Beebe, Ethel Fairmont, 1881-1977

Author, animal welfare activist. Born Ethel Fairmont Ryer, in La Crosse, Wisconsin, July 24, 1881. She moved with her family to Denver in 1895, and in 1899 married William Snyder and moved to Kansas City, Missouri. The Snyders were divorced in 1921. In 1922, she married Murray C. Beebe, a former University of Wisconsin engineering professor, whom Ethel had met while a student there (1915-1916). Murray Beebe died in 1943.

In Kansas City, Ethel founded the city's first animal shelter, beginning a life long career as an activist in the animal welfare movement, which was exemplified by her vegetarian beliefs and activities. She spent 1916-1917 in Japan, helping to establish the movement there. Active in various groups, she testified before the United States Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry in 1921 on proposed legislation to protect range animals.

In 1916 her well know book of children's verse, Rhymes for Kindly Children, was published, followed by The Lovely Garden in 1919, under the pen name Fairmont Snyder. She also contributed numerous pieces of verse to periodicals and wrote a newspaper column, "The Listening Heart," for the Waterbury-Republican, and some art history.

In addition to her year at the University of Wisconsin, she was a student in the Yale University School of Drama, 1926-27.

She died March 17, 1977, in Westport, Connecticut.

From the guide to the Ethel Fairmont Beebe Papers, 1900-1977, (Special and Area Studies Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida)