Two women

From time to time I check “Dead or Alive,” which lists on its home page notables who have died in the past six months. (There is also a search engine to check on notables.)

Quite a few with celebrity status have died in the last few months, but there are two women, who, while their names might not at first be recognizable, deserve mention.

I recognized the names “Miep” (rhymes with “peep”) and "Mankiller" right away.

For 25 months during WWII, Miep Gies and her husband Jan Gies protected and fed Anne Frank and seven other Jews as they hid in a secret annex above Otto Frank’s business in Amsterdam. It was Miep who saved for posterity the handwritten pages which would become “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl.” Miep died on Jan. 11 at age 100 from “a fall.” Of all involved, she was the last survivor, but the diary lives on. (Read the New York Times obit.)

On April 6, Wilma Mankiller died from cancer at age 64. Mankiller, in 1985, became the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation. She left office in 1995 because of health reason, but continued as a revered tribal adviser. During her 10-year tenure, the Cherokee Nation grew and prospered. (Read the New York Times obit.)

I will leave it to you, dear reader, to ponder what these two women had in common.

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