This article by Anne Glannery is part of a series produced by members of the Stuart Area branch of the American Association of University Women supported by a grant from the Educational Foundation of AAUW. Published in 1976.
When Stuart was Potsdam, and before, the pioneers who settled here came from many states and lands. Each brought a trade or talent which combined with others to forge a new community. Later, new people came and the settlement grew into a town, the town into a city.
Pioneer Emma Michael Kitching came to Potsdam in 1894 as the 24-year-old bride of Walter Kitching. Emma Michael was born in Maryland and after graduation from Teachers Seminary journeyed to Wabasso, Florida, to live with her brother, a homesteader.
When the Kitchings moved into their new house on the south bank of the St. Lucie River, the area was a wilderness. Emma set out to establish her own home and family, and she reached out to help lay the foundations of a town.
Emma Kitching was a part of the social and civic advances made in Stuart throughout her lifetime. She was a founding member of the Woman’s Club, the Garden Club and the P.E.O. (Philanthropic Educational Organization) Sisterhood.She and her husband donated the land for the original Methodist Church and, later, for the parsonage.
She taught Sunday School. The church’s Woman’s Missionary Society was founded in her home in 1904. As the society’s first president, she led the membership to minister to the sick, the needy and the bereaved. Her home was open to all. Bachelors and lonely men were invited to share Christmas and holiday dinners. She called on new arrivals in town to welcome them and offer assistance. She had an awareness of, and openness to those around her.
On her death in 1951, an editorial in The Stuart News noted the impact of her life on the area: Stuart is grateful – at least those of us who know are grateful – for what was done by the hands of this fine woman in the shaping of our town through her fine example, and even those who do not know cannot escape it, because lives well-lived leave their mark on a community.
The qualities and achievements of those who came first are remembered. Early Stuart had wanted of more than business, buildings, and byways. It wanted human values. It needed pioneers who had a willingness to share, to see them – those with a generosity of spirit. It needed women like Emma Michael Kitching.
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Photographs: This little Methodist Church was the community’s only house of worship for many years. Three men sit on the stoop of Stuart’s first church. Walter Kitching’s general merchandise store can be seen in the background and smoke from a passing wood-burning locomotive appears in the right-band corner. (Photo courtesy Historical Society of Martin County).
Alice Luckhardt, the local historian and author, left behind a "wealth of knowledge" in her work to preserve early Stuart's past for present and future residents. She authored four books on Stuart including a 2016 pictorial for the Images of America series which can be found at the Stuart Heritage Museum, of which she was an executive committee member.
