Cora Miranda Baggerly Older (1875 – September 26, 1968) was an American writer and historian known for her California-based writing and activism. She often collaborated on social issues with her husband, Fremont Older, and she is now best remembered as a writer and historian of Californian events and people.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/98/Cora_Baggerly_Older_%28Mrs._Fremont_Older%29.jpg/220px-Cora_Baggerly_Older_%28Mrs._Fremont_Older%29.jpg)
Early life
editCora Miranda Baggerly was born in Clyde New York in 1875. She had a brother, Hilland Baggerly, who later worked in journalism as well.[1] She attended Syracuse University.
Writing career
editOlder's work covered a variety of mediums including novels, reviews, and magazine articles, often tackling social issues; she also wrote biographies of William Randolph Hearst and his father.[2] She published her last book in 1961, seven years before her death.[3] At one point, another writer described Older as "a woman whose womanly attributes commend a nobility of California's authors."[4] She wrote under her married title as "Mrs. Fremont Older."[2]
Personal life
editIn 1893, she met newspaper editor Fremont Older while on summer vacation from Syracuse. She and her classmates had performed in a play in Sacramento, which Fremont Older happened to have attended. They quickly became engaged and married a month later on August 22.[5][6] In 1912, the couple purchased some land and then two years built later Woodhills,[7] a house of hybrid architectural features that Cora Older mostly directed.[8] The property today is now a regional park known as the Fremont Older Open Space Preserve, and it has a "Cora Older Trail" available to the public.[9] Throughout the 1910s and 1920s, she was associated with fellow activist and writer Stella Wynne Herron.[10][11]
References
edit- ^ Conaway, Peggy (15 November 2010). "Los Gatos History Photo: Baggerly Connection". The Mercury News. Retrieved 5 August 2019.
- ^ a b "Older, Cora (Miranda) Baggerly". Encyclopedia.
- ^ "WHO WAS FREMONT OLDER?". Milpitas Historical Society. Retrieved 17 August 2019.
- ^ Mills, W. H. (1922). Lyons, Louis S.; Wilson, Josephine (eds.). "Noble Women Who Inspire". Who's Who Among the Women of California: 126 – via Google Books.
- ^ Ralston, John (10 April 2011). "Fremont and Cora Older House, Saratoga". Los Altos Hills Historical Society. Retrieved 5 August 2019.
- ^ Leonard, John William; Marquis, Albert Nelson (1915). "O's". Who's Who in America. 8: 1757 – via Google Books.
- ^ "Fremont Older Open Space Preserve (and lower Stevens Creek County Park)". Trailstompers Guide to SF Bay Area Trail Running. Retrieved 5 August 2019.
- ^ Reed, Candace (November 8, 1977). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form: Woodhills". National Park Service. Retrieved August 5, 2019.
- ^ "Trails". Open Space. Retrieved 5 August 2019.
- ^ "Terpsichorean Boost for La Follette". The San Francisco Examiner. 14 October 1924. Retrieved 17 August 2019.
- ^ "Stella Herron, Noted Writer". The San Francisco Examiner. 4 March 1966. Retrieved 17 August 2019.
Further reading
edit- Men and Women of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporaries, 1910, p. 1261. Google Books.
External links
edit- Media related to Cora Baggerly Older at Wikimedia Commons
- Bibliography of Cora Miranda Baggerly Older (1875-1968) from the Holdings of the California State Library System. Museum of the City of San Francisco.