Women’s History Month: Women of Summit Metro Parks
Stephanie Walton, Chief of Marketing & Communications and Lindsay Smith, Manager of Marketing & Public Relations, with contributions from Becca Zak, Interpretive Naturalist and Megan Shaeffer, Cultural Resource Coordinator
Summit Metro Parks would not be the park district it is today without the vision, generosity and foresight of the larger-than-life figures who have helped shape it. Many of those groundbreaking contributions came from women who were ahead of their time — and through their actions, helped forge the path for the women who now follow in their footsteps. Today, we share the tales of just a few of the women who are woven into Summit Metro Parks history.
Gertrude Penfield Seiberling (1866–1946)
Married to Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company founder and early SMP board member Frank A. Seiberling, Gertrude Seiberling was a true patron of the arts and cultural affairs in Akron. Her family’s land became much of what is today Sand Run Metro Park, including the F.A. Seiberling Nature Realm property. Seiberling enjoyed the outdoors, spending hours in her gardens at Stan Hywet and founding the Akron Garden Club in 1924. She was also active in the Peace Society and Ohio Women’s Suffrage Association.
An accomplished opera singer, Seiberling performed at the White House in 1910 for President Taft, and she served as president of the National Federation of Music Clubs from 1919 to 1921. Over the course of her life, she traveled more than 25,000 miles and visited 21 states promoting musical enrichment and appreciation.
Maude I. Watters Milar (1868–1946)
Maude I. Watters Milar served on the very first Akron Metropolitan Park District board as the fledgling park district’s first female board commissioner from 1923 to 1929. At just 22 years old, she became a founding member of the Mary Day Nursery, which cared for children of working mothers and was the predecessor to Akron Children’s Hospital. She also helped establish the Sumner Home for the Aged.
Milar was elected the Akron Head of Conservation and helped organize the Girl Scouts in Akron. She was the driving force behind the first Akron women’s chapter of the National Aeronautical Society, which was the first of its kind in the United States.
Dorothy Adams Hamilton Brush (1894–1968)
When friends and family tried to discourage Dorothy Adams Hamilton Brush from converting some of her land to a public park, she forged ahead, erecting this sign as a social experiment:
“Dear public, they say that if I let you picnic here you will ruin my property. I don’t believe it, so I will try my experiment for a year. Please back me up by building no fires and disposing of all your rubbish. If you pick the wildflowers, there will not be any next year. This is a game preserve, so do not shoot.”
The experiment was a success, and today we have Brush to thank for Furnace Run Metro Park in Richfield. You can find a boulder commemorating the Brush family on Old Mill Trail.
Among her many accomplishments, Brush was also a reformer in women’s reproductive rights who helped found the Maternal Health Association. She was an author and playwright, and as an interesting piece of Summit County trivia, her sister Margaret Hamilton played the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz!
Willie Mae Prather (1914–1983)
The stories of Summit Metro Parks include not just those who helped create the park district, but those who once lived within it. One of the ways we learn about those who came before us is through historical documentation and archaeology. Like all the past residents of our properties, Willie Mae Prather is an important part of the cultural fabric of the landscapes that have become Summit Metro Parks.
Living in one of Akron’s first integrated neighborhoods at what is now the Valley View Area of Cascade Valley Metro Park, Prather moved to Ohio from Alabama when her husband began working at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. She was a homemaker and active in the Shelton Temple Church of God in Christ. According to Joan Gattuso, whose family employed Prather from the late 1950s through the 1970s, “We loved her, and she loved us … I am so grateful that Willie Mae played such an important part in my life. She was a loving, kind woman who lived large beyond any stereotype. Her memory is still very alive in me, and I give thanks and smile every time I think of her.”
Christine Dietrich Freitag (1934–2018)
As a lifelong environmentalist who was committed to a wide array of civic causes, Christine Dietrich Freitag founded Friends of Metro Parks, an organization that sup-ports and encourages public enjoyment of Summit Metro Parks through membership, outreach and advocacy. She also played a key role in forming the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, then serving as the president of the park’s Conservancy. Freitag served on the board of the Ohio Environmental Council and founded Scenic Ohio.
She was president of the Garden Club of America from 1993 to 1995 and was especially committed to protecting rare and endangered plant species. Preserving the Summit Metro Parks monkshood population is one of the park district’s longest-running conservation projects, initiated and funded by the Akron Garden Club under Freitag’s leadership. Regarding her invasive species work, she once remarked that “Pulling garlic mustard in the Cuyahoga Valley and in Summit Metro Parks has been especially satisfying.”
Frances Seiberling Buchholzer
Having grown up on several hundred acres in Northfield, Frances (Fran) Buchholzer’s childhood instilled in her a passion for nature. She has spent her career focusing on the conservation of natural resources and educating the public about their importance. She was recently quoted in Crain’s Cleveland Business advocating for getting people into the parks in order to foster an appreciation for the out-doors: “If you are going to want to conserve something, you have to have passion to do so.”
Buchholzer served on the Summit Metro Parks Board of Park Commissioners for 19 years and for a portion of her tenure was part of an all-female board consisting of herself, Carol M. Curtis and Rainy G. Stitzlein. She was also appointed by Governor George Voinovich as the first female director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and currently plays an active role on the boards of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and Great Lakes Biomimicry.
Lisa M. King
Appointed in September 2015, Lisa M. King is the seventh director of Summit Metro Parks and the first woman to hold the position. Her responsibilities include leading the organization to ensure achievement of its mission, financial viability, short and long-term growth and stability. King continues to champion a mission-driven focus that has been an SMP trademark for nearly 100 years. In her position as director, King especially enjoys hearing stories from visitors about the role parks play in their daily lives and how those experiences have shaped them and their families.
An employee since 1998, King says, “The joy in creating public spaces is watching people enjoy them.” In her time with the park district, she has also served as its landscape architect and chief of planning, managing a variety of facility and trail improvement projects. She is most proud of her work over the past 15 years acquiring, designing and opening Liberty Park, now home to countless plant and animal species and dozens of recreational opportunities.
This story originally appeared in the 2020 March/April edition of Green Islands Magazine, a bi-monthly publication from Summit Metro Parks. Summit County residents can sign up to receive the publication at home free of charge.
