Civic & Community

In 1926 a clinic for crippled children was established in Lonaconing at the request of Mrs. Ann B. Sloan with nearly 90 children attending the first clinic. A clinic was organized shortly afterwards in Cumberland.

In 1934 the Allegany County League for Crippled Children was formally founded and incorporated by Henrietta Schwarzenbach, R.N. and Miss Elizabeth McLaughlin. Since that time over 30,000 children have been examined in the free orthopedic, cerebral palsy, brace, and orofacial monthly clinics.

Ricka N. Rosenbaum, 1853-1948 and Fannie Rosenbaum, 1853-1918

In 1888, Ricka and her sister-in-law, Fannie, served with a group of ladies to establish the “Home and Infirmary of Western Maryland.” This later became Western Maryland Hospital(1892), forerunner of Memorial Hospital (1929), and the Western Maryland Health System in 1996.
 

The well-known architect, Bruce Price (1845-1903) was born and raised in Cumberland. He later became the father of Emily Post (1873-1960), the famous authority and writer on manners and etiquette.

One of Bruce Price’s local works is the old Second National Bank, located at the corner of Baltimore and South Liberty Streets in Cumberland, built in 1890. It is now the Susquehanna Bank Building.

Mary Miltenberger is a local businesswoman and community activist. An early advocate for historic preservation, Mary has for over three decades been a leader in the debate over such other public policy issues as education, highway locations, fluoridation, prisons, flood mitigation, Pro-Life, father's rights and the placement of the Ten Commandments.

She also served as Allegany County’s first Head Start Program Director and, along with Hazel Groves Hansrote, co-edited the Heritage Press, a publication of the Preservation Society of Allegany County.

Odessa Meister

The unsolved murder of Odessa Meister has remained a topic of local discussion for over fifty years.

Florence Pearre McKaig (1857-1915)

Florence McKaig was the President of the Allegany County Just Government League. This was a branch of the women’s suffrage organization in Allegany County. McKaig was also a pioneer in the establishment of free health services for economically disadvantaged women. These services were provided through the Western Maryland Hospital which had been located on Baltimore Avenue in Cumberland.

In the 1830s a gentleman, who had just survived an exhausting visit to his sister who lived in Cumberland, wrote, “I believe you think of nothing else in Cumberland but parties and frolicking. When do you find time for housekeeping and making butter?” His affluent sister, Anna Lyons, would along with others later busy herself raising funds for the county’s first public library, which in 1838 after acquiring 300 books took the name, “Mechanics Circulating Library”. The library made, at a very reasonable rental, novels, biographies, and histories available to the public.

Mary Lynn was responsible for the donation of the Rose Hill Cemetery site to Emmanuel Episcopal Church. The original four acre tract (added to later) was given by Mary in 1851, immediately following the consecration service of the present Emmanuel Episcopal Church, constructed between 1849-1851. It was called Rose Hill as the Lynn home had been.

Miss Elizabeth Lloyd Lowndes (1881-1963)

Elizabeth was a member of the Emmanuel Parish (Emmanuel Episcopal Church) in Cumberland, Maryland. Her parents were Lloyd Lowndes (1845-1905), a Republican, who had served as Governor of Maryland from 1896 to 1900, and Elizabeth Tasker Lowndes (1842-1922).

Elizabeth Tasker Lowndes, wife of Governor Lloyd Lowndes (the only Governor from Allegany County), was born in Cumberland in 1842. She was known as a gracious hostess and entertained President Benjamin Harrison and other dignitaries in her Washington Street home.

Equal to her high social attainment was her spirit of charity. Mrs. Lowndes was an ardent worker in church activities, and helped to establish a tuberculosis hospital in Cumberland in 1913.