Anna K. Brown: A
Pioneer Socorro VolunteerAnna K. Brown: A
Pioneer Socorro VolunteerThis paper was originally written for a course in historical research at
The front page article in the Defensor Chieftain on December 15,
1964 was headlined, "Mrs. Anna K. Brown Dies; Pioneer Socorro Resident."
The story was not the obituary of an ordinary 93 year old woman's passing, but the story of a woman who had given greatly of herself for the betterment of her community.
As one of the founders of the Socorro Public
Library, she served as its librarian for twenty-two years.
In memoriam, the library closed and canceled its plans for a fortieth anniversary celebration.
The article cited her work for the Red Cross during the war years, her charter memberships, and her knowledge of Spanish, but it failed to mention the honors that had been bestowed upon this woman by her grateful community.
Anna K. Brown's father, Joseph Kornitzer, was born in Hungary, of
Austrian parents in 1824. Kornitzer acquired a traditional European education including two years at the University of Vienna before entering the Josephenum, an institution for the educati
on of army surgeons in Vienna.
He served as a private in the Hungarian Army during the Hungarian Revolution, from 1848 until August 13, 1849, when he fled to Hungary to teach school.
A general amnesty allowed him to return to the University of Vienna to resume his medical studies.
He graduated in 1866, and was commissioned surgeon-in chief to a hospital ward near Vienna for the reception of the wounded during the Austro-Prussian War.
In 1868, he immigrated to New York City to open a medical practice.
Dorothea Hernick Kornitzer, Anna K. Brown's mother, was born in Bohemia.
The Kornitzer's first child, Emily, was born in May 1870.
Anna was born in New York on July 24, 1871.
Anxious to acquire a home of their own, the Kornitzers moved to Topeka, Kansas, where in 1879, a third daughter, Cornelia, was born.
With Mrs. Kornitzer's health gradually failing, they moved again, in February 1882, to Socorro, New Mexico.
Doctor Kornitzer served as physician and surgeon in Socorro and
neighboring Park City until his death in 1906.
He was particularly concerned with the treatment of cholera and tuberculosis, and he published two articles in The Merck's Bulletin in 1892, detailing his electrolytic treatment.
Despite his work, he was to lose two members of his family to consumption.
Daughter, Cornelia, died in 1887 in Socorro, and his wife, Dorothea, died in 1895 while visiting in Czechoslovakia.
Doctor Kornitzer's interests were wide and varied.
He published two pamphlets with titles typical of the 19th century: Proclamation of the Redemption of the Soil as the Final Redemption of Society and Wealth and Progress, a Rhapsody, Revealing
the Divine Mission of Money.
In 1898, he interested his daughter, Emily K. Hilton, in taking the examination to become a registered pharmacist, and with her, opened the Hilton Pharmacy, which is still an active business in Socorro today, although it is no longer owned by the Hilton f
amily.
After his wife's death, Doctor Kornitzer lived near his two daughters,
Anna and Emily, and continued to practice medicine.
He died at the age of 81 in 1906.
Funeral services were held at Anna's home, and the Socorro Chieftain reported: "Maurice Loewenstein read the impressive Jewish funeral services, and the remains were laid to rest in the Socorro cemetery on the mesa above the city."
In Socorro, the young Anna Kornitzer met Cony Thomas Brown.
C.T. Brown was born in 1856 in Corinna, Maine.
He was educated at the Maine Central Institute and North Anson Academy
in Maine, was engaged in farming and the hardware business in Kansas,
moved to New Mexico in 1880, and finally to Socorro in 1881.
On February 18, 1890, the Bullion published the marriage notices
of C.T. Brown to Miss Annie Kornitzer, and another Socorro couple.
The contracting parties are all well and favorably known, and have been residents of the Gem City for the past 8 years. The Bullion extends its congratulations, and hopes that more the batchelors will go and do likewise.
Two sons were born to the Browns during the next five years; Cony Cephas
in 1891, and Thomas Coburn in 1895.
Cony T. Brown had come to New Mexico from Kansas in 1880, as
superintendent of the Ellis Mining Company in the Magdalena District.
During his lifetime, he was an extensive property holder in Socorro, president of the Socorro State Bank, president and manager of the Socorro Light and Power Company, president of the Val Verde Hotel Company, superintendent and general manager for the so
uthwestern district of the Empire Zinc Company, and chairman of the Middle Rio Grande Reclamation Association. A staunch R
epublican all his life, Brown served as the chairman of the Socorro County Board of Commissioners from 1883 to 1897, and was on the Socorro City Council for 12 years.
He was elected State Senator from the fourteenth district in 1922, and from the thirteenth district in 1924.
Brown had mining, prospecting and stock raising interests in the Socorro
area. The various Socorro newspapers frequently reported his comings and goings, south to El Paso and Mexico, north to Santa Fe. The Socorro Chieftain reported in 1906:
C.T. Brown returned home Christmas morning from an absence of three weeks spent in Texas and Missouri on mining business. Mr. Brown says that he may stay at home long enough to get acquainted with his neighbors.
Brown was prominent in Masonic circles.
He was one of the first 33rd degree Masons in New Mexico, and a member of the Royal Order of Scotland.
Brown took an interest in the progress of the New Mexico School of
Mines, founded in Socorro in 1889.
He was appointed to the Board of Regents in 1898 and served until 1914.
In 1917 he was reappointed and elected secretary and treasurer.
In 1921 he served as president of the regents, until his re-election to the State Senate made it obligatory to resign from the board.
The New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology's administration building is named for C.T. Brown, as is a medal, given annually to a member of the senior class ranking highest in scholarship, conduct, and leadership. In 1913, the school awarded Brown
the honorary degree of mining engineer.
When the Kornitzers first came to Socorro in 1882, all the hotels in the
busy mining town were full, and they stayed at a house on east Manzanares Street which is just east of the present Socorro Electric Coop Annex.
The Browns were to settle in this same neighborhood as a married couple.
On September 15, 1899, a deed was recorded in the Probate Clerk's office transferring title of property owned by Ruth A. and Christopher N. Blackwell to Anna K. Brown.
The Socorro Chieftain reported on March 15, 1902:
Mr. and Mrs. C.T. Brown and family have taken up their abode this week in the Blackwell property. The property has recently been put into excellent condition and now makes a commodious and comfortable home.
The home which still stands at 205 Abeytia (now Abeyta), was a small
five room adobe cottage.
By 1906, with the growing family needing more space, the Brown's rising prominence in town dictated an addition to the house.
Beginning on April 21, and Socorro Chieftain regularly made progress reports on the renovation and expansion of the residence. On June 16, it reported:
W.D. Crabtree, a building contractor of Albuquerque, was in town Monday making preliminary arrangements to begin the erection of a new residence for C.T. Brown. The residence is to be a one and a half story building of stone, very commodious, comfortable, and attractive. It will be constructed so as to include Mr. Brown's present residence.
Anne Hilton Olsen, Mrs. Brown's niece, remembers that in the
earthquake-ridden summer of 1906, people slept outside in tents, and renovation work on the house was nearly abandoned because of the frequency of the quakes.
But work did continue, and the Socorro Chieftain reported on December 1, 1906:
Mr. and Mrs. C.T. Brown entertained a number of friends for the first time in their beautiful new home in the eastern part of the city Thursday at a Thanksgiving dinner. Mr. and Mrs. Brown are delightful entertainers and with so commodious and attractive a home and everything conducive to the comfort and pleasure there seems to have been nothing left to be desired by those present...
With her two sons no longer babies, Mrs. Brown found time to pursue a
lively social life.
Rarely did a week's newspaper fail to report her rounds of entertaining, or attendance at dinners, luncheons, and card parties.
In March 1906, while the Brown's lived in the small adobe house, the Socorro Chieftain reported:
Mrs. C.T. Brown and Mrs. J.H. (Emily K.) Hilton were hostesses on Saturday, at one of the largest and most elaborate card parties of the season, about forty guests having participated in the game of high five (today's contract bridge).
In June 1907, the Socorro Chieftain tells of a card party at
which "Mrs. C.T. Brown proved herself a champion by winning everyone [sic] of the six games played and was presented with a beautiful hand painted China plate."
Cony T. Brown was an active Mason, and it seems natural that his wife
should be among those who, on March 13, 1902, met to found the Magdalen Chapter No. 9, Order of the Eastern Star, at the Masonic Hall in Socorro.
Eighteen members were present at the founding, and officers elected that evening included Mrs. Anna K. Brown, Electa.
Later, Mrs. Brown served as the Grand Matron of the Chapter.
Following her husband's mining interests, Mrs. Brown was instrumental in
helping to found the Woman's Auxiliary to the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, Socorro Section (WAAIME) on November 18, 1924.
Mrs. C.T. Brown was elected librarian at the first organizational meeting.
The Socorro Chieftain reported that the principle "feature of the Socorro branch (of WAAIME) will be the establishing, and maintaining of a public library, and social improvement of the town in general."
Wasting no time, the WAAIMEs found a building suitable for the new
library and opened its doors.
The Socorro Chieftain reported on December 13, 1924:
The Socorro free library will be open to the public on the next Tuesday afternoon at three o'clock, and from three to five on Tuesday and Friday afternoon of very week thereafter. Books will be greatfully received from those who wish to contribute and may be brought to the library on the days it is open.
To raise funds for the library, the WAAIMEs decided to organize a dance
to be held in the School of Mines gymnasium, arranged by Mrs. E.H. Wells and Mrs. Cony T. Brown.
Over 200 tickets had been sold, when on January 15, 1925, Senator Cony T. Brown died suddenly as he was preparing to leave for Santa Fe to attend the seventh session of the state legislature.
There was apparently some thought that the dance should be canceled.
A special WAAIME meeting was called January 18, and the Minute Book reads:
There having come up a situation in regard to the dance to be given on Jan. 29, which Mrs. Wells felt that she could not handle alone, a special meeting was called, and after some discussion, it was unanimously decided to go on with the dance, as not t o do so, would have proven a rather disastrous situation financially speaking, to the few members of the branch.
Two weeks following Cony T. Brown's death, the fundraising dance was
held, and the Socorro Public Library was launched financially.
The widowed Mrs. Brown was not in attendance.
C.T. Brown was buried in the Masonic Section of the Socorro cemetery.
El Defensor reported that the library's first home
was in part of the Shakespeare building on East Manzanares Street. Next it was moved to a building on Court Street, next to the old Presbyterian Church. Another move took the library to the old firehouse on Fisher Avenue. Then WAAIME bought the old Baptist Church building on Park Street and remodeled it.
The adobe Baptist Church building forms the central portion of the
building occupied by the library today.
Mrs. Brown served as librarian from its founding in 1924 until 1927, when she was replaced by a succession of WAAIME members.
In 1945, she was again chosen by the WAAIMEs to fill the post of librarian, a position which she held until 1963, a total of 22 years.
Mrs. Brown's influence over the library is felt even today.
In 1961, El Defensor Chieftain reported: "Since Dec. 16, 1924 when the Socorro Library was started, Mrs. Brown has missed only two days being present to assist in library work."
This statement may be somewhat of a local myth since Mrs. Brown was to spend many summers in Santa Fe during the 1930's, and took several extensive trips to Europe during which she could not possibly have been in attendance at the library.
But it is a myth which persists widely in Socorro, as is the myth that she served as its only librarian from 1924 until 1963.
Certainly she worked diligently and without remuneration during all those
years following her husband's death.
As El Defensor reported in 1957, she "has guided the Library into a path of maximum benefit and enjoyment for the citizens of the Socorro community."
By the early 1950's the library was outgrowing the space in the
remodeled Baptist Church, and the WAAIMEs began to think about expanding the building with a new addition to the north, turning the old building into a museum.
Believing that they held title to the land north of the building, ground was broken for the new addition at a ceremony on March 21, 1952.
The title to the property, however, was not clear, and it was not until
December 1954 that the legal way was paved for resuming construction,
which was completed in February 1956.
An open house was held on March 21, 1956, exactly four years after the groundbreaking.
Five years later, on October 22, 1961, a reception honoring Mrs. Brown
was held at the library, and a portrait of the founding librarian, painted by WAAIME member, Marie Taylor, was presented to the library by the artist and thirty of Mrs. Brown's friends.
Today, the portrait hangs in the north room which serves as the children's library, and the room is known as the Anna K. Brown room.
Mrs. Brown occasionally accompanied her husband on his business trips,
but usually demands of children and social life in Socorro kept her at home.
In the summer of 1907, however, she took her sons on a trip east, visiting New Orleans, Washington, and the Jamestown exposition, and other places of interest.
Three summers later, she included her niece, Ann Hilton, on a trip to Europe visiting England, France, Germany, Austria, and Italy.
After her husband's death, Mrs. Brown returned to Europe in December
1930, with the intention of purchasing antique furnishings in Spain.
On June 6, 1931, the Socorro Chieftain reported:
Mrs. C.T. Brown returned last week-end from a business visit to New Orleans. Mrs. Brown expects to go to Santa Fe soon to open an antique shoppe. Her trip to the southern coast city was to look after a shipment of furniture, rugs and other goods due from Spain.
A week later, Mrs. Brown and her son Tom went to Santa Fe on business,
presumably to find a suitable location for her shop and home for the summer.
The Santa Fe City Directory for 1932-33 lists Anna K. Brown as a householder living at 410 Don Gas
par Avenue, a modest adobe house which stands today in a row of identical houses across the street from the State Capitol building.
A sign advertising Spanish antiques which originally hung on this house, is now on display at the Socorro Public Library.
Mrs. Brown continued to spend the next seven summers in Santa Fe, returning each fall to her home and friends in Socorro.
In addition to the expansion of her interest in travel and her business
venture in Santa Fe, Mrs. Brown began to fill her life with other volunteer endeavors.
On may 5, 1934, Socorro Chapter M. of P.E.O. was founded by twelve charter members, and Mrs. Brown was elected its first vice-president.
She was elected president of the chapter in March 1937.
Mrs. Brown spoke fluent Spanish, and in 1935 she was hired by the New
Mexico School of Mines to teach Spanish as an instructor.
The school's Board of Regents minutes record that she was paid $575 for each of the two years that she taught at the school.
At the end of the seven summer period spent in Santa Fe, Mrs. Brown
seemed ready to take on additional local responsibilities.
In 1939 she was elected secretary of the local branch of WAAIME, a position which she held until 1944 when she was
again asked to serve as librarian.
She served as home service chairman for the American Red Cross in Socorro for fourteen years, including wartime service to soldiers and their families.
She had long been a member of the Socorro Garden Club, when, on March 4,
1937, she was elected president.
El Defensor Chieftain reported that the annual garden tour for the Garden Club in June 1963, included the Abeytia Street home of Mrs. Brown a
nd her son Tom and daughter-in-law, Judy.
The tour ended in the spacious yard of Mr. and Mrs. Tom Brown. There under the shade of giant mulberry trees beside a pool of waterlilies in full bloom a luncheon was given for the group. Hostesses for the luncheon were Mrs. Anna K. Brown, Mrs. Tom Brown, and Mrs. Lucille Ferguson.
At this time, Mrs. Brown was 92.
In February 1963, when the Socorro County Historical Society was founded, Mrs. Brown was listed among its founding members.
After a lifetime spent in volunteer work for her community, grateful New
Mexicans began to give her recognition.
As the first librarian of the Socorro Public Library, Mrs. Brown was a
member of the New Mex
ico Library Association.
The agenda of the executive board of the association for April 25, 1957, recorded as new business the following item: "Matter of Mrs. Brown being presented with an honorary membership in NMLA.
Should constitution be changed to permit honorary life memberships?"
The association held its annual meeting in Socorro that spring and the award was made to Mrs. Brown as El Defensor reported:
In making the presentation at the Conference's annual banquet, Phoebe Harris, president, lauded Mrs. Brown for her 35 years of service and outstanding contribution to the library profession, and presented her with an orchid.
The WAAIME Minute Book, in its report on the NMLA 34th annual
meeting recorded:
"At the banquet on Friday evening, Mrs. Brown was honored by being presented with an honorary membership in the New Mexico Library Association, the first ever given."
The Socorro County Historical Society also chose to honor one of its
founding members by presenting Mrs. Brown with its first honorary membership. El Defensor Chieftain reported on September 12, 1963:
Mrs. C.T. Brown was given a standing ovation by the Socorro County Historical Society last Sunday afternoon, showing approval of the motion by J.C. Enloe that Mrs. Brown be named as the first Honorary Member of the Society. The rousing applause of members present evidenced the high esteem with which Mrs. Brown is regarded by her contemporaries.
Having received state and local recognition for her work, Mrs. Brown was
now due for national recognition for her work with the WAAIMEs of Socorro.
The WAAIME Minute Book of January 8, 1964, recorded that the Section unanimously adopted a resolution to elect Mrs. Brown an honorary member of WAAIME.
Such a resolution must be brought before the national association at an annual meeting. The minutes of the March 11, 1964 meeting record:
The Chairman announced that Mrs. C.T. Brown had been notified that she was elected an honorary member of the WAAIME at the annual meeting held in New York in February.
Mrs. Brown attended the meeting of Mary 13, 1964 following her election
as an honorary member, but this meeting was the last she attended.
The WAAIMEs placed a wreath on the front door of the library to honor
her memory.
She was survived by her son Tom (Cony C. Brown having died of influenza several years earlier), four grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, and fourteen great-great-grandchildren.
Funeral services were held at the Steadman Memorial Chapel with the Reverend Clinton Smith, rector of the Episcopal Church officiating. She was buried next to her husband in the Masonic section of the Socorro cemetery.
Mrs. Brown was undoubtedly not the first woman in Socorro to devote her
life to volunteer efforts for the community.
Newspaper articles concerning her work often linked her name with other volunteers.
Since her death, the work which she began has continued; the Socorro Public Library continued to flourish under the volunteer guidance of WAAIME librarian Betty Thompson.
A lively volunteer program exists today, allowing the Socorro Public Library to offer services beyond what its paid staff could handle.
Mrs. Brown could certainly be proud of her legacy.