Ida Mary Greenwood

1890s–1900s

Born 22 February 1897 in South Chester, Pennsylvania, to James Edward Greenwood and Clara Evelyn Rawson, weavers from Halifax, England. Grew up in Philadelphia, where her father was a loom fixer in the woolen mills.

1910s

Top diver for the Kensington YWCA, placing third in a fancy-diving championship in 1917. Entered Temple University, where she competed on the swim team and managed the women's team.

1920s

Spent college summers in New York as a lifeguard and swimming instructor at Madison Square Garden and a model and saleswoman at Lord & Taylor. Taught at St. Joseph's Academy, married Paul Bedesem on 5 May 1924, and had Dolores, Paul, and Bill.

1930s–1960s

Lived at 6724 North 17th Street in Oak Lane. Worked at Strawbridge & Clothier in Jenkintown from 1951, where she was repeatedly honored for courteous service, and won silver cups and blue ribbons for her rose arrangements.

1970s

Retired in 1972 after twenty-one years at Strawbridge's, traveled to England and Florida, and died at Holy Redeemer Hospital in Abington on 7 February 1978.

The Weaver's Daughter

Ida Mary Greenwood was born on February 22, 1897, at 405 Flower Street in South Chester, Delaware County, Pennsylvania (the county birth register wrote her name down as "Adi"). Her parents, James Edward Greenwood and Clara Evelyn Rawson, had both worked in the worsted-weaving trade in Halifax, Yorkshire, before emigrating, and in America her father spent decades as a loom fixer in the textile mills. Her older brother, Arthur, had been born in England in 1894; a sister, Florence, arrived in 1900, and another, Evelyn, died of meningitis in 1905 when she was about two.

By 1900 the family had moved to Philadelphia, and by 1910 they were living on North Mascher Street. Ida grew up to be an athlete. In July 1917, representing the Kensington YWCA, she took third place in an indoor fancy-diving championship meet. By the next summer she was described as the Y's top diver, and that September she went out to Griffith's Park in Lansdowne with the Y's swimmers to give a demonstration.

Temple and New York

At Temple University she swam for the women's team. In a May 1919 meet against the Chester YWCA she took first place in diving for distance and speed and fourth in fancy diving, and in the 1919–20 school year she was the team's manager and corresponding secretary of Phi Delta Pi. She completed two years of college and graduated from Temple's teaching program.

Her college summers were spent in New York City. For two summers she was a lifeguard and swimming instructor at the pool in Madison Square Garden, and in the summer of 1923 she was photographed there using a typewriter in the pool. For two more she worked in modeling and sales at Lord & Taylor on Fifth Avenue. She also taught for two years at St. Joseph's Academy in Chestnut Hill; in April 1924 she was listed as a teacher, living with her parents on East Thayer Street.

Oak Lane

On May 5, 1924, Ida married Paul Peter Bedesem, who managed his family's linotype typesetting business. In March 1925 she sailed from Veracruz, Mexico, to New York aboard the S.S. Esperanza. The Bedesems made their home at 6724 North 17th Street in the Oak Lane section of Philadelphia, where Ida lived for the rest of her life, and raised three children: Dolores, born in 1924, Paul, and Bill.

In February 1951 Ida went to work at the Strawbridge & Clothier department store in Jenkintown, first selling women's hats and from about 1953 in men's furnishings. She was good at it. Strawbridge's invited her again and again to its courtesy luncheons for staff with outstanding customer service: in 1955 she was one of fifty-four employees honored, and in 1959 one of fifty-seven recognized by Francis R. Strawbridge Jr. himself. Her coworkers were friends too, and in 1956 she went to a baby shower for one of them.

Ida's great hobby was roses. She won third place for horticulture at the Strawbridge Hobby Show in 1952 and first place the next year for a vase of roses, and over the years she collected several silver cups and blue ribbons for rose design from the Philadelphia Rose Society and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. She also won awards in bowling, and she loved the theater and travel. In 1965 she was described as five foot six and 123 pounds, with blond hair and brown eyes.

Travels and Later Years

Her son Paul became a biologist, and in January 1958 he came home to visit from San Francisco, where he was teaching at San Francisco State. Ida visited him there in August 1960. He died the following year, at only thirty-three.

In the 1960s and 1970s Ida traveled often, visiting relatives in Miami and St. Petersburg, making repeated trips to West Palm Beach, and in the summer of 1971 going to England. Her daughter Dolores's 1972 diary shows her in constant motion: off to West Palm Beach in February, a flight to Atlanta in March to visit Helen and Lew Walker, back to Florida in May, and family dinners in Glenside for Paul's birthday, Easter, and Mother's Day. In late May she helped her granddaughter Ginny, Ben's mother, shop for a graduation dress. That July she was admitted to Holy Redeemer Hospital, and in September 1972 she retired from Strawbridge's after twenty-one years.

In her 1974 will she left her bonds and rings to Dolores and her silver coins and commemorative plates to Bill. At her death she still had fifty silver dollars dated 1878 to 1925 and eighteen Bing & Grøndahl Copenhagen porcelain plates. Ida died at Holy Redeemer Hospital in Abington on February 7, 1978, at eighty. After a Mass at Holy Angels Church, she was buried at Northwood Cemetery.