Born in 1897 in Charleston, Missouri, Geneva Drinkwater died just three months shy of her 100th birthday. If there was one word to describe the focus of her life, it would have been education. In fact, she once said that she gave her life to learning and teaching . . . and she shared that passion with thousands of students during her career in academia.
In Missouri, she attended Stephens College (Missouri) and then the University of Missouri, where she earned her undergraduate degree. She later went on to earn both her Master’s degree and PhD from the University of Chicago. After completing her education, she had an interesting career! She began teaching at Stephens College in Missouri and then received a fellowship from the University of Chicago through which she spent two years in Italy, first at the Vatican School of Paleography and later at a Benedictine monastery where she translated archival documents from the original Latin.
Her teaching career took her to many other colleges: Carleton College (Minnesota), the University of
North Carolina at Greensboro, Vassar College (New York), Scripps College (California), and Rollins College. After retiring from Rollins, a Fulbright Grant led her to the University of Madras (India). Following that, she was a Visiting Lecturer at both Sweet Briar College (Virginia), and St. Andrews College (North Carolina).
During her years in Winter Park, Ms. Drinkwater was an active member of several organizations: Board of Trustees for the Winter Park Public Library, the Friends of the Library, the Adult Literacy League, the Council for Continuing Education for Women, Church Women United, the United Nations Association, the Vassar College club, and Stephens College Alumni.
In her later years, her beloved Winter Park offered her an entire world . . . Rollins College, the First United Methodist Church, and the Winter Park Public Library . . . they were all only blocks from her home.
Oral History: An interview with Geneva Drinkwater
(Click here to listen)
About Eleanor Roosevelt:
Drinkwater: “The City of Winter Park celebrated its one-hundredth birthday in 1982. And a very nice part of that celebration was the publication of a booklet called Tales of Winter Park. One of the talks was told by Mr. Robert Langford, the owner of the Langford Hotel. He spoke of distinguished guests who had stayed at the hotel, among them, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt. And I should like to add a postscript to what he says about her visit.”
“Mrs. Roosevelt was in Winter Park in February, 1956. She came at the invitation of the United Nations Association, and spoke at a dinner in her honor at the Langford Hotel.”
About President Franklin Roosevelt and wife Eleanor:
Drinkwater: “It was a great occasion, and a very happy time for me. I had lived in Dutchess County, New York, during ten years of the Roosevelt administration. The family came home to vote at Hyde Park, of course, and on Election Eve there was sometimes a political rally in front of the Nelson House, the big old hotel in Poughkeepsie. I remember that the president had to lean heavily on the arm of his son, James, because he carried those heavy braces on his legs. But as soon as he spoke you forgot all that. That wonderful voice. It became familiar to people around the world, and renewed our hope in a troubled time. “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
“The last time I saw President Roosevelt was in October, 1944 – a beautiful fall day. He had had a long drive in the lovely Hudson River country which was home. He stopped in front of the post office in Poughkeepsie, which had been built in his administration, and of the fieldstone of Dutchess County, as he wanted it to be. He sat in an open-air car, his cape around his shoulders (He loved that old cape!). He was relaxed and happy, but he looked so tired and old. And in a few months, he was gone. He died April, 1945.”
“Mrs. Roosevelt, of course, was everywhere, and we were delighted to welcome her to Winter Park. Well, some of us were. This was not what you would call Roosevelt country. Or United Nations country, as Mr. Langford points out.”
Finally, some last comments on Eleanor Roosevelt:
Drinkwater: “The last time I saw Mrs. Roosevelt was in Washington, at some kind of United Nations meeting, actually. I blew her a kiss over the heads of the crowd around her, and she returned it with a smile before she stepped into the elevator.”
“Here is Mr. Langford’s appraisal of Mrs. Roosevelt: He said, “She was a very powerful woman, a very fine one. She was very gracious, and very smart.”
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