Recent Syndics: Paulina Christine Wilber Swayne

(1886 - May 25, 1961)

She was born in North Collins, New York and educated at The Fredonia (NY) Normal School and did postgraduate work at The University of Pennsylvania, The University of Rochester (NY), and Smith College (Northampton, MA). Her first husband divorced her for being a Suffragette.

During the period from 1930 through 1947, she was a Department Director of Welfare in Social Services in Rochester New York. Later she became an Administrator at Slayton Farms Girls School (a girls reform school in Pennsylvania).

She was close friends with Mary Louise Curtis Bok Zimbalist(b. August 6, 1876, Boston - d. January 4, 1970)founder of Curtis Institute of Music (1924). Also Christine Swayne was friends with Conductor Eugene Ormandy (November 18, 1899–March 12, 1985), pianist Olga Samaroff August 8, 1880 – May 17, 1948), and was friends with family members of the inventors, the Wright Brothers. Also, for many yers she corresponded with Franklin D> Roosevelt before his presidency.

During her lifetime she devoted herself to spoting briliance in ignored children and helping them to develope and have faith in their own brilliance even under the worst conditions. Many of these children went on to do brilliant things, such as the composer, conductor, teacher Samuel Barber (1910-1981).

She spent her whole life encouraging and bringing "out into the open" the creative genius of hundreds of people. ALso, she trained lesbian women how to survive successfully within a society that was hostile to their lifesyle.

She did this selflessly and with great determination and joy.