Lewis-Clark State College is commemorating its 125th anniversary in 2018. This occasional feature highlights dates of interest in the school's history.
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Jan. 28, 1948: By many estimates, Aurelia Henry was the most famous faculty member ever to teach at Lewis-Clark State. One colleague described Henry as "the most vital person I ever knew."
Educated at the University of California, Henry accepted a position at the University of Idaho in 1901, but left to begin teaching at Lewiston State Normal School in 1903, eventually becoming the chairwoman of the English department while earning a doctorate at Yale. Her columns were a regular feature in the Lewiston Morning Tribune. She was a world traveler and captivated audiences with her lectures.
Students remembered her as "a marvelous teacher, with force and brilliance. She was handsome in a dramatic way, tall and slender, and wore dramatic, startling clothing." In one humorous anecdote, she had prepared a lavish dinner for friends and suddenly realized she had neglected to make potatoes. She dashed next door to a neighbor's home and appropriated a pot of spuds right off the stove, only saying that she "just had to have the potatoes."
She left Lewiston at the end of the 1908 school year to care for her ailing brother in Arizona and in December 1909 married Dr. George Reinhardt, the founder and director of health services at the University of California and president of the state board of health. He died of streptococcal infection contracted from a patient in June 1914.
In April 1916, she became the president of Mills College, in Oakland, Calif. With two small boys, she said that she "was the first college president who arrived on campus pushing a perambulator." Reinhardt stayed at Mills for 27 years. She was president of the American Association of University Women (1923-1927) and was the first female moderator of the American Unitarian Association (1940-1942). Reinhardt served as a delegate to the organizational meetings for the United Nations in 1945.
Her son Frederick was United States ambassador to Egypt, Italy, Yemen and South Vietnam.
She died on this day in 1948.
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Steven Branting is a former Lewiston School District educator and author of several local history books.
