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ORDWAY Katharine
Birth:          3 Apr 1899 Minn.
Death:          1979 

Notes
awt Who Was Who in Ramsey Co., Minn.
1910 in St. Paul, Minn.
1920 in St. Paul, Minn.
1930 in St. Paul, Minn. divorced. So md and div during 20s, apparently no chi
per cached zoominfo document 
subject of book, "Katherine Ordway: The Lady Who Saved the Prairies"

From:

“The Lady Who Saved the Prairies”--and her brother 
We must take a few pages to introduce the woman who made this story possible: 
Katharine Ordway, a great figure in the history of American land conservation.

Katharine Ordway was born 3 April 1899 to Lucius Pond and Jessie Gilman Ordway.  
She was their only daughter, and the second youngest of five children.  At the time of 
her birth, her 37-year old father was already on his way to fortune working for a 
plumbing and heating firm, of which he eventually became President.  By 1905, he 
was nearly a millionaire.  Together with a friend, he bought sixty percent of the stock 
of a struggling mining company, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (now more 
commonly known as 3M), which went on to multiply his millions.[59]

Growing up in St. Paul, MN, Katharine enjoyed the sea of tallgrass prairie that still 
existed at that time, and was saddened to watch the prairie slowly disappear over her 
lifetime.  She attended the University of Minnesota, and graduated cum laude with 
degrees in Botany and Art.  Katharine Ordway also attended Yale Medical School 
before dropping the idea of a medical career.  Later in her life, she went to Columbia 
University to study biology and land-use planning.[60]  Her studies are early 
indications of her interests in ecology and land conservation.  

When her father died in 1948, she and her four brothers, including Richard Ordway, 
were left an $18.8 million estate.[61]  Finally, in her 50’s and 60’s, she had the 
resources to reinforce her beliefs in land protection, and eventually became one of the 
greatest private contributors to natural area conservation in American history, second 
only to John D. Rockefeller, Jr.[62]  Katharine was described by a friend as a quiet, 
delicate woman—“a bird fallen out of the nest.[63]”  She was a reserved woman, and 
modest: the fact that she was the donor who helped the Nature Conservancy 
purchase the large Konza Prairie reserve in Kansas was not revealed until after her 
death.  Katharine Ordway donated money that ultimately helped to save over 31,000 
acres of Great Plains prairies[64] (as well as land in other parts of the country).  
Alexander Hill, who knows the Ordway family quite well, said that Katharine Ordway 
was a very “forward-looking person” with respect to her early sense of need for land 
preservation.[65]  According to Christman’s understanding, she was quite frail and 
weak towards the end of her life, when she came to visit her namesake in Minnesota.
[66]  She died in 1979.[67]



http://www.angelfire.com/mn/thursdaynighthikes/summiteast1.html:
Katharine Ordway attended the University of Minnesota, and graduated cum laude 
with degrees in Botany and Art, briefly attended Yale Medical School, then went to 
Columbia University to study biology and land-use planning and, with access to one 
fifth of an 18 million dollar inheritance, eventually became one of the greatest private 
contributors to natural area conservation in American history. 

Parents
ORDWAY Lucius Pond (21 Jan 1862 - 1948)
GILMAN Jessie Cornwell (1865 - 28 May 1944)

Siblings
ORDWAY John Gilman (20 Jan 1886 - )
ORDWAY Samuel Gilman (2 Jan 1887 - )
ORDWAY Lucius Pond (1890 - )
ORDWAY Katharine (3 Apr 1899 - 1979)
ORDWAY Richard (1903 - )

Marriage To BUTLER ----- () m. Notes
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