SO who here knows about Henrietta Smith Bowers Duterte? Well you’re about to all know so sit the heck down while I learn you a thing.
Henrietta Smith Bowers Duterte was a black woman who became the first ever woman undertaker.
She was born in Philadelphia in 1817. There’s not a whole ton known about her childhood/young adult life other than that she made clothing for the upper class people and lived in the “Seventh Ward” (aka the area where everyone was like ‘let’s shove all the black people here so we can act like we’re superior to he South without having to actually treat them like people’).
So now onto the beginning good stuff. In 1852 (age of 35) she marries Francis Duterte, a Haitian immigrant. Francis was a coffin maker and a pretty stand up guy. He was a member of the Moral Reform Retreat, a local organization that supported the end of slavery and equality for women. They attempted several times to have a child and none survived infancy which was probably hard enough but THEY KEPT ON TRUCKING AND BEING AWESOME.
Now is when Henrietta shows her true badassery. In 1858 Francis dies. And Henrietta is like wow o k well this business is staying mine and you can take your gender roles and shove them. So she takes over Francis’s business. Did she stop at just running the business? NOPE. She became an agent of the underground railroad. Shed help to hide escapees in coffins or even disguise them as a part of a funeral to help ensure them a safe passage. She also did a buttload of community service. She financially help the AME Church of St. Thomas and even raised funds to pay the pastor’s salary. She funded Stephen Smith’s Philadelphia Home for Aged and Infirm Colored Persons. AND she helped create the Freedman’s Aid Society which helped former slaves in Tennessee. By 1903 she was running the cities most successful black owned business, and raked in about $8,000 a year. She passed away at age 83, December 23, 1903. She worked practically until the day she died, and her last client was on December 21, 1903.
Her business was passed on and continued to flourish under the care of her nephew, who she had trained, until he passed in 1927.
She now resides in Eden Cemetery, the oldest black owned cemetery in Pennsylvania.
