Oct. 2, 2013:  She sat at the entrance to the grand hall of The Bronxville Women’s Club greeting the guests as they arrived with her usual feisty eagerness, dressed in her signature outfit, a black full-length gown decorated for the occasion with an orchid on her shoulder. Her blond hair hung straight, touching her shoulders, and the twinkle in her eye let guests know she was enjoying herself.

She was stellar, even having celebrated her 101st birthday. 

Many dignitaries came to join the festivities and say a few words about her remarkable life. 

Assemblywoman Amy Paulin noted that Mildred was born before women won the right to vote.  Nevertheless, she attended college, something few women did in those days, and pursued her interests in architecture and economics.

State Senator George Latimer stood in awe of her employment at the Hearst Corporation and her co-chairing the Westchester Committee for Senator Robert Taft’s campaign for president in 1952.  

Former Mayor Marcia Lee recounted Mildred’s ardent opposition during the 1970s to the 188-unit condominium proposed on Sunset Hill in 1974.  "Mildred would have preferred the whole hilltop be left as open space," said Lee. "That wasn’t going to happen. But the 188-unit condominium proposed on the top of the highest point in Bronxville didn’t happen either, thanks to Mildred’s tireless work against it."  

Mayor Mary Marvin presented Mildred with a special Bronxville pillow to prop up her feet at the end of the day, stating she was a good friend and a remarkable woman who just kept producing.

After the dignitaries spoke, Mildred delivered her own address. She stated that successful communities are those with a central business district that brings people together. It is important, she advised, for Bronxville residents to shop in the business district and support the merchants in every way possible. She also hoped we could preserve villages like Bronxville that create a community for its people to thrive and care for each other.

Attending the event were her daughter, Laura, and Laura's husband, Mike, her grandchildren, and two great grandchildren. Laura is well known to Bronxvillians as Laura Strichter Bryson, a real estate broker in the Bronxville office of Houlihan Lawrence Real Estate, Inc.

Mildred Adams McLearn was born in 1912 in Louisville, Kentucky. She attended Vassar College and Case Western Reserve University and married Frank C. McLearn after college. She found Bronxville by hopping on the Harlem line train and watching out the window—the first nice community she saw. Eventually the family moved to Prescott Avenue, where Mildred still lives today. She wrote the "Brain Game," a weekly column for the Hearst Corporation, and worked briefly as a broker for Francis I. Dupont.  She became involved in politics and was the Westchester County co-chairman for Senator Robert Taft’s presidential campaign in 1952. An article of hers on voluntary taxation was published in the National Review in 1958, and she wrote the book The Voluntary State. 

The Bronxville Women’s Club, founded in 1925, is one of the jewels in the diadem of Bronxville and Westchester County. Funds raised from the annual Women of the Year cocktail party help provide improvements to the clubhouse. This year, President Mary Westmoreland announced that the funds raised from this year's event would go toward improvements to the ceiling in the grand ballroom.

Pictured here: Honoree Mildred Adams McLearn receiving a Bronxville pillow from Mayor Mary Marvin.

Photo by N. Bower