March is National Women’s History Month

For more than a century, the United States has witnessed its credo of “all men created equal and independent” become altered at the hands of some daring women — leading suffragists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, birth control activist Margaret Sanger, second-wave feminist writers Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, first female Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, to name a few — who the nation celebrates every March as part of National Women’s History Month. In recognizing female trailblazers at home that embody this year’s theme, “Celebrating Women of Character, Courage and Commitment,” the West Hempstead Historical Society recently opened its archives for the Herald to explore some of the town’s most noteworthy women over the years.

Freida von Hoven, an officer of the local chapter of the Home Bureau — a non-profit founded in 1919 by female leaders and homemakers who strove to promote ideals of home and community life and foster service programs with the help of federal, state and local funding — was credited for starting the Nassau School Lunch Program at a soup kitchen in the back of Chestnut Street School in the early 1900s.

Hoven worked to share her knowledge and skills of canning, recipes, nursing, sewing, home economics, manners, and child rearing with fellow homemakers. Her chapter quickly became the largest on Long Island with its membership reaching close to 1,800 women.

Sheila Hoegl Noeth, who was born in London, England in 1912, immigrated to the United States when she was five and grew up in the Hempstead school system. In 1951, Noeth started the Beacon Newspapers in West Hempstead, which grew to publish five editions over the years. After the passing of her first husband, John Hoegl, Sheila married Fred Noeth of Hicksville, with whom she co-published four Town of Oyster Bay newspapers — Mid-Island Herald, Plainview Herald, Syosset Tribune and Jericho Tribune.

She also served many influential roles in local organizations, such as first female member of the West Hempstead Board of Education and president of the Nassau Press Association.