Madge Sills Hamlin was the daughter of James Everett Sills and Fannie Montgomery Smith Sills, both originally from Brunswick County, Virginia. Sills Hamlin was born in Newport News, Virginia in 1897 and attended Greensboro College in North Carolina. After graduating college, Sills Hamlin traveled throughout Europe and Asia for a three year "trip around the world", most notably living and teaching in Japan for over a year. During her travels, she took great interest in the people, history and folklore of these places and in her later life credits her travels for being an invaluable asset in her work as an educator. After she returned to the United States, she attended graduate school at Columbia University to attain a degree in education. She received her Master's Degree in 1928. In 1932, she and her husband, Paul Mahlon Hamlin, founded the Hamlin School, located at 41 Morlot Ave. in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, a progressive private school for K-12 students. The school seems to have been in operation from the 1930s to the mid-1950s. In 1957 to 1958 she again visited Japan. In 1958, she established the Paul Mahlon Hamlin Award to perpetuate the lifelong interest in scholarship of her husband, a Rutgers University professor emeritus of political science. Madge Sills Hamlin died in 1988.
From the description of Madge Sills Hamlin Collection, 1921-1984. (New Jersey Historical Society Library). WorldCat record id: 61325423
