Ladies of Substance

By Lynda Chittenden

In 2022, Lynda Chittenden and Melissa Kurtz published Ladies to the Rescue, The Remarkable Story of of the Women of The Outdoor Art Club Who Shaped Mill Valley.

And now they have created a sequel, Ladies of Substance, The Lives of Early Outdoor Art Club Presidents. Digging deeply into archival materials, this book will transport the reader back in time and reveal much about the lives of early leaders of Mill Valley’s venerable women’s club and the world in which they lived. Inside these pages one will find reasons to be amazed, inspired, amused, grateful and even occasionally — be shocked! Lynda and Melissa remind us that history never had its eyes on the women in this book. Their stories up to now have been untold.

About the Author :  Lynda Chittenden became an OAC member after 30 years of teaching in the Mill Valley School District. She says writing the book, Ladies to the Rescue, was similar to what she loved about the classroom — the joy of taking a chunk of fascinating, important information and making it accessible to students. When not busy learning something new, she probably is busy being Cody Chittenden’s Nana. Lynda’s previous works were written for teachers and published either by UC Berkeley’s Bay Area Writing Project or Boynton Cook Publishers. 

About the Researcher: Melissa Kurtz began learning about local history as a docent in the Mill Valley Public Library's History Room and serving on the Board of the Mill Valley Historical Society.  When she joined the OAC, she volunteered to work in the OAC’s Archives, soon finding it a treasure trove with 120+ years of historical documents. She has been Archive Chair since fall of 2017.  Her 40-year experience in database development combined with a desire to understand how things came to be led to her insatiable appetite for finding outside sources of original documents that help tell the story of the OAC and its town, Mill Valley CA.

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