{"id":232006,"date":"2020-08-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-14T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/notable-women-of-san-diego\/"},"modified":"2020-08-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-14T07:00:00","slug":"notable-women-of-san-diego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/notable-women-of-san-diego\/","title":{"rendered":"Mujeres notables de San Diego"},"content":{"rendered":"

By KAREN SCANLON | San Diego Community Newspaper Group<\/p>\n

\u201cThe right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex\u2026\u201d so goes the text of this celebrated passage.<\/p>\n

Women\u2019s suffrage ended on Aug. 18, 1920, culminating nearly a century of protest. Though she took the vote, other rights granted continued to evolve \u2014 to live free from violence, slavery, and discrimination. The right to be educated, own property, and earn an equitable wage.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, German-Jewish immigrant Louis Rose, who settled the community of Roseville in Point Loma some 150 years ago, showed himself to be an early feminist in that he deeded property to women. How startling!<\/p>\n

A number of well-known women of San Diego began to assert themselves beyond the kitchen. For example, in the late 1880s, humanitarian visionary Kathryn Tingley created an international community of free thinkers, known as Raja Yoga Academy, or Lomaland. It became a highly regarded educational institution.<\/p>\n

At about the same time, American horticulturalist Kate Sessions was cultivating plants. In 1892, she leased 30 acres of land in City Park and planted 100 trees a year. She would become known as \u201cMother of Balboa Park,\u201d and was connected to the philanthropic generosity of businessman, George Marston.<\/p>\n

But there are other women whose contributions to San Diego ought to be remembered.<\/p>\n

THE FIRST FEMALE HARBOR PILOT<\/strong><\/p>\n

Celia Sweet of Ballast Point was the lightkeeper\u2019s wife. James, and often Celia, tended the bay beacons and lamp in the tower. He also built boats known as Sweet Craft. In 1907, Sweet christened Pilot, San Diego\u2019s first motorized harbor-pilot vessel, Celia bursting the champagne bottle against its bow.<\/p>\n

While raising two children, Celia became the first federally licensed woman harbor pilot in San Diego, and also ferried passengers across the bay to Coronado\u2019s Tent City. When she could solicit no female competition, Celia raced the Relue against her male equals of San Diego Yacht Club. Sweet\u2019s 28-foot Relue set a Pacific coast speed record of 22 knots.<\/p>\n

SOUTHERN BELLE SAVES SURFING IN SAN DIEGO<\/strong><\/p>\n

An extrovert known as Miss Billy Riley of Oklahoma burst onto Shelter Island\u2019s entertainment scene when tourism efforts were flailing. Through evolving monikers of the 1960s \u2014 Windsong, L\u2019Escale, Half Moon, and Humphrey\u2019s \u2014 Miss Billy became the first woman manager of a major hotel and eventually part owner. She served as the first female president of the San Diego Hotel-Motel Association, director of San Diego Chamber of Commerce, and strongly advocated the construction of Ocean Beach Fishing Pier.<\/p>\n

\"Notable<\/a>
Newspaper clipping of Celia Sweet and her speed boat, Relue. (Courtesy James Sweet and Janet Sweet Corey.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Miss Billy will be remembered for defending the 1966 World Surfing Championships when city officials uttered disdain for the whole affair. \u201cFive years earlier, surfers had misbehaved during a similar event,\u201d she said, \u201cand the city was forced to consider the future of surfing in San Diego generally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI gathered a bunch of those 200 surfers in the parking lot of Bali Hai and told them you\u2019re going to have a rough time in our city \u2014 people think you\u2019re a crummy bunch. We expect you to conduct yourselves honorably to represent the surfing industry.\u201d As it was, surfing greats Kimo McVay, Nat Young, and \u2018the Duke\u2019 Kahanomoku took to the waves in Ocean Beach, while spectators crowded the new pier.<\/p>\n

In downtown\u2019s Gaslamp District, Billy\u2019s name appears on the outside bronze plaque of the Horton Grand Hotel. \u201cWe\u2019d heard that the old Horton Hotel and Kahle\u2019s Saddlery were being torn down and felt the urgency to preserve what we could,\u201d she said. \u201cSome of us moved sections of those buildings into storage in an old garage on Island Avenue, brick-by-brick, windows, and everything. And when the time came, we, and other investors, recreated a hotel.\u201d The Horton Grand is a testament to Miss Billy\u2019s tenacity and goodwill.<\/p>\n

THE CITY\u2019S HISTORY PROFESSOR EMERITA<\/strong><\/p>\n

Iris Engstrand, Ph.D., has taught thousands of students at University of San Diego over 49 years as a professor of American history. In turn, she says, \u201cThese students have themselves become teachers and authors. They serve as politicians, city planners, national and state park employees, mayors, and in other positions of leadership. Teaching others is truly a gift that keeps on giving.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of relevance is Engstrand\u2019s pictorial history of San Diego, first published in 1980 and reprinted three times in revised editions. \u201cThis factual account,\u201d she says, \u201ctells a complete story of San Diego beginning with the indigenous population and continuing through the Spanish, Mexican, and American periods.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other notable women were to be recognized at this year\u2019s Congress of History of San Diego and Imperial Counties, an annual two-day conference. But \u201cRemarkable Women 1920-2020\u201d fell by the pandemic wayside. The Congress is scheduled to reconvene, fingers crossed, on Feb. 26-27, 2021, when the contributions by women over the past 100 years will be celebrated.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Karen Scanlon is a San Diego-based writer with an affinity for stories about local history.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By KAREN SCANLON | San Diego Community Newspaper Group \u201cThe right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex\u2026\u201d so goes the text of this celebrated passage. Women\u2019s suffrage ended on Aug. 18, 1920, culminating nearly a […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":940,"featured_media":232007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11558","_seopress_titles_title":"Notable women of San Diego","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11558,11551,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-232006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-mission-times-courier","category-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/940"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}