Harrisville woman paved a civic way West
In 1852 on a piece of land in Harrisville, William and Catherine Hamilton welcomed their newborn daughter, Ella.
Fourteen years later, the Hamiltons moved out of Butler County. And Ella began the life of a pioneer.
Ella Hamilton pushed West with her family across the American frontier.
In Iowa, she married Preston Durley, became Ella Hamilton Durley and started to teach.
Then she started to write. She worked as a journalist and advocate for education, helping to establish collaborative networks.
One of those networks was the Des Moines Women's Club. It's active still today.
“Conditions for women are totally different now than they were,” said Lorna Truck, a 15-year club member and chair of archives. “Since they couldn't vote, they tried to influence the city in other ways.”
Truck said Durley and her colleagues founded the Des Moines Women's Club on a set of principals still alive in its members today. Upholding civic duties and maintaining a life-long appreciation for learning are chief among them.“They were very focused on self-improvement and education,” Truck said. “Art is still a big thing for the club.”In an 1894 address to the club — archived by the club for posterity — Durley iterates the power art holds in society.“It is a love for the true and good in art, which more than any other one cause leads people to undergo the discomforts and encounter the dangers of travel to distant countries,” Durley writes.The challenge Durley and her colleagues faced was making that love accessible and serviceable to the community.The Des Moines Women's Club, which Truck said had about 180 active members in 2019, and over 1,400 in its heyday, strives to promote the arts.Lectures allow the group to reach the public. Fundraising efforts allow the club to provide scholarships and support nonprofits.Then there's supporting the Hoyt Sherman Place.The house belonged to Major Hoyt Sherman, younger brother of Congressman John Sherman and Civil War Gen. William Sherman.Following Hoyt Sherman's death in 1904, the Des Moines Women's Club used the location as its clubhouse.After the club began displaying its art collection there, the Hoyt Sherman Place became Des Moines' first public art museum.A 1,400-seat theater was constructed in 1923. The space attracted speakers like Amelia Earhart and Helen Keller. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.To remember it all began with Durley — and women like Durley — is important.“They were very civic-minded back then,” Truck said. “(We're) still very civic-minded.”Durley continued to move west on a notion of civic stewardship and advancement. She joined suffragist efforts and community clubs, while staying close to her journalistic roots. Though it's unclear if Ella returned to Butler County, an 1885 article in the Eagle confirms Catherine Hamilton did.An article published in the Aug. 15, 1922 edition of the San Bernardino Sun reports Durley died unexpectedly on Aug. 14, 1922 in Redlands, Calif., after vacationing in the mountains.She was identified by the Sun as a “prominent literary woman of Los Angeles.”“All art must be measured by time,” Durley wrote in her club remarks in 1894. “But eternity itself will sing the praises of the man and woman who think of others as of themselves.”
