Daring to Be Different: Missouri's Remarkable Owen Sisters

8. The Legacy of the Owen Sisters

8 The Legacy of the Owen Sisters Even viewed from the vantage point of the twenty-first century , the accomplishments of Mary Alicia, Luella, and Juliette Owen inspire notice, admiration, and respect. But in order to understand and appreciate the achievements and contributions of this unique trio of women, one needs to take a step back in time to recall the era that produced them. The Owen sisters lived through tumultuous times from pioneer days in western Missouri through the first decades of the twentieth century. Mary and Luella were old enough to remember the Civil War. As children and grandchildren of Southern sympathizers, they experienced the tensions resulting from life in a bitterly divided state before, during, and after the war. In the last decades of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the three sisters saw St. Joseph grow from a frontier village with muddy, unpaved streets into a modern city with telephones , electric lights, and automobiles to replace horse-drawn carriages. Born in the early years of the woman’s liberation movement, they were contemporaries of such women as Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Lucretia Mott, leaders in the struggle for woman’s rights. They lived long enough to see the historic Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution   The Legacy of the Owen Sisters grant women the right to vote. Unfortunately, the Buchanan county clerk’s office does not have registration records for the 1920s, and we do not know if they took advantage of that right. The Civil War had hastened the emancipation of women, both by creating more opportunities for employment and by creating a greater need for workers. According to Mary Elizabeth Massey in Women in the Civil War, “The war acted as a springboard from which women leaped into spheres formerly reserved only for men.” Nevertheless social restrictions for middle-class women remained. The Owen women were fortunate to grow up in a family that valued education for girls as well as boys during a time when education for females was neither highly valued nor widely available. It was an era when middle-class women were expected to marry young and spend their lives as ornamental companions and hostesses for their husbands while at the same time serving as homemakers and rearing and educating their children. Nevertheless, Agnes and James Owen supported their daughters’ formal schooling, allowed them to pursue their individual interests, and provided the means for them to do so. They taught their daughters how to manage money and to keep financial records. Some biographers believe they encouraged or at least welcomed the decisions of Mary, Luella, and Juliette to remain single, foreseeing potential pitfalls in marriage. Each of the sisters developed her own special interest early in life and became skillful in juggling the normal social activities expected, while at the same time devoting herself to a satisfying career. At times, this process entailed activities not wholly approved of by their parents, but apparently each of them used the necessary strategies to cope with disapproval in carrying out their work. Mary studied astronomy, ethnology, and archaeology, but she will be best remembered for her contributions to the preservation of Missouri’s folk heritage and for her efforts to record the cultural traditions of the many ethnic groups in the St. Joseph area. As Mary Allcorn wrote, Mary Alicia Owen’s books, short stories, and articles provide a wealth of information about voodoo magic and black and Indian lore in Missouri. Allison Brown, a British anthropologist, believes that Mary’s anecdotal notes in 0 Daring to Be Different letters and comments to her friends and family help us see the American Indians as real people rather than simply nameless objects for study and provide valuable insights into what was a remarkable cross-cultural relationship. Some scholars, while recognizing the value of the artifacts she preserved and the information she provided relating to her collection , have questioned some of her findings, her methods of collecting, and her attitudes toward Native American culture. Brown, who has studied the Owen collection of Mesquakie artifacts in Cambridge, wrote that Mary “clearly understood the significance of many of the objects to the Tribe and appreciated that selling them was often a last resort. . . . Given that she recognized the symbolic value of so many of the objects, it is initially very disturbing that she removed so many.” She later comments that Mary...