This Day in History: 1941-02-17

History was made in Mahwah as Mrs. Alice MacArthur was named President of the School Board.  She was the first woman to hold the post.  There had been a number of women board members since Mrs. Elmer J. Snow became the second women ever in Bergen County to serve on a school board early in the century.  She succeeded Havilah M. Smith in the post.  Mrs. MacArthur was the daughter of the late David Smith and Mrs. Smith.  She had moved to Mahwah with her family from Brooklyn when she was five.  She was graduated from the local school and Ramsey High School and had studied at the Centenary Collegiate Institute and Packer Institute and had taken a two-year course in interior decoration at the New York Institute.  She was the mother of two children and had shown great enthusiasm for the most modern teaching methods during her period on the Board.  (At the time of the Mahwah Centennial Alice Smith MacArthur Hazelwood was named Mahwah’s outstanding citizen.  Her picture hangs in the Town Hall.  She died in 1989.)

(Bristow)