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Modern Day Foodie
The backstage love story of Mary Rippon: the Colorado professor with a secret
2024-02-13
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If you have ever been to the Shakespeare Festival at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder), then you have heard her name. Because the Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre is named in her honor.
Mary Rippon was a pioneering woman professor in academia. But Victorian society forced her to lead two very separate lives. Mary was both a professional woman and a mother in an era when these two roles could not be combined. She was forced to hide her personal life for years.
Mary Rippon was invited by University President Joseph A. Sewall to become the first female professor at the University in 1877. During her 57-year career at the University, Rippon taught French and German, and served as the informal “Dean of Women” in university matters relating to women.
Rippon’s involvement with the CU Boulder and the community was extensive. She donated money for projects, planted trees and bushes around CU’s Old Main building, and raised funds for the University’s and Boulder’s libraries. In addition, she launched the first theater productions at CU. Mary Rippon is believed to have been the first woman in the U.S. to teach at a state university.
In 1888, Rippon secretly married William Housel in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1888, Mary and William (Will) were blessed with a daughter named Miriam Housel. In order to keep her job, she hid her husband and child behind a curtain of secrecy.
In 1887, Mary was thirty-seven. While teaching one of her German classes, she met Will Housel. He was one of her students and twenty-five at the time. It is said that Mary became pregnant and took a year off. The couple traveled to Europe and married in St. Louis on the way.
Mary RipponPhoto byPublic Domain via Wikipedia
Rippon returned to Boulder without her family. It is said that her daughter remained behind with Housel and then in an orphanage. Later Housel returned to Colorado and never lived with Mary. Mary provided financial support to her daughter and Will. It is said she continued to support him even though he remarried. Miram spent most of her life thinking Mary was her aunt.
In 1909, Rippon retired from her 57-year career at CU Boulder. She lived the rest of her life in Boulder, Colorado. She died at 85 of a heart condition in September of 1935. She is buried at Columbia Cemetery in Boulder.
Mary Ribbon's grave at Columbia Cemetery in Boulder, ColoradoPhoto byFina-a-Grave.com
One year after her death, on alumni day, a memorial outdoor theater between the wings of the Hellems Building was dedicated to Rippon. In 1985, Rippon was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame. In addition, May 2006, she was awarded posthumous honorary doctorate from the University of Colorado,
Have you ever been to the Mary Ribbon Outdoor Theatre? Let us know in the comments.
Will Housel remarried and had several children. In 1912, at the age of 50, he was accidently killed by an automobile while riding a motorcycle in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is buried in Ann Arbor.
Inscription: William C. Housel (1862-1912) Father.Photo byFina-a-Grave.com
A side note on Will Housel. He is the son of the Boulder pioneer Judge Peter Mandeville Housel. An early settlers and prominent citizens.
What do you think about Mary’s decision to keep this secret? Let us know in the comments.
Century Later the Truth Came Out
The truth of Mary's hidden life was not revealed until nearly a century later. In 1976, when her elderly grandson revealed to a university librarian that he was Mary's descendant.
Miriam Edna Housel Rieder was Mary Rippon’s daughter. After Miriam was born January 17, 1889, in Germany. The world thought that Mary was Miriam guarding.
Miram graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder in 1925. She became a professor at CU Boulder in the Department of Modern Languages. But her relationship with Mary remained a secret. Miriam had many half siblings from Hosuel’s second marriage.
Miriam died September 28, 1957, at the age of 68 in Boulder, Colorado. She was cremated and the location of her ashes is unknown.
It was Miriam’s only child, Wilfred Wolf “Walfried” Rieder that came into the CU Boulder library that day to tell the story of his grandmother’s secret life. He has since passed and is buried in Wheat Ridge, Colorado.
Have you heard this story before? Let us know in the comments.
A Book about Mary
Colorado historian Sylvia Pettern wrote a book about Mary: “Separate Lives: the story of Mary Rippon.” The book demonstrates how Mary was a pioneer woman educator in the male-dominated world of nineteenth-century academia. The book follows Mary from her small midwestern hometown to the great centers of culture in Europe and beyond.
If Sylvia Pettern’s name seems familiar. She is the very historian in my recent article about Jane Doe in Boulder’s Columbia Cemetery. It was her investigative work that found Jane Doe’s real name and family. Read the Jane Doe article.
It warmed my heart to see that Sylvia has left digital flowers on the Rippon family Find-a-Grave.com profiles.
Mary Rippon in her later years.Photo byUniversity of Colorado
Thank you, Mary Rippon, for paving the way for women in academia. Like myself.
Tell us what you think of the story in the comments.
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