The Founding of Our Chapter

 In the fall of 1949, Amy G. Kennedy of the Patience Wright Chapter, NSDAR, in Laguna Beach, California, learned that Mabel Brown Boardman of Balboa Island was a DAR member from Iowa. Amy Kennedy asked Mabel Boardman to assist in establishing a DAR chapter in the Newport Beach area. Edna Lee Tutrell Rider, Past Regent of Patience Wright Chapter, NSDAR, and past state organizing secretary, offered to help. 

The organizing luncheon meeting for Colonel William Cabell Chapter, NSDAR, was held on August 1, 1950, on the dock of the Newport Harbor Yacht Club. Mabel Boardman, who had now become organizing regent, presided. The special guests and sponsors for the new chapter were:

  • State Regent Florence Whitmore Fuller, officiating at her first organizational meeting
  • State Organizing Secretary Katherine Horton Glass
  • Regent Amy Kennedy, Patience Wright Chapter, NSDAR

Also introduced were Edna Rider, past State Organizing Secretary, and Cadden McKellips, Arizona State Historian. 

 

Twenty-four women became charter members: 

  • Mabel Bowen Boardman, Regent
  • Julia Partington Landers, Vice Regent
  • Clara Husted Wolfe, Chaplain
  • Mary Allice Yarnell, Recording Secretary
  • Helen Ostrander Stockton, Corresponding Secretary
  • Fay Campbell Webster, Treasurer
  • Bessie Lee Skinner, Registrar
  • Katherine Martin Seamon, Historian
  • Anne Tarver Westgate, Librarian
  • Bernice Cagwin Beach
  • Shirley Gale Landers Blinn
  • Margaret C. Buck Dearborn
  • Katherine Seamon Finch
  • Eleanor S. Fisher
  • Frances Meekison Hanna
  • Dorothy Clayson MacDonald
  • Florence Huntington Morris
  • Joy Jennice Poore
  • Edith Chase Porter
  • Etta Purcell Rea
  • Frances Irene Porter Sands
  • Gladys Floyd Tritt
  • Ruth Ann Moore Vierling
  • Lillian Syfers Welch
  • Helen V. Wurdemann

The name Colonel William Cabell was chosen to honor the distinguished ancestor of two chapter charter members – Katherine Martin Seamon and her daughter, Katherine Seamon Finch. Colonel William Cabell was one of four men of a Committee of Safety, who gave outstanding service in civil duties during the American Revolutionary War period. Colonel William Cabell was the ancestor of William Daniel Cabell, the husband of DAR co-founder Mary Virginia Ellet Cabell. Mary Cabell was one of the 18 charter members of the first chapter of DAR, which often met in her Washington, D. C., home in 1890. Although Caroline Lavinia Harrison, wife of the President of the United States, was elected the first President General of the Society, it was with the understanding that Mary Cabell would perform the heavier duties of the office. For this reason, Mary Cabell was honored with the titles of the Vice President General presiding and then President General presiding after Caroline Harrison’s death, the only Daughter ever so honored.

We are very proud of the women established this chapter, and we hope to continue the tradition of this chapter for many years to come.

National Society Daughters of the American Revolution

California State Society Daughters of the American Revolution