Jens Jensen, landscape architect

Jensen was one of the movers & shakers of the Progressive Era, part of the Chicago Renaissance, founding member of The Prairie Club who greatly influenced the new Ecology Movement, and fought for bringing nature into the city through city parks, playgrounds, and green spaces for urban families. Jensen was a driving force in the awakening and new awareness of saving the Indiana Dunes, east of Chicago. This movement grew thanks to a strong alliance with several university professors from the U of Chicago. Henrietta had heard about Jensen while she was still a college student at Smith College, and wrote to her family about her plans to move to Chicago and work for him. While she was taking botany classes at the U of Chicago in the summer of 1915, and living with the Sheville family, she actually did do some landscape drawing work for Jensen in his Chicago office. As a result of her connections with Jensen and the Indiana Dunes activists, she convinced her family to invest in the Indiana Dunes by purchasing two plots of land. Katharine corresponded with Jensen for several years on the subject of Henrietta's life, her health, real estate questions, and Henrietta's insistence that Katharine sell her plot to Henrietta, an idea that Jensen never endorsed. He had H's husband Paul Wilson arrested in 1931 for violent acts, which H never forgave. She called Jensen a "scoundrel" and cut all ties with him.

Clarence Darrow,

criminal defense lawyer

Darrow, a controversial figure in the criminal justice scene in the United States,

was somehow connected to Henrietta, because she often refers to him in her letters as someone who is going to "help her". How and why is very unclear. There is correspondence between Darrow and Katharine during the late 1920's during some of Henrietta's darkest moments. A closer reading of Darrow's life would no doubt reveal acquaintances or events where he and Henrietta's paths would have crossed.

Professor Fr. Sheville,

History Professor, U of Chicago

Ferdinand Sheville was a professor of medieval and renaissance history at the University of Chicago. Sheville married one of H's classmates from Smith College, Clara Meier. Henrietta was living at his home with his wife during the time when she, as a single young woman, was studying botany at the U of Chicago, and trying to make herself known, hired, and paid as a landscape artist. Katharine kept up a written communication with Ferdinand in the 1920's and up until Henrietta left the Midwest for Los Angeles in 1932. Sheville always defended Henrietta's strong will, despite her questionable choices and life, and pleaded with Katharine to honor and respect Henrietta's dignity as a mother and wife. Unfortunately, H and the Shevilles parted ways because H did not approve of the advice they were giving her.

Clarence Darrow

Source: Encyclopedia Brittanica

Ferdinand Shevill

Source: U of Chicago Archives