Cherilla Lillian Storrs Lowrey (August 18, 1861 – January 9, 1918) was an American educator and clubwoman based in Hawaii. She was a founder and first chairwoman of

The Outdoor Circle The Outdoor Circle is a nonprofit organization in Hawaii focused on conservationism. The organization was founded in 1912 by a group of seven women including Cherilla Storrs Lowrey with the goal of beautifying Honolulu and opposing the use of ...

, "Hawaii's oldest environmental organization".

Early life

Storrs was born in

Utica, New York Utica () is a Administrative divisions of New York, city in the Mohawk Valley and the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The List of cities in New York, tenth-most-populous city in New York State, its population was 65,283 ...

. She moved to California as a girl with her widowed mother.

Career

Lowrey moved to Hawaii in 1882 to teach at Kawaiahao Seminary, a girls' school. She also taught at the

Punahou School Punahou School (known as Oahu College until 1934) is a private, co-educational, college preparatory school in Honolulu, Hawaii. More than 3,700 students attend the school from kindergarten through twelfth grade, 12th grade. Protestant missionar ...

, and was an assistant principal there in 1883. She was active in the Free Kindergarten and Children's Aid Association (FKCAA), the Women's Board of Missions, the

YWCA The Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) is a nonprofit organization with a focus on empowerment, leadership, and rights of women, young women, and girls in more than 100 countries. The World office is currently based in Geneva, Swi ...

, and Women's War Council.Margit Misangyi Watts,
High Tea at Halekulani: Feminist Theory and American Clubwomen
' (PhD dissertation, University of Hawai'i, 1989): 91-96, quote on page 95. Published as a book by Carlson Publications in 1993. She was one of the first two women to serve on the Honolulu Planning Commission. In 1912, Lowrey was one of the original seven members and the first president of The Outdoor Circle, a women's organization based in

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

, initially under the auspices of the

Kilohana Art League The Kilohana Art League was formed in 1894 as Honolulu’s first art association. On May 5, 1894, the woodcarver Augusta Graham, the sculptor Allen Hutchinson, and painters D. Howard Hitchcock and Annie H. Park created a forum where local arti ...

. The Circle was dedicated to city beautification, especially against billboards and in favor of public fountains, parks, playgrounds, and gardens, and "to conserve and develop the natural beauties of the landscape by encouraging the growth of native trees and shrubs, and the introduction of such new ones as belong to tropical life". The Outdoor Circle had hundreds of members by 1915, many of them wives of wealthy white sugar and lumber executives, like Lowrey, whose husband was president of the Oahu Sugar Company and the Waiahole Water Company, and vice-president of the Honolulu Gas Company.

Personal life and legacy

Storrs married merchant Frederick Jewett Lowrey in 1884. They had four children together. She died after a stroke in 1918, aged 56 years, in Honolulu. The Outdoor Circle and other friends commissioned a marble fountain by sculptor Roger Noble Burnham, in memory of Lowrey. A species of loulou palm, '' Pritchardia lowreyana'', was named for Lowrey by botanist

Joseph F. Rock Joseph Francis Charles Rock (1884 – 1962) was an Austrian-American botanist, explorer, geographer, linguist, ethnographer and photographer. Life Josef Franz Karl Rock was born in Vienna, Austria, the son of a steward of a Polish count. As a r ...

. Every year during Cemetery Pupu Theatre, an actress portraying Lowrey tells cemetery visitors her story, near her gravesite in

Oahu Cemetery The Oahu Cemetery is the resting place of many notable early residents of the Honolulu area. They range from missionaries and politicians to sports pioneers and philosophers. Over time it was expanded to become an area known as the Nuuanu Cemete ...

. The Outdoor Circle continues into the 21st century as an environmental organization in Hawai'i. "No environmental group has had such a profound, positive impact on Hawai'i as The Outdoor Circle," Duke Bainum said in a 2000 newspaper interview.

References

External links

* Hanna Gaffney
"Hawaii Cemetery Theatre - Cherilla Lowrey (1861-1917)"
a video on YouTube {{DEFAULTSORT:Lowrey, Cherilla Storrs 1861 births 1918 deaths People from Utica, New York American women educators Clubwomen People from Honolulu