Kathleen Burke Hale | |
---|---|
Born | Kathleen Burke 24 October 1887 London |
Died | 26 November 1958 New York |
Other names | Kathleen Burke Peabody |
Occupation | Philanthropist |
Spouse(s) | Frederick Forrest Peabody John Reginald McLean Girard Van Barkaloo Hale |
Kathleen Burke Peabody McLean Hale (24 October 1887 – 26 November 1958) was a British-American philanthropist and war worker, decorated by seven European nations for her volunteer work during World War I and World War II.
Kathleen Burke was born in London, the daughter of Thomas Francis Burke and Georgina Connolly Burke. Her father was a railway executive.[1] She qualified to study at Oxford, and also studied at the Sorbonne as a young woman.[2]
Burke was honorary secretary of the London Office of the Scottish Women's Hospitals during World War I. She raised funds and visited hospital units;[3] she was the first woman to enter Verdun.[4] She was decorated by seven European nations for her volunteer activities, including a British Victory Medal and CBE (1918), membership in the French Légion d'honneur, a Serbian Knighthood of Saint Sava, and a Russian Cross of St. George. She was also made an honorary colonel in the United States Army.[5] She met all three of her future husbands during this period.[6][7]
Burke wrote about her war experiences in The White Road to Verdun,[6][8] and gave talks about her war experiences for community groups.[9][10]
With her first husband Burke worked to rebuilt Santa Barbara after its devastating 1925 earthquake; a high school stadium was named in recognition of their work.[6] She was made an honorary member of the local metal workers' union in gratitude for her efforts.[11] She was active in supporting many civic organizations in Santa Barbara, including the hospital, the public library, the Lobero Theatre, the Humane Society,[12] the Junior League and scouting organizations.[13]
Hale and her third husband worked on refugee resettlement in France until the Nazi occupation; then they focused on British war relief efforts.[14] "This is a different kind of war," she told The New York Times in 1940, "but the human needs are the same."[15] After the war, they funded the rebuilding of a French village, Maillé.[16][17][18] Eleanor Roosevelt mentioned their project in her newspaper column, "My Day."[19]
Kathleen Burke married three times. Her first husband was manufacturer Frederick Forrest Peabody; they married in 1920[20] and he died in 1927.[6] She was only briefly married to her second husband, John Reginald McLean, in 1929;[21] he died in a car accident nine days after their wedding.[22][23] In 1930 she married her third husband, diplomat Girard Van Barkaloo Hale.[24][25] They lived in Montecito. She died in 1958, a month after her third husband,[26] in New York. There is a large collection of her papers in the Santa Barbara Historical Museum's Gledhill Library.[27]
Her home in Montecito, Villa Solana, became the headquarters of the Fund for the Republic,[28] and its successor, the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions.[6] Her property Eagle Ranch near Atascadero remains a wildlife preserve, administered by the Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County.[29] In 2017, "De Santa Barbara à Maillé… les Hale, 1886-1958" was an exhibit about Hale and her third husband, at the historical museum in Maillé.[30]