In return for her efforts following the war, Ms. Skinner was presented the Médaille de la Reconnaissance française by future French president and then-commissioner general of Alsace-Lorraine, Alexandre Millerand, in January 1919, at the ministry of foreign affairs in Paris.

[3] Holyoke would be the first city to take part in the program, providing a water supply to the village of Apremont-la-Forêt.

[4] Two years later on January 26, 1921, she was decorated with the rank of Chevalier in the Légion d'honneur for her continued aid to the French people.

[5] While her acts of charity to the French village received general praise and influenced other towns and cities to follow suit,[2] they also drew the ire of nativists and anti-Catholicists, the Klan publication The Fiery Cross lambasted Skinner's efforts "to throw away one million excellent American dollars on two hundred French peasants when a few thousands of that sum would have built them good comfortable homes...is little less than a crime against one's country".

[6] Ultimately Skinner would contribute greatly to her alma mater, providing Vassar College with the first fellowship for foreign studies in 1926, $10,000 for graduates to study history in France, as she had spent time in Paris as a young girl herself soon after her own graduation.