Anna Kalfus Spero
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April 15, 1855
Anna Kalfus Spero | |
|---|---|
 Spero, from a 1912 newspaper | |
| Born | Anna Fredericka Kalmus April 15, 1855 Shepherdsville, Kentucky, U.S. |
| Died | May 1, 1947 (aged 92) Berkeley, California, U.S. |
| Other names | Anna DeJarnette |
| Occupations | Poet, suffragist, clubwoman |
Anna Fredericka Kalfus DeJarnette Spero (April 15, 1855 – May 1, 1947)[1] was an American poet, clubwoman, and suffragist from Kentucky, based most of her life in San Jose and Berkeley, California.
Kalfus was born in Shepherdsville, Kentucky,[2] the daughter of Henry Frederick Kalfus and Elizabeth Virginia Birkhead Kalfus.[3][4] Her father was a physician.[5] She attended Louisville Girls High School,[6] and helped to organize the school's alumnae organization. Later she earned a degree from the University of California in 1912,[7] the same year that both of her children graduated from law school there.[4][8]
Career
Spero taught school in Elizabethtown and Louisville as a young woman.[9][6] In her forties, she moved to California with her children. She owned and edited a weekly paper in San Jose,[2] and was a member of the San Jose Women's Club, active in suffrage work in the 1890s.[10] At the Biennial of the General Federation of Women's Clubs in Denver in 1898,[11] Spero "gave a talk on Western journalism that electrified her audience," according to a report in The Delineator. "Perhaps nobody could remember much of her subject matter afterwards, but her wonderful flow of words, her enthusiasm and her powerful magnetism carried her audience by storm."[12]
In 1900 she attended the state convention of the California Woman's Suffrage Association. She chaired the poetry section of the California Writers Club and was a member of the Berkeley Short Story Club[13][14] and the Civic League of Oakland. She was a life member of the National Education Association.[6][15]