Celebrating the contributions of women to Malverne and West Hempstead history

Cathy Hunt, the first female mayor of Malverne, left, was a founding member of numerous village organizations. Rosalie Norton is currently president of the West Hempstead Community Support Association and has been instrumental in securing many grants for the beautification of West Hempstead.

Left:Lang family. Right: Norton family

Cathy Hunt in a recent photo. She became the village's first female mayor in 1987.

Jake Lang

Rosalie Norton in a recent photo.

Herald photo

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March is National Women’s History Month, when we highlight the significant contributions of women to historical events as well as contemporary society. What better way to do that locally than to celebrate the neighborhood women who have made our communities great?

Each week this month, the Herald will profile women who have pioneered new services in our area, established key organizations, helped tear down eyesores and built beauty in their place. Our subjects have helped paved new roads for those who followed, and left their permanent mark on their communities.

Best of all, many of these ladies still live in the our area — so you can still thank them when you see them.

Cathy Hunt: First female mayor of Malverne

Cathy Hunt was a stay-at-home mom when she first got involved in village volunteer work. “She started with the [Parent-Teacher League] and got very involved the Malverne Civic Association and the village’s Historical Society,” said her daughter, Lori Lang, referring to two of the organizations Hunt helped create in Malverne from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. “She made many friends in Malverne because of her extensive involvement in various volunteer positions.”

Little did Hunt know that it was the beginning of a journey on which she would establish many other well-known volunteer organizations in the village that are still going strong today, and ultimately become Malverne’s first female mayor.

“She was also involved in the first group encouraging families to use the Malverne schools — kind of like the village’s first version of Project Enroll Now,” said Lang.

Hunt and several others created the village’s Beautification Committee in the 1980s. “They did some of the work that the Department of Public Works does now,” Lang said, adding that the committee planted all the flowers in the village’s common areas, cleaned the parks on a regular basis, and planted trees in the spring before a formal committee was established to handle that.

Hunt also lent a hand in reviving the popularity of the village’s country fair, which, Lang said, generated little community interest when her mother became mayor.