Suzanne Silvercruys

Baroness Suzanne Silvercruys (married names Suzanne Farnam, Suzanne Stevenson; May 29, 1898 – March 31, 1973) was a Belgian-American sculptor and political activist, founder and first president of the Minute Women of the U.S.A.

Life and career Suzanne Silvercruys was born in Maaseik, Belgium, where her father, Baron Frantz (François) Silvercruys, was a Conseiller (justice) and later president of the Court of Cassation. The family came to the United States in 1915 in flight from World War I; she became a US citizen in 1922. Her brother, Baron , was a poet and professor of French and later the Belgian ambassador to Canada and then for many years to the United States. She subsequently toured the US and Canada as "the little Belgian girl", publicizing the Belgians' plight and raising a million dollars for relief to them. She received honors from the King and Queen of Belgium, including the Order of Leopold and the Order of the Crown; she was also awarded the British Coronation Medal and was an officer of the French Academy . She graduated from the Yale School of Fine Arts in 1928 In the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, she represented Belgium as a sculptor in the art competition.

She was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters by Temple University She lived for many years in Norwalk, Connecticut, and in Tucson, Arizona, where she was living when she died in Washington, D. C., while on a lecture tour. After the war she became a prominent anti-Socialist speaker and activist. She was one of the organizers of the Young Republican League of Connecticut and was the founder and president of Minute Women of the U.S.A.; she left that position in 1952 to co-found the Constitution Party, Her political feminism prefigured that of Phyllis Schlafly: she sought to mobilize conservative women in defence of traditional American values, was much influenced by John T. Flynn, and treasured a letter from Senator Joseph McCarthy, which was shown to hesitant Minute Women recruits.

She assisted in placing a candidate on the Connecticut delegation to the Republican National Convention in 1950, and twice sought a place in Congress herself: as a candidate for the Republican nomination in the 1946 election for the House of Representatives

Private life Silvercruys was married twice, to Henry W. Farnam, Jr., son of a Yale professor, and to Edward Ford Stevenson, Bust of Herbert Hoover for the library at the University of Louvain, Bust of Anthony McAuliffe, Place McAuliffe, Bastogne (1946–1947) Memorial group portrait of Queen Astrid of Belgium and children Statue of Francisco Eusebio Kino, one of the two statues from Arizona in the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington, D. C. Twice life-size bust of Robert A. Taft Statue of Princess Noccalula (1969), at Noccalula Falls Park, Gadsden, Alabama

Publications Suzanne of Belgium: The Story of a Modern Girl (autobiography, with Marion Clyde McCarroll). New York: Dutton. . The Epic of America (pageant) A Primer of Sculpture. New York: Putnam. .