Missing Mabel

The Strange After-Death of Dean Mabel Smith Douglass

- Katharine Clark

She was brilliant, educated, and driven. Born to a wealthy family in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1877, Anna Mabel Smith Douglass (who always went by “Mabel”) seemed to have it all. In the end, however, she and her family appeared to have lived an unexplained, cursed existence. Mabel was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Bernard College, affiliated with Columbia University. In the early 1900s, the only way a bright, female, high school senior could further her education, and obtain a university degree, was to go out of state. The sole college for women was the small, Roman Catholic College of Saint

Elizabeth, in Covent Station, New Jersey. Mabel was active in the Federation of Women’s Clubs, which was promoting the establishment of a college for women in New Jersey. She spearheaded the drive, utilizing her extensive contacts for the cause. Even then, she had to take a break from her efforts in 1915. It seemed this remarkable educator was of a fragile emotional and psychological nature.

Beginnings

Her family misfortune started early. In 1917, her husband William Shipman Douglass, a prosperous produce merchant in New York City, took ill and died of influenza. This left Mabel rich, but with two children to raise alone: William Shipman, Jr., and Edith. On a different level, however, her efforts for women’s education bore fruit. The New Jersey College for Women (later named “Douglass College” in her honor in 1955) opened its doors in 1918, affiliating with Rutgers University. Mabel was appointed its first dean. She moved her small family to College Hall, one of only two buildings on the new campus. The school opened with 54 students.