Virginia Thrall Smith
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| Activist in support of services to women and children.
Born in Bloomfield, Virginia Thrall attended Suffield Institute, Hartford Female Seminary and Mount Holyoke Seminary. In 1857 she married William Born Smith. Of this union came six children, three of whom died of diphtheria. Her concern for other children led her to start a boys' club, a cooking class for girls and a singing school.
She prodded the Legislature to pass a law authorizing kindergartens in public schools throughout the state. For many years she administered the Hartford City Mission until she was drummed out because she befriended an unwed mother. Virginia Thrall Smith believed that all children, legitimate or illegitimate, abandoned or orphaned, black or white, sick or well, deserved to be properly cared for. Among the organizations she founded or helped to establish were the Sister Dora Society, still in existence as the Women's Exchange, the Children's Aid Society (now called the Village for Families and Children, Inc.), and the world-famous Newington Home for Crippled Children (now Newington Children's Hospital). | |||||||||||
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