Sunday, March 10, 2002
Lillian Jamison was the only female member of the Mercer Chamber of Commerce and later became its president.
By MARALINE KUBIK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
MERCER, Pa. -- If there were ever a time when a woman was supposed to know her place, Lillian Stowe Jamison didn't acknowledge it.
She was a single mom who managed her own affairs, owned her own business and became president of the chamber of commerce in a time when most women obeyed their husbands and stayed in the kitchen.
"She was the first woman to own a bicycle and used it to travel around Mercer County," recalled her granddaughter, Alice Miglets, who resides in Westerville, Ohio. "Grandma trained as a nurse, and in those days a lot of times they didn't do nursing in a hospital; they had cases and they'd go to the homes of their patients," Miglets explained. Her grandmother did that until she married Preston J. Jamison Nov. 27, 1905.
Like most women of her day, Jamison quit her job once she married. She kept busy helping her husband operate a photography studio above a men's store on Courthouse Square. The couple lived above the studio at 1061/2 N. Pitt St.
Working side by side with her husband, Lillian learned to operate the camera, develop film and make prints. Four years into their marriage, she gave birth to her only child, a daughter, Margurite. Less than two years later, her husband was dead, the result of a ruptured appendix.
Kept up business: To keep a roof over their heads and food on the table, Lillian kept her husband's business going.
She remarried Sept. 1, 1915. Her second husband, Frederick W. Knippel, was a physician from the Cleveland area who had come to Pennsylvania to practice. Unlike the first time she married, Lillian chose to continue working, a decision that proved invaluable, her granddaughter said.
By 1919, her husband had gone off to serve in World War I, and her youngest brother, whose wife had been committed to an asylum, and his five young children moved in with her and her daughter. Lillian became a second mother to her nieces and nephews, helping to rear and provide for them, all the while continuing to build her business.
She was a charter executive board member, and only female member, of the Mercer Chamber of Commerce in 1922. Later, her granddaughter noted, Lillian became chamber president.
Not surprising: Although that may have been very unusual at the time, Miglets said it wasn't surprising because "Lillian was a well-known businesswoman; she knew everyone in and around Mercer, and she'd been there for years. Grandma took all the pictures in the area for all those years -- weddings, babies, children, pets, business pictures for ads, car accidents, graduates, even occasional pictures for the coroner."
Although business was good, things were not going well with Jamison and her husband. "I don't know if he never came back after the war or what happened. No one ever talked about it," Miglets said, "but she divorced him July 15, 1926."
During the Depression, Lillian's photography business slowed to a trickle. "I have a diary she kept most of 1933, and it mentions one week when she took in only 13 cents cash," Miglets said. "I have a cookie jar she told me a lady from down in the country gave her for some pictures she couldn't pay for. She also told me many times she took food in payment during that time."
Lillian retired in 1945 after selling her business. "But after a year she got bored. So, she went to McAllen, Texas," Miglets said. Her cousin and his wife had a photo studio there and she went to work. At the time, Lillian was in her 60s.
Because many of her Texas customers spoke Spanish, Miglets said, her grandmother signed up for Spanish lessons so she could better negotiate business transactions. After 10 years, Lillian returned to the area and moved in with her daughter in Youngstown, where she followed local politics and sandlot baseball, gardened, read, played cards and was active in her church.
Didn't drive: "The only thing she never learned to do was drive, which surprises me because she was so independent," Miglets said. "I enjoyed her stories of the old days and always looked up to her and all that she'd done."
Lillian died Oct. 9, 1974.
kubik@vindy.com