Women's History Month - 1 of series

I Wish I had Known -  Genevie Brainard

March is “Women’s History Month” and although the official 2013 theme is “Women Inspiring Innovation Through Imagination: Celebrating Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics” – STEM -  unofficial activities and events often include questionnaires like, “What women, living or dead, do you most admire?” or “ What women, living or dead, would you most like to have (or have had) lunch with?”

I’d go with that one, but rather than naming Hillary or Mya Angelou, Marie Curie or Queen Elizabeth II, I would pick four or five women who once lived in Waterville. Although they may not have made world- noteworthy advances in their fields,  the more I’ve read about them the more they have become women that I wish I had known – and had lunch with.

Long before we moved to Waterville, in 1968, my husband had amassed a sizable collection of books about the Civil War. On one of his early visits to the Berry Hill Bookshop, south of Deansboro, he discovered a book called “Campaigns of the 146^th Regiment New York State Volunteers.” Not only was it “Civil War,” but it was “local,” and most surprisingly -to him, at least – it had been compiled and published by  “a woman”!  And that is how I first “met” Mary Genevie Green Brainard.

An 8^th generation descendant of Mayflower pilgrims John and Priscilla Alden, she was born in Hubbardsville in 1847, the daughter of  Charles A. and Mary Jane Hubbard Green. 

The Green Residence in Hubbardsville, more recently known as "Hubbardsville Manor."

In 1870, after attending Cazenovia and Granville Women’s Seminaries, she married Ira DeWane Brainard, a prominent Waterville businessman.

The I. D. Brainard Residence on Putnam Street.

In the Waterville Historical Society's collection of early photographs and slides are three or four said to have been taken inside that home. In each view - as I recall - every surface, horizontal and vertical, is covered with something: mirrors, photographs, antimacassars, sparkling chandeliers, vases and figurines.  Victoriana at it's most opulent!

Her three children and her home were her greatest importance and pleasure, but Genevie also supported  the community in several ways. In 1895 Genevie purchased a building on East Main Street and gave it to the YMCA for their use. When that organization closed, in 1907, she turned it over to the Waterville Public Library with the stipulation that the property be returned to her when no longer needed. How pleased she would be to know that the building is now the home of the Waterville Historical Society!

Around 1910 she, herself, at the age of sixty-three, turned “historian” and began to compile a complete history of the 146^th Regiment – local men (and boys) who went off to fight in the Civil War. In 1914, in the introduction to her book she writes: “When the call came for men, in the early sixties, many of my friends and acquaintances answered promptly and marched to the front. It has been my pleasure to know many of the officers and men of his valiant regiment, and I have often heard them recount their adventures. As a labor of love, therefore, and not for gain, I have endeavored during the past few years, to gather together their fragments of stories and crystallize them into this narrative.”  The most complete history ever written of an Oneida County Regiment, she gave a copy of the nearly 700-page book to each of the survivors.

After her husband’s death, that same year, she financed the remodeling of the Methodist Church, of which she had always been a member, and donated a magnificent Tiffany window in memory of her father. 

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I have never seen a photograph that had been definitely identified as being that of Mrs. Brainard, but the late Hilda Barton, who had known her quite well, thought that this was she, seated next to Mr. Frank Snell in his newly-built horseless carriage c. 1900. Perhaps it is not, but it is, at any rate, the way I have always pictured her.

 Genevie died in 1931 and is buried in the family plot in the Graham Cemetery in Hubbardsville.

Her obituary appears in the December 17th, 1931, issue of The Waterville Times.

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The Brainard Memorial Window, 

"The Righteous Shall Receive a Crown of Glory" 

is in the permanent collection of the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY.

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"Campaigns of the 146th Regiment New York State Volunteers" was reprinted for the second time in 2012 and is available at Amazon

by clicking HERE.

The entire book in original form may be read online at Google Books.

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PsBrown, March 5, 2013