Belle Skinner

Belle Skinner
Oil portrait of Belle Skinner, date unknown
Born Ruth Isabelle Skinner
(1866-04-30)April 30, 1866
Williamsburg, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died April 09, 1928
Paris, France
Awards

Ruth Isabelle Skinner (April 30, 1866–April 09, 1928) was an American businesswoman. She was a daughter of silk manufacturer William Skinner (1824-1902) and his second wife, the former Sarah Elizabeth Allen (1834-1908). Belle Skinner was a humanitarian and music-lover whose life her brother William memorialized in the construction of the Skinner Hall of Music at Vassar College in 1932. She lived most of her life at the family home, Wistariahurst, in Holyoke, Massachusetts, now an historic site. She renovated and expanded this house to reflect her interests, including adding the music room, where she housed her musical instrument collection, now housed at Yale University.

After the first world war, Belle Skinner helped rebuild the small town of Hattonchâtel and Château de Hattonchâtel. In return for her efforts following the war, Ms. Skinner was presented the Médaille de la Reconnaissance française by future French president and then-commissioner general of Alsace-Lorraine, Alexandre Millerand, in January 1919, at the ministry of foreign affairs in Paris.[1] She also led the effort to rally American cities to adopt French villages during the postwar reconstruction, establishing the American Committee of Villages Libérés in New York City later that year.[2] Holyoke would be the first city to take part in the program, providing a water supply to the village of Apremont-la-Forêt.[3] Two years later on January 26, 1921, she was decorated with the rank of Chevalier in the Légion d'honneur for her continued aid to the French people.[4]

References

  1. ↑ "Holyoke Woman is Godmother to Entire French Village". Boston Herald. Boston. December 5, 1910. p. 50.
  2. ↑ "The Classes; 1887". Vassar Quarterly. Vol. IV no. 3. May 1919. p. 228.
  3. ↑ "Hattonchâtel ou la bienfaisance de Belle Skinner". verdun-meuse.fr (in French). Tourisme-Meuse. March 7, 2013. Archived from the original on June 24, 2018.
  4. ↑ "Massachusetts Girl is Decorated for War Work". Elkhart Truth. Elkhart, Ind. January 26, 1921. p. 6.
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