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  • Sitting Room
  • Sitting Room into Bath
  • Sitting Room looking into Bedrooms
  • East Bedroom
  • West Bedroom
  • West View to Campus
  • East View down 2nd Street

Elisabeth

Elisabeth is a suite that can sleep up to six guests between the pull out couch in the sitting room and two private bedrooms. The sitting room is full of historic molding details with hardwood flooring, and extra-tall mullioned windows that offer views of campus and the house’s historic neighbors. Relax in the sitting area formed by a comfortable sleeper sofa and occasional chairs, or use the writing desk to catch up on work or correspondence.

The private en suite bathroom is accessed from the sitting room, and the mini-refrigerator plus generous closet space. The east bedroom offers a full size bed, floors carpeted for comfort, and a roomy closet. The west bedroom features a lovely leaded glass window over the queen size bed, and is also carpeted.

Amenities

  • En suite bath with shower
  • Hair dryer and bath products
  • Refrigerator
  • 1 queen and 1 full size pillow top beds
  • 1 queen size sleeper sofa
  • Separate sitting area
  • Room level control of heating and cooling
  • Free WiFi
  • (No TV or phone)

Elisabeth Smith Ford’s story

After Clara Brackett died in 1927, the house passed to her daughter, Elisabeth Smith Ford, Class of 1915. Ford attended graduate school at Columbia University after Cornell and worked a short time for the Cedar Rapids Gazette. She met and married fellow journalist Andrew Ford. He was night editor of the New York Sun and she worked as a reporter for the New York Evening Telegram. She began her career at the paper writing a school column, and later covered the crime beat. She abhorred subways and walked to many of her assignments against the advice of colleagues who warned her of the dangers unaccompanied women faced walking in the city. During her time in New York, she published two novels based on her childhood in Mount Vernon, "No Hour of History" (1940) and "Amy Ferraby's Daughter" (1944).

Since she was living in New York, Ford offered the home to one of her grade school teachers, Clara Blinks, as a permanent home. Ford died in 1944 at age 51. Her will stipulated that Blinks could live in the home as long as she lived, with the deed to the home passing to Cornell on Blinks' death, which occurred in 1952.