Cuyler Griffith Schwartz Voorhees

Cuyler S. Voorhees is a prime example of a member of the Great Generation. She was born Cuyler Griffith Schwartz to Henry (his family called him Harry) and Eliza Bowie Matthew Schwartz at the Brown Palace Hotel, Denver Colorado and grew up in Casper, Wyoming in the first half of the 1900s. She was the oldest of three girls in the family, being followed by Helen and Betty Jane. She also had three brothers, Tom, Dick and Harry. Her father was a land lawyer who served as a representative in the South Dakota state government, a senator in the Wyoming state government and as senator for Wyoming on the national level. A mother, grandmother, wife, Rosie the Riveter, artisan in retirement and life-long and active democrat, she has exemplified the finer points of an era.

Cuyler attended the University of Wyoming majoring in art and was elected rush chair of her sorority, Delta Delta Delta, during her time there. She spent time in Washington D.C. during her fathers tenure there and was elected president of the Daughters of the Senate club. During that time, she helped to uncover the identity of a slanderer of one of the senators with her keen whit. Harry Truman would often call her father to ask if Cuyler would be attending a particular party before deciding whether or not to allow his daughter to go. Her years in D.C. were glamorous and filled with house parties, dances and gaiety. It also gave her the opportunity to meet such notables as Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. She was known for her sense of humor and might be found riding a horse in high heels for a newspaper photo in the society pages or telling a dance partner that she often spent summers in a teepee with her grandmother.

When the United States became involved in World War II , she took a job encrypting coded messages for the military. A general who didn’t think women should be doing such mentally difficult jobs challenged her unit. The women entered into a competition with a unit of male encoders. The women won the competition and were told that, as a reward, they could choose any base they wanted for their next post. When Cuyler announced her chosen base, she was met with two surprises. The first came when the commander informed her that she had a near perfect score but that, in the future, she should spell ferry correctly, not f-a-i-r-y, when referring to the Ferry Command. The second surprise came when she was told that, although she had wanted to be assigned to California, she would be going to Memphis, Tennessee where the base commander there had specifically requested her. She wouldn’t find out until she got there that the base commander was the handsome Lieutenant she had gone on a blind date with in Florida and who would later become her husband. His was one of seven proposals of marriage to her!

Cuyler moved easily from socialite to homemaker in 1942 when she married Ltd. Burton K. Voorhees on a beautiful June day in Memphis, Tennessee. They had two daughters, the first, Cuyler Roberta, in Montgomery, Alabama and the second daughter, Linda Bowie, in Honolulu, Hawaii. During the coarse of their marriage and life in the Air Force, Cuyler and Burton lived in Florida, Alabama, Hawaii, Kwajelan, Washington D.C., New York, Japan and California. She was often active in various social clubs during those years. She took up such varied interests as bowling, golf, flower arranging, sports car rallying, contract bridge and cooking. While in Japan, the Officers Wives Club, of which she was a member, often participated in cultural exchanges with Japanese wives clubs. On one occasion, she invited a Japanese woman to come to her home to see how Americans lived. When the woman asked if she might bring some friends, Cuyler said yes. On the anticipated day, an entire busload of Japanese women pulled up to her house making the snacks and drinks she had prepared completely inadequate! Not one to be deterred by the unexpected, she quickly pulled out her popcorn popper and introduced the women to an American favorite. It was but one example of Cuyler’s ability to think quickly and rise to any occasion.

Upon Colonel Voorhees’ retirement, Cuyler and Burton, with their two children, moved first to California, then to Florida. Their children grown, their last move was to Arizona where she returned to her love of the arts dabbling in jewelry making and mastering pottery as a hobby becoming very accomplished at the craft, winning juried competitions and often sending boxes of cups and bowls to relatives at Christmas.

With Burton’s passing, she went to Europe to see the castles on the Rhine. Though the trip was interesting, she returned home realizing that travel was not what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. Instead, she turned her focus to aiding in the future of her grandchildren. She made investments her new interest and directed all of her profits toward insuring college educations for each of them, a feat for which her daughters are eternally grateful, as are her grandchildren.

Through the stories of her many amazing adventures, her strength of character, her sense of humor, and her ability to adapt to any given situation, she has shared an era and made it come to life for those of us who did not grow up as members of “The Great Generation”.