Ivy Julia Cromartie Stranahan

Ivy Julia Cromartie Stranahan (February 24, 1881 – August 30, 1971) was an American philanthropist and suffragist heavily involved with the Seminoles of Southern Florida. She trained as a teacher initially, but after marrying Frank Stranahan, she settled permanently in Fort Lauderdale. While there, she began supporting the rights of the Seminoles and aiding them in moving to an Indian reservation. She is closely associated with the Friends of the Florida Seminoles, an organization through which she sought to support the education of Seminole children, build homes and eventually to support themselves fully.

Early life Ivy Julia Cromartie was born in White Springs, Florida, to August and Sarah Cromartie (née Driver) on February 24, 1881. Her father was a teacher based in Central Florida. During the development of the southern part of the state, the Cromartie family continued to move further south. During one part of her childhood, the family lived near a settlement named Owens on the Peace River around from Arcadia.

They moved onto Juno, Florida, and then later to Lemon City where her schooling was completed. She sought to become a teacher immediately and trained through the summer following graduation. She was assigned as the first teacher to work at the school in the New River settlement (now known as Fort Lauderdale). She arrived prior to the completion of the construction of the school building and stayed with a school trustee and his family for several months. The one-room school opened in 1899 to serve the six families in the surrounding area.

After her husband died in 1929, Ivy was left to handle the costs of the Stranahan house. She rented out rooms to those traveling in the area and, from 1939 to 1979, leased the bottom floor to E. J. Blackwell for the installment of a restaurant. She became heavily involved in Seminole affairs with the local government and became the Chair of the Indian Affairs Committee of the Florida Federation of Women's Clubs (FFWC). Although she had petitioned for a permanent Indian reservation for the Seminoles, when this was granted in 1917, it was her rival Minnie Moore-Willson who received most of the credit through her Friends of the Florida Seminoles organization. Only a year earlier, Ivy had attempted to remove Moore-Willson from the Indian Affairs Committee.

By 1924, the expansion of Fort Lauderdale had begun in earnest and there was pressure for the Seminoles to move to the approved area set aside as a reservation. She entered their existing camp and convinced members of the group to join her on an expedition to the Dania Reservation. Ivy arranged for the Seminoles to be paid to make the Reservation habitable, and began transporting work parties to and from the location. She arranged for timber to be delivered, courtesy of the Indian Commissioner at Fort Myers. By the end of the year, several homes, a school and an administrative building had been built on the site and all the Seminoles had moved.

Legacy and memorials

Ivy advanced to the top ten finalists for the Florida Women's Hall of Fame and was inducted in 1996.

Stranahan High School on the city's N.E. 4th Avenue, which opened in 1953 as an elementary school, is named in honor of her husband, Frank Stranahan.