From the Archives – These women made one mother of a difference

When it comes to Naples and Collier County, these women left their mark and in many cases help to make our area what it is today. You might say it's historic!

Tommie Barfield

Education in Collier County would not be the same without Tommie Barfield. The county’s first public school superintendent, Barfield had only a third-grade education.

In 1901, at the age of 13, Tommie Camilla Stephens with her parents and siblings arrived in Caxambus, a small community on Marco Island, after an arduous trek from Cordele, Georgia. Tommie had no inkling of her future influence on the community.

She would become a wife, mother, businesswoman, beekeeper, innkeeper, and advocate for local education and transportation.

“She knew what she wanted for schools and worked toward setting high standards and goals for future schools in the new county,” wrote Elizabeth Perdichizzi and Katherine Kirk in their book “A Girl Called Tommie: Queen of Marco Island.”

Although she was elected to a second year as superintendent, Barfield resigned to take a position on the Collier County School Board, where she would serve for 20 years. She resigned her position in 1949 for health reasons, and her daughter Elva Griffis took her seat, according to the book.

But schools weren't the only thing Barfield fought for. In 1910, Barfield began attending commission meetings in Fort Myers to lobby for things needed on Marco, including roads, ferries and schools.

Seeing that Barron Gift Collier had more of an interest in the land, she helped him acquire most of the property that is Marco, Caxambas and Goodland.

Deaconess Harriet M. Bedell

Deaconess Harriet Bedell first came to Florida during a lecture tour in the 1930s, which she was doing to raise money for her mission. During her visit, Bedell visited a Seminole Indian village and became excited about the prospect of Christianizing the Indians.

Bedell convinced the executive board of the Episcopal Church Service League to give her $50 a month for her mission and rented a house for $20 a month from the Collier Corp., whose headquarters were in Everglades City.

She soon turned the new home into a church, which she called Glade Cross Mission. But the Indians did not come. In fact, it would take almost three years for Bedell to win the acceptance of a few Indians. But once she made headway, the mission began showing results.

“Nobody stopped the Deaconess,” Doris Reynolds said with a laugh. “Those Indians became Christian or felt her wrath. She was the bossiest woman God ever created.”

In addition to her missionary duties, Bedell would hold five church services a week, including ones at Marco Island, Caxambas and Goodland; she would visit families and the sick; and she would sell the handicrafts made by the Seminoles to tourists and the townspeople, turning the proceeds over to the Indians.

Although Bedell would leave the area to live at the Bishop Gray Inn in Davenport, she did not stop working, caring for the sick and lecturing until her death in 1969 at age 94.

Mother Perry

There are more than 500 babies in Collier County whose first glimpse of the world included the face of Mother Perry.

As a midwife for 25 years, Annie Mae Perry helped in hundreds of childbirths. Before her death at 98, she also worked days picking tomatoes, driving a school bus, fixing food in a school lunchroom and taking care of little ones at a downtown day care.

“I would come 32 miles from Copeland to Naples to deliver a baby,” she said in Maria Stone’s book, “We Also Came – Black People of Collier County.”

But delivering babies was in her blood. Perry, born in 1910 in Monticello, was delivered by her grandmother, a midwife who taught her grandchild to deliver babies, too.

“It felt like they was mine,” she said, remembering all of the children in a February 2008 Daily News interview. “Felt just like my children.”

Mamie Tooke

When the Bank of Naples opened in 1949, Mamie Tooke became one of three employees and the bank’s assistant cashier. Her husband, Clarence, was the head cashier and executive vice president, though he would eventually take over after former Naples Mayor Roy Smith stepped down from the presidency.

Although Tooke had, like many women of the day, wrapped up her ambitions in her husband’s career, she was forced to step into the spotlight when Clarence Cooke became ill and incapacitated after a stroke. Tooke took over and would eventually become the president of the Bank of Naples.

“She was an extraordinary woman,” said Doris Reynolds, who called Tooke “her best friend.”

“She had never been to college, she had never had a course in banking,”Reynolds said. “But she did it.”

Tooke also was involved in the community. She was the first woman to serve as the director of the Chamber of Commerce and was named the Naples Daily News’ Outstanding Citizen of the Year in 1964.

Mary Jo Casey Miller

Mary Jo Casey Miller was the first woman elected to the Naples City Council, first woman president of the Naples Board of Realtors and first woman Rotarian in Naples.

In 1976 Miller, the 26th President of NABOR, started out her presidency by receiving the NABOR Realtor of the Year Award for her years of work prior to assuming the office of president. She was the first woman to receive this award. She also was the first woman to become a president of the Board.

Casey and her husband, Ad Miller, Board President 1970 became the first husband and wife team to serve in the presidents’ position for NABOR.

Due to her many firsts, she was considered the first lady of Naples.

Bonnie McKenzie Loveday

MacKenzie became Naples first female mayor in 2000, serving until 2004 when she left because of term limits. She moved to Naples in 1984 and was first elected to the Naples City Council in 1996.

After she left the mayor's office, MacKenzie was honored by then-Gov. Jeb Bush for acting as a stabilizing force when residents from the city's historically black neighborhood River Park protested about the April 2001 shooting of a young black man by a Naples police officer.

MacKenzie died of breast cancer at age 54 in 2005.

Mary Ellen Hawkins

Hawkins was the first female representative elected to the Florida House from Naples. She served for 10 terms from 1974 to 1994 and played a leading role on legislative committees with jurisdiction over growth management, the environment, transportation, education, tourism and appropriations.

In 1976, she worked for legislation to create the Big Cypress Basin as a local water management funding and administrative unit within the Southwest Florida Water Management District.

More From the archives – Saluting Naples moms on Mother's Day

And 'Courage and tenacity': Naples mom is activist, change agent for disabled, caregivers

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: From the Archives – These women made one mother of a difference