, Tryon Palace. New Bern would not be the place it is without the visionary leadership of Minnette Chapman Duffy, Maude Moore Latham, Kate B. Reynolds, May Gordon Kellenberger, Ruth Coltrane Cannon, and Gertrude Sprague Carraway. Together, they worked tirelessly for the next 30 years to make the dream of a reconstructed Tryon Palace a reality.
Join the New Bern Historical Society for the Lunch & Learn program The Dreamers – The Doers! Five Women Who Moved a Neighborhood & Rebuilt a Palace on Wednesday, March 15 at 11:30 am at the Carolina Colours Pavilion, 3300 Waterscape Way. Prepaid reservations are required. Cost is $24 for Historical Society members and $27 for nonmembers. For reservations, go to newbernhistorical.org/tickets or call 252-638-8558.
Who better to tell this story than Tryon Palace Research Historian Lindy Cummings? A popular Lunch & Learn speaker, Lindy was born and raised in Northeast Indiana. She holds a BA in history from Indiana/Purdue University Fort Wayne, a Master of Arts from Miami University of Ohio, and has completed additional graduate work at the University of Maryland College Park. Prior to joining Tryon Palace in 2016, she worked for the William Homes McGuffey Museum, Oxford Ohio; the University of Maryland Department of Preservation; and the Lower Cape Fear Historical Society, Wilmington, North Carolina. Lindy lives with her husband and two daughters in New Bern’s Riverside Historic District.
Submitted by Kathy Morrison