Florence Harkness Severance

Florence Harkness Severance’s philanthropy was both practical and personal. The only daughter of Stephen V. and Anna Harkness, she grew up in Cleveland among families known for charitable work. Her Sunday School teacher, Flora Stone Mather, was a prominent philanthropist, and Florence carried that example into her own life.

After her father’s death, Florence came into control of a substantial trust fund and used it to support charities in Cleveland and elsewhere. She was active in the Stone Church and in foreign missionary work. Her particular concern was people with immediate needs: she supported the Lend-a-Hand Mission, a settlement house serving working people, and worked for the welfare of children and the sick. The surviving account gives no amounts for her gifts, but describes her as compassionate, independent, and devoted to charitable work.

Florence also lived for a time on her own in New York City, where she continued her work on behalf of children and the sick. In 1894 she married Louis Severance. Her death the following year, after a brief illness, cut short a life of service. Her own charitable giving should be distinguished from the substantial memorial gift made after her death: the funds for Harkness Chapel came from her grieving family, not from Florence.

Her husband, Louis, and her mother, Anna Harkness, provided funds for a chapel at Western Reserve College in her memory. The family’s gift was reported as $121,000 to build and endow the chapel. Louis and his friends Henry R. Hatch and Hiram Haydn formed the planning committee, and architect Charles F. Schweinfurth designed the building. Ground was broken in 1899, and the chapel was dedicated on Easter Sunday in 1902.

At first, Harkness Chapel was intended for the “reverent and intelligent study” of the Bible by the college’s young women. Its purpose reflected the religious and educational causes that mattered to Florence and her family. Over time, the chapel was remodeled and became a home for the music department. It was declared a Cleveland landmark in 1973. The building remains a lasting memorial to Florence, while her own philanthropic legacy rests in the less visible work she chose to support: aid for the poor, religious service, and care for children and the sick.

Sources: gildedgreats.com