Monday, June 3, 2024

Louisa May Greeley, Health Teacher ~ 52 Ancestors #23

Louisa May Greeley was born in December 1895, in Winnetka, Illinois, to Morris Larned Greeley and Anne Sophia Foote. She was half first cousin of my grandfather, Lowell Townsend Copeland.

She attended Wellesley College, graduating in 1918 with a BA degree from the "department of hygiene."

Wellesley College Yearbook, 1918, p. 115

The one other yearbook page that I find her on is the Running page. I have placed a blue star to identify who I believe is Louisa.

Wellesley College Yearbook, 1918, p. 172

After college, Louisa returned to her family's home in Winnetka, Illinois. Her occupation in the 1920 US Census was Physical Education Teacher. A December 1921 article in the Evanston Lake Shore News reported that she was "now in charge of physical training for girls at the Country Day school at Winnetka."

And sure enough, she is in the 1925 yearbook for the North Shore Country Day School as "L. M. Greeley, Coach" for Girls Field Hockey and Girls Basketball.


Louisa was listed as a teacher at North Shore Country Day every year through the 1928 school yearbook, after which she moved to Yonkers, New York, when in 1929, she received an advanced degree from New York University Graduate School of Education (reported in a June 1929 article in the Herald Statesman, Yonkers, New York). 

Louisa is in the US Census for 1930 and 1940 (both with occupation Teacher, Public School), and 1950 (Health teacher, city school) living at 7 Halcyon Place in Yonkers.

On January 24, 1957, the Herald Statesman reported that Louisa May Greeley was retiring on February 1 from her job as chairman of the health education department for girls at Morris High School in the Bronx. The article shared information about her career and her retirement plans.


This article named the school in which she taught, and here she is in the 1953 Morris High School Yearbook.

Louisa died in Palm Beach Florida on November 23, 1993, with a funeral held in Framingham, Massachusetts, on what would have been her 98th birthday, December 3, 1993. She is buried in Edgell Grove Cemetery, in Framingham.


Our common ancestor is Samuel Sewall Greeley:

Anne M. Larned = Samuel Sewall Greeley = Eliza May Wells
|                                            |
Morris L. Greeley                       Ethel May Greeley
|                                            |
Louisa May Greeley                   Lowell Townsend Copeland
|                                            |
.                                            My mother
|                                            |
.                                             Me

This week's theme is Health.

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