Suzanne Silvercruys

[6][7] Her brother, Baron Robert Silvercruys [de], was a poet and professor of French and later the Belgian ambassador to Canada and then for many years to the United States.

[7] Silvercruys originally hoped for a career as a musician; she became interested in sculpture when she was ill with tuberculosis and a friend gave her some modeling clay; she sculpted her dog's head.

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.;[19][n 1] she left that position in 1952 to co-found the Constitution Party,[6] but soon in turn left the party, disenchanted with her treatment as a foreign-born Catholic and believing it harbored anti-Semites.

[20][21] 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,[22] and treasured a letter from Senator Joseph McCarthy, which was shown to hesitant Minute Women recruits.

[25][26] Silvercruys was married twice, to Henry W. Farnam, Jr., son of a Yale professor,[27][28][29] and to Edward Ford Stevenson,[2] who had filmed the Tehran and Yalta conferences during World War II[6] and was later a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve,[19] advertising executive, and producer; he died before her.