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Eva Ingersoll Wakefield
Eva Ingersoll Wakefield
Born	Eva Ingersoll Brown; 1892; Dobbs Ferry, New York, US
Died	1 April 1970; Fairfield, Connecticut, US
Occupation(s)	Writer, poet, activist, humanist
Organization(s)	Vivisection Investigation League, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, American Humanist Association
Relatives	Robert G. Ingersoll (grandfather); Eva Parker Ingersoll (grandmother); Maud Ingersoll Probasco (aunt)

Eva Ingersoll Brown Wakefield (1892 – 1 April 1970) was a writer,^[1] poet,^[2] freethinker, and an authority on the life of Robert G. Ingersoll, her grandfather.^[3]

Personal life

Eva Ingersoll Brown Wakefield was born in Dobbs Ferry, New York in 1892, the daughter of Walston H. and Eva Ingersoll Brown. Her mother, Eva Ingersoll Brown, was a suffragist and activist.^[5] She was tutored as a child, and later graduated from Columbia University.

In 1917, Brown married McNeal Swasey, but they later divorced.^[6] She married Sherman Day Wakefield, an author, editor, and bibliographer, in 1932.^[2]^[7]^[6] The wedding was performed by John Lovejoy Elliott of the New York Society for Ethical Culture, at the home of her aunt,^[8] Maud Ingersoll Probasco.^[6] Sherman Wakefield was on the editorial staff of The Humanist and also of Progressive World.^[7] Eva herself was a contributor to The Humanist, as well as writing poetry.^[2] One of her poems was included in an anthology compiled by Edwin Markham, with whom she studied.^[2]

A passionate defender of her grandfather's legacy,^[9] Eva Ingersoll Wakefield published The Life and Letters of Robert G. Ingersoll in 1951, and later donated a significant amount of 'Ingersolliana' to the Library of Congress, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, and other archives.^[10]^[11] As well as personal collections and copies of letters kept by her mother (Ingersoll's daughter) and aunt, Wakefield gathered correspondence from letters and journals, and from the collection of Harry Houdini.^[10]

Activism

Eva Ingersoll Brown Wakefield was one of the earliest members of the First Humanist Society of New York, founded in 1929,^[3]^[12] and later President of the New York Chapter of the American Humanist Association.^[2]

During the 1930s, Wakefield was active in the Manhattan Branch of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.^[2] She was also director of the Vivisection Investigation League^[2] and a member of the National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York.^[2]

In addition to editing The Life and Letters of Robert G. Ingersoll, Wakefield was secretary of the Robert G. Ingersoll Memorial Association.^[13]^[14] which maintained the Robert Ingersoll Birthplace in Dresden, N.Y., as a museum.^[2]

Death

She died on 1 April 1970 at the Carolton Hospital in Fairfield, Connecticut.^[2] At her memorial service, in lieu of flowers, contributions to the R.G. Ingersoll Memorial Association were requested.^[15] Sherman Day Wakefield died the following year.^[7]