Caroline Piatt Putnam

Caroline Piatt Putnam (Jenkins)

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/122880212/caroline_piatt_putnam

Putnam, a tireless social activist and the 100-year-old widow of former Mayor Roger L. Putnam, died yesterday at home.

Her late husband was elected mayor three times, beginning in 1937, and in 1940 he founded the Springfield Trade School. It was renamed in his honor in 1972.

Although she left high school at 16 to care for her mother, Caroline Putnam earned 12 honorary doctoral degrees for her social activism.

Just before her 100th birthday in November, she said that despite her lack of formal education, she was an "omnivorous" reader who continued studying all her life.

In 1982, she received a national award from the American Institute for Public Service in Washington, D.C.

In 1948, she was named an elector to the National Democratic Convention, where she cast her vote for Harry S. Truman. In 1951, she received the James J. Hoey Award for interracial justice.

More than 50 years ago, she began providing scholarship aid through Catholic Scholarships for Negroes Inc., a charity that will continue, according to her son, Roger Lowell Putnam Jr., who is chairman of Package Machinery Company of Stafford Springs, Connecticut.

Of his mother, Putnam recalled, "Her whole life was a celebration of life." He said she touched just about everyone with whom she came in contact.

Her other son, William Lowell Putnam, who founded Television Station WWLP-22 in Springfield, said his mother's legacy is the black charity.

"My mother was very socially conscious," he said. She felt that "education was the key to acceptance. She felt the people who professed the Catholic faith had an obligation to show it."

Mrs. Putnam was a nursing aide at Mercy Hospital, and was a director of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Holy Child Guild, the South End Community Center and the Springfield Symphony.

She said last fall that she wanted to be buried in Petersham next to her husband.

"We had a wonderful life together," she recalled.

Putnam died in 1972. The couple had bought land in Petersham in 1928, and turned it into a country retreat.

Born in Pomonkey, Maryland in 1892, the decedent was the fourth child of Thomas Canfield Jenkins, who died in 1916, and Nellie Waring (Compton) Jenkins, who died in 1943. She was a descendant of Captain Jacob Piatt, a staff officer to General George Washington.

She moved to Springfield after marrying her husband in 1919.

Besides Roger and William Putnam , she leaves four other children, Sister Caroline Canfield Putnam of the Sacred Heart order in Atherton, California; Anna Lowell Tomlinson of Chatham; Mary Post Chatfield of Belmont, Michael Courtney Jenkins Putnam, chairman of the classics department at Brown University; 15 grandchildren, and 15 great grandchildren.

The funeral arrangements are by Hafey Funeral Home at 494 Belmont Avenue, and the burial in Petersham will be private. Visiting hours for friends will be tomorrow at 406 Longhill St. from 2 p.m. 6 p.m.

The family has asked that no flowers be sent, but donations in Mrs. Putnam 's memory may be sent to Catholic Scholarships for Negroes, 65 Elliot St., Springfield, 01103.
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1900 US Census, Nanjemoy, Charles Co, Maryland, 7th election district, sheet #15, [Pomonkey, Charles, Maryland] , taken June 25, 1900, at 191st household enumerated:

JENKINS, Thomas, head, b Sept 1864, age 35, marr 13 yr, fath b MD, moth b Ohio, farmer
JENKINS, Nellie W., wife, b Aug 1860, age 39, marr 13 yr ,bore 6 children, 6 living, b. MD, fath b VA, moth b Washington,

JENKINS, Thomas K., son, b May 1888, age 12 , single, b MD, par b MD, at school
JENKINS, Joseph M., son, b Apr 1889, age 10, single, b MD, par b MD, at school
JENKINS, John A., b Jun 1891, age 8, single, b MD, par b MD, at school
JENKINS, Caroline P., dau, b Nov 1892, age 7, single, bMD, par b MD
JENKINS, Thomas C., son, b Ma 1894, age 6, single, b MD, par b MD
JENKINS, Michael C., son, b Nov 1897, age 2, single, b MD, par b MD
JENKINS, Michael C., brother, b Nov 1862, age 37, single, b MD, fath b MD, moth b Ohio, farmer