Mary Zimmerman Scrapbook

Mary Zimmerman was born in autumn 1869, the daughter of a Cairo, Illinois businessman. She was graduated from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1891, and received her master’s degree from the University of Chicago in 1902. She was one of four original faculty members of John Marshall High School (3250 W. Adams Street) in Chicago’s East Garfield Park neighborhood, which opened in 1895. For the next forty years, Miss Zimmerman taught Latin at Marshall, retiring in 1935. She was active in securing higher education scholarships for promising students, to whom she became known as “Aunt Mary.”

Zimmerman took an interest in the fortunes of The Hebrew University founded in Jerusalem in 1925. Her extensive fundraising work on behalf of the University was acknowledged by that institution when it named the Mary Zimmerman Classics Room in her honor. On the occasion of her 78th birthday in 1947, many of her former students contributed to a fund which commissioned artist Benjamin S. Kanne to paint her portrait. The painting was later sent to The Hebrew University where it hangs in the room named for her.

Although she taught school in East Garfield Park, Mary Zimmerman lived in Hyde Park. After her retirement, she continued to reside in Flamingo Hotel at 5520 South Shore Boulevard. She died in Chicago, December 23, 1953, at the age of eighty-four. Her obituary appeared in newspapers nationwide, including the New York Times.