HANDRICK, GERTRUDE M. (FORAN) (1 May 1871-7 Sept. 1937), admitted to the bar on 21 Dec. 1911, defied tradition to become the first female lawyer in the CLEVELAND BAR ASSOCIATION. Handrick was born in Cleveland to Judge MARTIN A. FORAN and Kate (Kavanaugh) Foran, attended Villa Angela school and graduated in 1888 from the Georgetown Visitation Convent in Washington, DC. On 5 April 1899, she married surgeon Franklin Aylesworth Handrick; the couple had a daughter, Martha, and a son, Martin F. After the deaths of her husband (1901) and daughter (1907), Handrick worked as a secretary in various law offices, including her father's. She began secretly studying LAW and, though at first opposed by her father, attended Baldwin University (see BALDWIN-WALLACE COLLEGE). The only woman in a class of 37, she graduated in 1911. The next January she began practice and opened an office in the SOCIETY FOR SAVINGS BUILDING that March. She served as attorney for the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, among others. Handrick actively supported suffrage for WOMEN, heading the Business Woman's Suffrage League (1912). She also presided over the Catholic Ladies of Columbia, branch no. 14, for 2 years. At her death, she lived on Detroit Avenue.
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