After losing her husband to suicide during his battle with tuberculosis, Josephine undertook an extensive rebuilding of his winery and oversaw the very first harvest. She kept the business alive until 1895 when she decided to sell it to the then burgeoning giant Italian Swiss Colony. The winery, located near St. Helena, still stands today as part of Freemark Abbey Wines.
Eliza Shaw Hood, Ellen Stuart, and Kate Warfield all hailed from Glen Ellen. All three lived and worked near one another, and all three took over the wineries owned by their respective husbands in the late 1870s and early 1880s.
New Zealand community support activist
American domestic economist and author. She was an authority on the proper preparation of food and on household management upon which subjects she lectured and wrote extensively.
Irish restaurateur, radical, and political activist
Mary Jane Innes took over the management of the Te Awamutu Brewery, brewing ale and producing aerated waters. Showing considerable business acumen, in November 1889 she announced that she had taken over the management of the Waikato Brewery as well.
During her early years she wrote poetry, but she is remembered as one of the first women to prepare a cookbook.
Elizabeth Messenger’s novels, once popular enough to be serialised and translated into other languages, are now difficult to obtain. Her recipe books appear to have been more durable.
Mollie Orshansky was an American economist and statistician who developed the Orshansky Poverty Thresholds, used for measuring household incomes.
German abbess and mystic who organized a school of nurses for service in the hospitals; noted composer whose works are still performed today, as well as a brewer and herbalist who described using hops in beer.