Enochs, Elisabeth Randolph Shirley, 1895-1992

Elisabeth Randolph Shirley Enochs (15 August 1890–23 January 1992), reformer, was born in Indian Territory, which later became part of Oklahoma. Her father, John Carter Shirley, died in an accident about the time of her birth. By 1896 she and her mother, George Surratt–de Sayve Shirley, a native of France, had moved to Florida, where in February of that year the latter married Thomas Edward Barron Kernan, a Saint Augustine pharmacist who had been married previously. Following his death in 1902, Kernan took her daughter abroad, where Shirley studied in England, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia.

They returned to the United States in 1914. Her mother purchased Mount Air, a 117-acre estate in Fairfax County. After working as a linguist in the War Department during World War I, Shirley in 1921 became a foreign news writer for the National Catholic Welfare Council News Service (later the National Catholic Welfare Conference News Service). Later in the decade she also worked as a special correspondent for the New York Times and the Saint Paul Pioneer Press-Dispatch.
Children's Bureau
In 1927 Shirley began a long career with the Children's Bureau of the United States Department of Labor as an economic analyst. On 30 October 1930 at the American embassy in Rio de Janeiro, she married John Matt Enochs, a United States naval officer later assigned to command the battleship Pennsylvania. He died in San Diego, California, on 7 April 1932. They had no children. By early in the 1930s Enochs had become a special writer for the Children's Bureau; she served as director of publicity in 1934 and as an associate editor beginning in 1935. During the decade, articles she wrote appeared in the Washington Post on topics relating to diplomacy in Central and South America and conditions in Europe. Enochs remained focused on child-welfare issues, however, and in 1935 she served as the secretary to the United States delegation at the Seventh Pan American Child Congress, in Mexico.

In the spring of 1936 Enochs began attending the George Washington University. After receiving a certificate from the Junior College in 1937, she undertook law studies during the 1937–1938 and 1938–1939 academic years. A guest at the White House several times during the decade, in 1938 she became a director of the Women's National Press Club and that December attended the Eighth International Conference of American States in Peru as the only female commentator covering the event. In 1939 Enochs attended the annual conference of the Women's Trade Union League of the District of Columbia. The following year she spoke at the Women's National Democratic Club about the adoption of progressive labor and child-welfare legislation in the republics of Central and South America.

In 1943 Enochs became chief of the Division of International Cooperation for the Children's Bureau. The division's staff of medical, nursing, nutrition, and social service consultants provided maternal and child-welfare agencies in Central and South America with training programs and the opportunity to observe United States programs in those areas. The division also helped other countries establish and develop their own programs and agencies for children's welfare. In conjunction with her position, which she held until 1951, Enochs often traveled in Central and South America to observe and advise on the social welfare of mothers and children. In October 1945 she headed the United States delegation at the first Pan-American Congress of Social Service, in Chile. The delegates called for higher standards for training social workers, the creation of a social welfare organization under the auspices of the United Nations, and the development of social services to help make Franklin Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" a reality around the world. In 1951 Enochs was named the chief of international technical missions in the Social Security Administration under the Federal Security Agency (after 1953, part of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare).

Inter-American Children's Institute
For more than thirty years Enochs worked with the American International Institute for the Protection of Childhood, organized in Uruguay in 1927 to improve the quality of children's lives in the Americas. She attended its organizational meeting as an observer for the Children's Bureau and later attended some of the meetings of its directing council. Enochs served as the United States alternate representative to the council in 1947 and in 1952 and was appointed technical delegate, or representative, in 1953. Elected president of the council in 1955 (the first American citizen to serve in that office), she publicized some of the organization's goals: to encourage universal registration of births, to plan ways to reduce infant mortality and combat malaria, and to conduct studies on topics including juvenile delinquency, the effect of television on children, and school safety. Her term lasted until 1957, the same year the organization became known as the Inter-American Children's Institute. Reappointed the United States representative to the council in 1961, she continued to serve until 1970.

Honors
During these years Enochs received many honors and awards, including an honorary law degree from Western College for Women (1953); the Distinguished Service Award from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare for her work to improve conditions around the world (1957); the Order of Francisco de Miranda from the government of Venezuela (1958); and an award for outstanding service to social welfare from the National Conference of Social Welfare (1959). In 1978 she received the first Outstanding Achievement Award from the Society of Woman Geographers for her work in raising the health standards of children worldwide. Throughout her career she published numerous articles dealing with child welfare in Latin America.

Later Career
In 1962 Enochs transferred to the Agency for International Development and in August 1965 retired as one of its special advisers on welfare programs. She continued to work as a consultant for AID (later USAID) and in that capacity traveled to Vietnam in September 1965. In 1967 she retired to Mount Air, which she had inherited after her mother died in 1962.

Elisabeth Randolph Shirley Enochs, who had developed Parkinson's disease, died at the army hospital at Fort Belvoir, in Fairfax County, on 23 January 1992. She was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, where her husband had been interred. Her legacy of advocating child welfare continued at George Mason University through an endowed chair; the Center for Child Welfare, which the Elisabeth Shirley Enochs endowment funded for a time in the Social Work Program; and the Elisabeth Shirley Enochs Technical Assistance Program, established to maintain an exchange of child-welfare experts between Latin America and the United States.

Elisabeth Randolph Shirley Enochs, 96, a retired government official and former journalist, died Jan. 23 at Dewitt Army Hospital at Fort Belvoir. She had Parkinson's disease.

Mrs. Enochs began her government career in 1927 as a writer with the old U.S. Children's Bureau. From 1942 to 1951, she directed its international cooperation division. She then joined what became the Social Security Administration, where she was international service chief in the Office of the Commissioner. In 1962, she transferred to the Agency for International Development, where she retired in 1965 as a special adviser on social welfare programs.

She was appointed U.S. representative for the Inter-American Children's Institute by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and served in that capacity until 1970. She was president of the institute's Directing Council from 1955 to 1957. She also led U.S. delegations to Pan American Child congresses. In 1964, she served on the U.S. delegation to the Fifth Pan American Indian Congress. She also served on several State Department cultural missions in South America.

She was honored often for her work in international social welfare. She was the recipient of a 1956 Distinguished Service Award and a 1957 honor award of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, as well as awards from several Latin American governments and from the National Council of Negro Women and the Society of Women Geographers.

Mrs. Enochs, who lived in Fairfax, was born in the Oklahoma Territory. She was a graduate of George Washington University and its law school. She also had studied extensively in Europe.

She taught French and Spanish at a girls' preparatory school in Florida, and served as head of the Romance languages department at Women's College of Alabama in Montgomery in 1917. In 1927, she worked for the Washington bureau of the New York Times, covering international affairs here. During World War II, she was a War Department translator. She was a past president of the Society of Women Geographers and past vice president and treasurer of the Washington Press Club. She was a member of the National Conference on Social Welfare.

Her husband, Navy Capt. John M. Enochs, died in 1932. She leaves no immediate survivors.