Born just two years after the town officially changed its name to Wakefield, Eva Gowing was the daughter of Horace and Louisa (Day) Gowing, who had moved here from Wilmington, where the Gowing family name was well known to historians as one of the region’s pioneer families.  She grew up in Wakefield and graduated from Wakefield High School in 1887 and then went on to a post-graduate course at Boston University.  After teaching for six years in Brattleboro, Vermont.  She took a break from teaching to travel to Europe, where she completed a course of study at the Sorbonne in Paris, and at Heidelberg University, after which she taught school in Hartford, CT and then in New York City for four years.

In 1909 Eva returned to Wakefield to marry Winfield Scott Ripley Jr., a Spanish-American War veteran and son of composer and Civil War veteran of the same name. He was for many years a Trustee for the Beebe Memorial Library and very active in the Bear Hill Golf Club. Mrs. Ripley launched into a full life of intellectual and charitable causes in her home town, where she and Mr. Ripley lived for many years at 40 Emerson Street.

A list of her accomplishments is staggering:  a “Who’s Who” of American Women noted that she had long favored women’s suffrage, and served as a 36-year member of the Wakefield School Committee and was a pioneering member of the Visiting Nurse Association.  She participated in the Massachusetts state committee on Conservation, served as Vice-regent of the Faneuil Hall Chapter of the D.A.R., took a membership and served as secretary of the Wakefield Historical Society and was one of the charter members and long-time supporter of the Hartshorne House Association.  In her spare time she was a member of the Wakefield Tercentennial Committee, helping to write the town’s history published in 1944.  She was the long-time president of the WHS Alumni Association.  

Meanwhile, one of her first loves was always the written word; she treasured her association as a ‘press correspondent’ to the Wakefield Daily Item, the Boston Transcript and other regional and national newspapers and magazines which published her articles on the activities of the Kosmos Club and her many other organizations, as well as her opinions and reviews of plays and books, and articles on her interest in education and the preservation of antiquities and the activities of patriotic causes of all kinds.  During one summer’s Independence Day celebrations, a public pageant written by Mrs. Ripley entitled “Across the Centuries — Wakefield Welcomes,” was performed on Wakefield Common. 

Through it all, she remained a modest and kind woman who was celebrated with a large testimonial dinner at the Bear Hill Golf Club.  At her death in 1957, the Item wrote that she was a “… highly educated woman, a woman with limitless background in European and American culture. Yet, in a society rushing through its myriad practicalities with seldom an effort considering those cultural aspects of their life which formerly  and perhaps more universally appeal than now … Mrs. Ripley was completely at home — respected, admired and loved.   She gave much to her hometown and her fellow townspeople during her long life.”

Mrs. Eva Gowing Ripley — a force to be reckoned with one hundred years ago, and a “Woman of Wakefield” whose memory should be remembered and honored.

“Women in Wakefield” is a feature of the Wakefield Historical Society in honor of Women’s History Month.  Every day the life of a different woman is being featured to illuminate the town’s history and character.   All profiles are featured on the social media pages of the Wakefield Historical Society as well as on their blog at wakefieldhistory.org.  Many are also shared through the courtesy of the Wakefield Daily Item.