In a town awash with buildings, parks, and streets named for the many automotive pioneers who called Flint home, there are a few reminders that women also contributed to the development of Flint.
The flagship hospital of the third largest health system in Michigan is in Flint and named after a nurse, Margaret McLaren. Known through the years as McLaren Flint, McLaren Regional Medical Center, and McLaren General Hospital, began as Women’s Hospital. The hospital started as a clinic under Dr. Lucy Elliot and then as the Elliot-Girard Hospital at 808 Harrison Street. When it ran into financial difficulties a group of women, who had formed the Elliot-Gerard Circle to support the hospital, convinced Flint businessmen under the Chamber of Commerce to take over the facility in 1919. In 1923 the hospital had moved into a converted home at 1900 Lapeer Street.
In 1924 they hired Miss Margaret McLaren, R.N., operating room supervisor at Hurley Hospital, to be the Supervisor of the Flint Women’s Hospital. McLaren set to work building community support for the hospital. The original home had room for 29 patient beds, an addition in 1926 added twelve greatly needed rooms as the hospital delivered between 25-40 babies a month, more than 400 a year. This at a time when most women still gave birth at home.
Women’s Hospital boasted the first incubator in the city, the gift of Mrs. Katherine Bishop Miner. The rooms of the hospital were furnished by donations from women’s organizations such as the Zonta Club, the King’s Daughters, and the William S. Ballenger family among others. Miss McLaren always thanked and gave credit to the community for supporting the hospital.
The Woman’s Hospital Association planned for a new facility but shortages during World War II and a focus on the war effort temporarily delayed the plans. Fund raising was resurrected at the end of World War II and by July 1949 there was enough cash to start the project. Construction began on the present hospital site on Ballenger Highway. The new Woman’s Hospital opened in 1951 and was renamed McLaren Hospital in honor of the woman who had spent 27 years at the helm. The larger facility’s new name was also signal of the expansion of services beyond care for woman and infants to all types of health care needs.
The recently remodeled Flint Public Library was rechristened in honor of its former director, Gloria Coles.
The library, founded as a Ladies membership library, began in 1851, four years before Flint became a city. The Ladies Library and its collections were given to the Flint Union School District in 1885 to be operated as a free public library for the citizens of Flint. The library remained a part of the Flint School System for over 100 years until changes in Michigan law required the school district to divest itself of the library.
When Ms. Coles came to Flint as the Library Director in 1984, she worked at making the library a community asset responsive to the needs of the people of Flint. During her tenure the City of Flint and the library faced enormous changes as General Motors downsized its operations and the tax base and population of the city declined. She worked hard to bring new technologies to library users, keeping services to their highest possible level.
Ms. Coles worked tirelessly to obtain funding to keep the library open to the public until it could obtain its own operating millage. Ms. Coles and a group of concerned citizens also helped to establish the Flint District Library, a partnership between the City of Flint and Flint Community Schools. Together they appoint the board which governs the library. An institution founded by women in the 19th century has in the 21st century the name of a woman who helped ensure the institution and its work continues.
Most of the parks in the City of Flint are named for the donor of the parkland or the location. Two of Flint’s parks were renamed for women who worked to better the lives of children.
Clara Major Hilborn was the long-term principal of Pierson School. She was born in England, trained as a teacher at what is now Eastern Michigan University and came to Flint in 1908. After working at Kearsley, Dort, Cook and Martin Elementaries she was promoted in 1929 and assigned to the new Pierson School as the first principal. A widow with one child, she helped organize the PTA at Pierson, transported Girl Scouts to meetings and activities and was very active in the community around her school and her church. She stayed at Pierson until ill health forced her to retire in 1947, one year before her death.
After her death the Pierson School PTA petitioned the school board and the parks board to rename both the school and the park after Mrs. Hilborn.
In 1950 both the city and the school board agreed, and Pierson School Park became Clara Hilborn Park in her memory with a celebration in the park on July 5th to mark the name change. Clara Hilborn Park is located at Martin Luther King near Pierson, the site of the former elementary school.
In 1976 Oak Knoll-Jefferson Park was renamed in honor of community activist Ophelia Watson Bonner. Mrs. Bonner came to Flint in 1951 and became involved in her new hometown. She was the founding secretary of the Flint Branch of the NAACP. She joined the Flint Beautification committee, and she got involved in Jefferson School.
Though she had no children of her own, Bonner had two stepsons and was the foster mother of fifteen. She helped raise over $12,000 for playground equipment for the Oak Knoll-Jefferson School Park and for the school. In honor of Mrs. Bonner’s work with the students at Jefferson School, Flint City Council approved the renaming of Oak Knoll -Jefferson Park in 1976, renaming it Ophelia Bonner Park.
Mrs. Bonner is best remembered for the Ophelia Bonner Scholarship Fund, which raised money to help send area students on to higher education. For over forty years her church, Christ Fellowship Baptist Church, sponsored the Ophelia Bonner Scholarship Road Race to raise money for the fund.
All four of these women came to Flint and sought to make it a better place, especially for children.
