[4] She also founded the Mildred Seydell Publishing Company,[1][2] and was a regular on the lecture circuit.

[6][7][8] Named after her grandfather's sister Mildred Lewis Rutherford, Seydell was the elder of two children.

[6] In 1922, she began her career as a journalist with the Charleston Gazette, a West Virginia newspaper.

[12] She was affiliated with the Atlanta Georgian, one of William Randolph Hearst's string of newspapers,[1] working there from 1926 until its closing in 1938.

Her first marriage which lasted from 1910 to 1944 was to Paul Bernard Seydel, a Belgian chemist/scientist[14] whom she met while studying at the Sorbonne.

[19] Seydell became intertwined with the National Woman's Party and the struggle for equal rights following the passage of the 19th Amendment.

As Seydell wrote in the Atlanta Georgian, "The school is called the 'Light in the Mountains' because ignorance is darkness and knowledge is light.

[5] In 1973, she was honored with the Order of Leopold by the Belgian government for her cultural exchange contributions between Belgium and the United States.

[11] Her considerable papers and memorabilia (67.5 feet (20.6 m) linear) at Emory University are collected.

[11] A collection of early and rare Belgian poetry and masterpiece books was created by her at the Emory University Library in 1971 in honor of her late husband Paul.