Frances Gertrude Kumm
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Frances Gertrude Kumm (April 8, 1886 - June 4, 1966) was an Australian women's activist and philanthropist.
Frances was born in Collingwood, she was the eldest child of Frederick John Cato a successful merchant. The family was deeply Methodist and at the age of 14 Frances was enrolled at the Methodist Ladies' College. She met her husband Dr Hermann Karl William Kumm, a Prussian explorer and missionary through her fathers involvement in the church. They married in 1912 and she went with him to work at the Sudan United Mission; they moved to the United States when World War I started.
Hermann died in 1930, so Frances and her two children returned to Australia. She was very active in the community, serving in the YWCA, the Red Cross, the National Council of Women and agencies of the Methodist Church amongst others. She was noted for her contributions to the Commonwealth Immigration Advisory Council, her role in the organisation was the assist post-war refugees settle in Australia. For this she was appointed OBE in 1948.
A street in the Canberra suburb Cook is named in her honour.
[edit] Reference
- McCalman, J. Kumm, Frances Gertrude (1886 - 1966), Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 15, Melbourne University Press, 2000, p. 44.
