On This Day
1924 – Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming becomes the first female elected as governor in the United States.
Nellie Davis Tayloe Ross (November 29, 1876 – December 19, 1977) was an American politician, the 14th governor of Wyoming from 1925 to 1927 and director of the United States Mint from 1933 to 1953. She was the first woman to be sworn in as governor of a U.S. state, and remains the only woman to have served as governor of Wyoming.[1]
Ross was born in St. Joseph, Missouri[2] to James Wynns Tayloe, a native of Tennessee, and Elizabeth Blair Green, who owned a plantation on the Missouri River. Her family moved to Miltonvale, Kansas in 1884, and she graduated from Miltonvale High School in 1892. She attended a teacher-training college for two years and taught kindergarten for four years.
On September 11, 1902, Ross married William B. Ross, whom she had met when visiting relatives in Tennessee in 1900. William B. Ross was governor of Wyoming from 1923 to his death on October 2, 1924. Ross succeeded her late husband’s successor Frank Lucas as governor when she won the special election, becoming the first female American governor on January 5, 1925. She was a staunch supporter of Prohibition during the 1920s. She lost re-election in 1926 but remained an active member of the Democratic Party.
In 1933, Ross became the first female Director of the United States Mint. Despite initial mistrust, she forged a strong bond with Mary Margaret O’Reilly, the Assistant Director of the Mint and one of the United States’ highest-ranking female civil servants of her time. Ross served five terms as Director, retiring in 1953. During her later years, she wrote for various women’s magazines and traveled. Ross died in Washington, D.C., at the age of 101.
The Neutrality Acts were a series of acts passed by the United States Congress in the 1930s (specifically 1935, 1936, 1937, and 1939) in response to the growing threats and wars that led to World War II. They were spurred by the growth in isolationism and non-interventionism in the US following its disillusionment after World War I, and sought to ensure that the US would not become entangled again in foreign conflicts.
The legacy of the Neutrality Acts is widely regarded as having been generally negative; they made no distinction between aggressor and victim, treating both equally as belligerents, and they limited the US government’s ability to aid Britain and France against Nazi Germany. The acts were largely repealed in 1941, in the face of German submarine attacks on U.S. vessels and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Born On This Day
1909 – Evelyn Bryan Johnson, American colonel and pilot (d. 2012)
Evelyn Stone Bryan Johnson (November 4, 1909 – May 10, 2012), nicknamed “Mama Bird”, was the female pilot with the most number of flying hours in the world. She was a colonel in the Civil Air Patrol and a founding member of the Morristown, Tennessee Civil Air Patrol squadron.[1]
Biography
Born as Evelyn Stone in Corbin, Kentucky, she was a graduate of Tennessee Wesleyan College. As a young woman, she taught school in Etowah, Tennessee. Later she attended the University of Tennessee.[2][3]
She married Wyatt Jennings “W.J.” Bryan and learned to fly in 1944, while he was serving in the Army Air Corps and the couple was living in Jefferson City, Tennessee.[4] She logged 57,635.4 flying hours, and was the oldest flight instructor in the world. She trained more pilots and gave more FAA exams than any other pilot. She was named in the Guinness Book of World Records as having the most flying hours of any woman and the most of any living person.[5] Johnson was inducted into the Women in Aviation Pioneers Hall of Fame, the Tennessee and Kentucky aviation halls of fame and others. She was awarded a bronze Carnegie Medal for rescuing a helicopter pilot after he crashed.[6]
Johnson became manager of the Morristown Regional Airport in Morristown, Tennessee, in 1953.[7] She flew into her 90s despite developing eyesight problems and only quit at 96 after a car accident on September 10, 2006 resulted in her undergoing a leg amputation. Even after that, she continued to manage the airport.[5]
Evelyn’s first husband, W. J. Bryan, died on November 11, 1963. In 1965, she married Morgan Johnson, who died in 1977.[5]
On July 21, 2007, Johnson was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio,[8] alongside astronaut Sally Ride and adventurer Steve Fossett, among others. The induction was her sixth such honor.
Johnson’s scrapbooks, memorabilia, and other papers from the period 1930 to 2002 are housed in the Archives of Appalachia at East Tennessee State University.[7]
Johnson died at age 102 in 2012.[2]
FYI
The Rural Blog: Difference in rural and urban mortality rates will be topic of Nov. 16 webinar
By Colin Marshall, Open Culture: 40,000 Early Modern Maps Are Now Freely Available Online (Courtesy of the British Library)
By Colin Marshall, Open Culture: Three Days in Twin Peaks: An In-Depth Journey Through the Evocative Locations of David Lynch’s TV Series
By Josh Jones, Open Culture: A Digital Library for Bartenders: Vintage Cocktail Books with Recipes Dating Back to 1753
Ernie at Tedium: Nonpartisan Zen Arcade
CutterLight: Take a Honda Tour of Chignik Lake, Alaska
Carol at Make a Living Writing: Should you offer discounts?
Recipes
By Nick Iverson, Taste of Home: Cheesy Cauliflower Breadsticks
By Julie Blanner: Easy Hors d’oeuvres
By Sue Stezel, Taste of Home: 50 Quick and Easy Slow Cooker Soup Recipes
DamnDelicious
- Chicken Fajita Quesadillas June 13, 2026This post may contain affiliate links. Please see our privacy policy for details. 30 minute chicken quesadillas with onions and bell peppers using leftover rotisserie chicken (huge time-saver!). So quick, so easy, so good! Why you’ll love chicken fajita quesadillas what is the best cheese to use for quesadillas? Always opt for a cheese with […]Chungah
- Lemon Butter Fish May 29, 2026This post may contain affiliate links. Please see our privacy policy for details. Tender, juicy, flaky fish with a lemon-garlic sauce that will knock your socks off. A 20 minute dinner recipe – so fast, so easy, so good! Why you’ll love this lemon butter fish recipe key ingredients in lemon butter fish Butter Use […]Chungah
RecipeTinEats
- Easy Slow Cooker BBQ Shredded Beef June 16, 2026Slow Cooker BBQ Shredded Beef is what you make when you want a big batch of crowd-pleasing food with relatively little effort. The succulent pulled beef is smothered in an incredible homemade barbecue sauce, and there’s so many ways to serve it – pile into sliders, heap onto plates or stuff into baked potatoes! Easy... […]Nagi
- Coffee Cake with Cinnamon Streusel June 12, 2026Firstly, thank you for the Jaffle love. 🥰 Hit the Jaffle button above to see what he got up to today! Secondly – cake. Specifically, Coffee Cake! A classic crumb cake with a jammy cinnamon ribbon, loaded with lots and lots of nubbly, extra crunchy cinnamon streusel. Outrageously good. Coffee Cake with Cinnamon Streusel This... […]Nagi
wikimedia
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for June 16 June 16, 2026Picture of the day View of Kirchberg an der Jagst, Germany, from the river Jagst. At the right the listed bridge, build in 1779; behind it the hill which supports Kirchberg Castle (top) and the old town of Kirchberg.
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for June 15 June 15, 2026Picture of the day Mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei), Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda
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Stump the Bookseller is a service offered by Loganberry Books to reconnect people to the books they love but can’t quite remember. In brief (for more detailed information see our About page), people can post their memories here, and the hivemind goes to work. After all, the collective mind of bibliophiles, readers, parents and librarians around the world is much better than just a few of us thinking. Together with these wonderful Stumper Magicians, we have a nearly 50% success rate in finding these long lost but treasured books. The more concrete the book description, the better the success rate, of course. It is a labor of love to keep it going, and there is a modest fee. Please see the How To page to find price information and details on how to submit your Book Stumper and payment.
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