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Note: Elizabeth Traver Tennant: "Traver" is pronounced with a long "a" [source: Robert B Rhode].
Extract from Pennsylvania Church and Town Records, 1708-1985:
Name: Elizabeth Traver Tennant
Birth date: 30 Mar 1917
Event: baptism
Baptism date: 25 Apr 1917
Baptism place: Bethlehem, Northampton, Pennsylvania
Father: Robert Tennant
Mother: Helen Tennant
Church: Trinity Episcopal
Extract from the 1920 Census:
Name: Elizabeth T Tennant
Age: 2 6/12
Estimated birth year: 1917
Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Race: white
Sex: female
Relationship to head of house: daughter
Home in 1920: Duluth, Saint Louis, Minnesota
Address: 2327 East 1st Street
Marital status: single
Father's birthplace: Michigan
Mother's birthplace: Minnesota
Occupation: none
Siblings living at home: none
Census place: Duluth, Saint Louis, Minnesota; Roll: T625_858; Page: 10B; Enumeration District: 95; Image: 148
Date: 10 Jan 1920
Note: name listed as "Elizabeth T Tennaret" by Ancestry.com.
Extract from the 1930 Census:
Name: Elizabeth Tennant
Age: 13
Estimated birth year: 1917
Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Race: white
Sex: female
Relation to head-of-house: daughter
Home in 1930: Duluth, Saint Louis, Minnesota
Address: 2221 Second Street
Marital status: single
Education: able to speak English
Education: able to read and write
Father's birthplace: Michigan
Mothers' birthplace: Minnesota
Occupation: attending school
Siblings living at home: Jean (age 9) and Robert H (11/12)
Census place: Duluth, Saint Louis, Minnesota; Roll: 1126; Page: ; Enumeration District: 43; Image: 231.0
Date: 3 Apr 1930
Education:
Duluth Central High School, 1935
University of Minnesota
The Minneapolis School of Arts.
Extract from the 1940 Census:
Name: Betty Tennant
Age: 23
Estimated birth year: 1917
Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Race: white
Sex: female
Relation to head-of-house: daughter
Home in 1940: Duluth, Saint Louis, Minnesota
Address: 221 23rd Avenue East
Marital status: single
Highest grade of school completed: college 4 years
Living on farm: no
City of residence in 1935: Duluth, Saint Louis, Minnesota
Resident on farm in 1935: no
Occupation: other
Has other income of more than $50: no
Siblings living at home: Jean (age 19) and Robert (11)
Census place: Duluth, Saint Louis, Minnesota; Roll: T627_1972; Page: 4A; Enumeration District: 88-35
Date: 5 Apr 1940
Also living in the household in 1940:
Pauline Filips age 23 b. Minnesota (servant) [source: 1940 Census]. Article from the "News-Tribune" of Duluth, Minnesota dated 2 Mar 1969:
They Join in Fun
Mentally Retarded Girls
Have Own Camp Fire Unit
by Arvid Morken
"We all like to stand up and identify ourselves with something," commented a Duluth woman who is very active in work with the mentally retarded. "These youngsters haven't been able to do much of this."
"These youngsters" are four girls between the ages of 11 and 13 and they come from four different sections of Duluth. The youngsters are mentally retarded but they are still members of the Camp Fire Girls of America - and pretty proud of it.
A Camp Fire Girls until for mentally retarded children in Duluth began last summer with a series of telephone calls between Mrs. Robert Rhode, 3620 E. 3rd St., and Mrs. Frank Smolnikar, 527 99th Ave. W. Mrs. Rhode is active in the Duluth Association for the Mentally Retarded and Mrs. Smolnikar is secretary of the group.
Additional support was given by Mrs. Edwin Ciebiera, 1817 E. 5th St., executive secretary of the association, and the unit soon became a reality.
Mrs. Rhode, adult leader of the girls, said the time spent both by adults and the youngsters represents a "pioneering effort of its kind in Duluth" but noted that three similar programs are under way in other parts of the country with success.
Meetings of the unit are conducted Mondays in the Irving School where each of the four youngsters is enrolled in special education classes for the mentally retarded. Five girls started the training but one was forced to drop out when she was advanced to other classes for children showing higher ability to learn.
Monday sessions are held during the noon hour and continue for 40 minutes with varied but define programs.
"Forty minutes may not seem like very much time to accomplish things," Mrs. Rhode said, "but we feel we pack quite a few activities into that period." She explained that the girls do not have as long an attention span as do normal childen and therefore are not capable of working on a single project throughout the entire meeting.
"We mix it up pretty well," she said. Classes, for example, may begin with attempts to learn requirements toward the first rank of Camp Fire Girls. These include recognizing the organization's basic symbols such as worshiping God, seeking beauty and giving service.
Craft work periods also are conducted indoors and sessions are sometimes completed with simple instructions to pick up. On other occasions - primarily before the beginning of the winter season - the girls would play outdoor games or lend their services to picking up scraps of paper in the school yard.
Mrs. Rhode indicated that future meetings will include music instruction. She conceded that none of the adult leaders "are particularly inclined musically" and noted that efforts are being made to find recordings of songs traditionally sung by Camp Fire Girls.
"Our primary objective is to provide the girls with a good time," she continued. "I think we have been successful in this because the girls really get excited."
By matter of policy, all units of the Camp Fire Girls must have sponsors. The four girls at Irving are sponsored by the Mrs. Jaycees of Duluth.
While the program has not required larges expenses, the Mrs. Jaycees have largely provided what financial assistance has been necessary. This includes registration fees for entering the girl in the organization, the purchase of supplies for the weekly meetings and the hiring of volunteers for special events.
The adult leaders serve on a voluntary basis. The girls even have their own Camp Fire Girls uniforms. Boleros and jackets were made for them by Duluth Day Activity students, another facility for the mentally retarded.
Mrs. Rhode said the girls "are thrilled" with the uniforms and "bring them religiously to all the meetings." She explained that the youngsters don't wear the uniforms for fear of getting them dirty.
The group leader also acknowledged that the program has rewarded it supporters with a "sense of pride." She said, "These girls are doing beautifully within their limits."
She met her husband when he was a civil engineering student at the University of Minnesota and she was attending the Minneapolis School of Arts.
She was a housewife and the loving, caring mother of four children. She was a founding member of the Duluth Regional Care Center (DRCC), and in 1972 first secretary of the Duluth Association for Retarded Children, or DARC, now the Duluth Association for Retarded Citizens. She was devoted to the interests of the retarded. She and her husband were married for 39 years.
She died when she was only 62. Burial: Park Hill Cemetery in Duluth [source: Richard H Rhode].
Extract from the listing of Saint Louis County death certificates:
Elizabeth Rhode 5 Nov 1979
Death certificate number 1176
Minnesota Historical Society death certificate information:
Name: Elizabeth T Rhode
Cert ID number: 1979-MN-028979
Date of birth: 30 Mar 1917
Place of birth: out of state
Mother maiden name: Williams
Date of death: 5 Nov 1979
County of death: Saint Louis
Obituary from the "News-Tribune" of Duluth, Minnesota dated Tuesday 6 Nov 1979:
Elizabeth T. (Robert) Rhode, 62, of 3620 E. Third St., died Monday in a Duluth hospital. She was born in Bethlehem, Pa., and had lived in Duluth for 60 years. She was a member of Pilgrim Congregational Church and Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. She had served as executive secretary for the Duluth Association for Retarded Citizens and was a former member of the board of directors of the Duluth Sheltered Workshop. She was a member of the Minnesota Retarded Children's Association and the Duluth Regional Care Center. Surviving, besides her husband, are a daughter, Katherine (Peter) Cassioppi, Rockford, Ill.; three sons, Peter and Richard, St. Paul, and Christopher, Duluth; her father, Robert H. Tennant, Duluth; a sister, Jean (Richard) Spicer, Duluth; a brother, Robert Tennant, Jr., Owatonna, and six grandchildren.
Burial: in the Rhode plot in section B of Park Hill Cemetery in Duluth, Saint Louis, Minnesota. The Rhode plot contains Sigurd Angel Rhode, Agnes Berg Rhode, Severin Andreas Elias Sorenson Rhode, Laura Caspara Stokke Rhode, Storm Christopher Rhode, Mary Catherine Tague Rhode, Elizabeth Traver Tennant Rhode, Nina Frances Berg Roberts, and Olyne Augusta Berg. 6815692
Gravestone inscription:
Elizabeth Tennant
Rhode
1917 - 1979
The Rhode Family Tree has 32 photographs of this person and has a photograph of the gravestone.
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