Media adds two remarkable women to its walk of fame
MEDIA » Two women were honored Friday in the 17th annual Walk of Fame Induction. Nan L. Dutton and Elinor Cadman had combined service to and influence on the borough of more than 100 years. Each was remembered for remarkable contribution to the community and beyond.
Mayor Bob McMahon and former council president Joan Hagan cited each other as conceiving the Walk of Fame, leading to the first induction of five individuals in 2000. Every year since, plaques have been added to the small plaza at the corner of Fourth and Jackson streets surrounding the flagpole.
McMahon welcomed a small group of attendees under a cloudy sky to recall the accomplishments of “Miss Nan” and Elinor Cadman. Unitarian Universalist Church Pastor Rev. Peter Friedrichs said in his invocation, “We thank these women for the gifts they offered so generously, and for the opportunity of all to serve, which is a sacred duty of a free society.”
Nan L. Dutton, born in 1865, was not personally remembered by current borough resident, but known by her work as a journalist. Paul Patchel assembled a wealth of information on “Miss Nan” who wrote for the Chester Times from 1895 virtually to her death in 1954 at age 89.
As was the custom of the time, she covered the social, cultural and hard news events of the borough. These ranged from tea parties and carriage rides to serious matters of court cases.
“It was Nan’s life to know more about Media Borough than one person could ever want to know,” Patchel said, reflecting his research.
She was more, however, than sitting at her oak, roll-top desk, strolling the streets of Media and attending club meetings and other gatherings. She devoted her life to helping the unfortunate, including organizing food and clothing drives and finding homes for dogs at the SPCA through appeals in her column, archive notes said. She had both interest and empathy for members of the community, reportedly befriending a convicted murderer due to “his despair,” and ultimately seeing him through to a pardon and sudden death in a vehicular accident.
Her comprehensive knowledge of “all things Media” earned Miss Nan the title “First Citizen of Media.”
Elinor Cadman is still fixed in the minds of many who populated Media Elementary School where she taught (mostly fifth grade) for 45 years. She was, by all accounts, the consummate educator who challenged and inspired students to learn.
Robin Otto, Media Fellowship House board president, said she first knew Mrs. Cadman by association. Otto’s husband, Jeff, could recount Mrs. Cadman’s academic and life lessons.
“We were refinishing an old table,” Otto said of her early married years, “and Jeff was putting on linseed oil. I asked why not polyurethane. He said, with assured confidence, ‘Elinor said linseed oil.’ Her classroom was like a museum where there was something (of interest) for every student. Her home was the same.”
Cadman was not only involved with many borough organizations, she is created with significant influence. She championed and instituted a drive to save the historic Minshall House, getting the school community behind the effort. She was a member of Fellowship House and Media Area NAACP. She was secretary of the Delaware County Institute of Science for a quarter-century, contributing time and money — donating funds to “electrify the balcony of the 19th century building on Veterans Square.
It was no surprise that the borough recognized her merit and tireless efforts, and declared Elinor Cadman day on April 25, 1996.
Patchel, who was a close friend until Cadman’s death in 2001, said her zeal to educate in all ways led to the inscription on her plaque: “Iuvenum illa mentis finxita; Animas illa excitavit.” While the teacher would have asked her students to look it up, Patchel provided the translation from Latin: “She molded minds; She awakened souls.”
The Walk of Fame committee welcomes nominations which can be directed to the borough office