Edith M. Lerrigo papers

Edith Mary Lerrigo (pronounced "Larry Go") was born September 20, 1910 in Lithia, Massachusetts to P.H.J. (Peter Hugh James) and Edith D. Lerrigo. At the time, her parents were on furlough from their work as medical missionaries in the Philippines. The family went back to the Philippines for three years, but the ill health of Edith's mother prompted a return to the U.S. Lerrigo's father went to work for the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, a job which required the family to move around quite a bit. Dissatisfied with the various public schools Edith attended, Lerrigo's parents sent her to Vermont Academy in Saxton's River, Vermont, 1924-28. It was there that she first joined the YWCA. She went on to Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, earning a B.A. in sociology and religion in 1932. Lerrigo was a member of the Bates YWCA during all four years there, serving as its Secretary, Vice President, and then President.

After college Lerrigo returned home to New Jersey and spent the following year studying religious education at Teachers College at Columbia University. She earned an M.A. in 1933. Later on, she pursued additional graduate study in Christian Ethics and religious education at Union Theological Seminary.

For the next several years she took charge of running the family home and worked part-time as Director of Young Peoples Activities in the family church, First Baptist Church in East Orange, New Jersey.

Lerrigo joined the national YWCA staff in 1937 in the department specializing in work with college students. There she coordinated work in the northeast region, particularly in New England colleges.

Lerrigo went to the University of California at Berkeley to study Chinese in 1942-43, then went to China under the auspices of the YWCA of the U.S.A.'s Foreign Division. As an advisory staff member to the YWCA of China, Lerrigo primarily worked with college students in Kunming, Chungking, Shanghai, Hangchow, and Nanking.

Upon returning to the U.S. in 1947, Lerrigo returned to the Student Division, this time coordinating work in the Pacific southwest. From there she became Executive in charge of the College and University Division (1954-59), then moved to become National Executive Director of the YWCA of the U.S.A.

Lerrigo's years (1959-74) at the helm were particularly challenging ones for the organization as it struggled with the social upheaval of the era, including strong pressures to merge with the YMCA, to downplay the Association's Christian purpose, and adoption of the "One Imperative" to eliminate racism. Lerrigo was unequivocal in her support of the YWCA's role as an important agent for social change. Tributes at her death describe her as "strong and insightful leader" with "a firm grasp of the problem at hand and [a] creative spirit in approaching it."

In addition to her work in the YWCA, Lerrigo served on the United Church of Christ's Council of Social Christian Action, the Committee to Study Ministry on the Campus of the Danforth Foundation, and on the Board and several committees of the National Council of Churches. She was Co-Chair of the Consultation on Ecumenical Policies and Practices for the Conference of World YMCA and YWCA in Switzerland in 1962, and active in the National Assembly of Voluntary Health and Social Welfare Organizations, the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia, and on the editorial board of the liberal Protestant Christian journal Christianity and Crisis .

She received honorary degrees from Bates College (1961) and Keuka College (1963).

A member of Riverside Church in New York City for more than 25 years, Lerrigo served on many of its committees and on the Board of Deacons, and played a leading role in the development of the Riverside Fund for Social Justice.

Edith Lerrigo retired to Pilgrim Place, a religious and cultural center for retired Christian workers in Claremont, California, in 1980. She died there on June 24, 1989.