Part of the American History & Genealogy Project

Mme. Slavko Grouitch

Mme. Grouitch, wife of the Servian Charge d'Affaires at the Court of St James, London, England, was formerly Miss Mabel Gordon Dunlop of West Virginia, whose father was a prominent railroad man of the early days in Virginia and later in Chicago, Illinois. Mme. Grouitch when quite a young girl became interested in the study of archaeology and ethnology, to which her father was greatly devoted. After studying at the Chicago University for several years, she went to Athens to revel in the ruins and collections of Greece. While a student in Athens she met her husband, a member of a distinguished family of Servia, who was at that time Attaché of the Servian Legation in Paris, where their marriage occurred. Since her marriage Mme. Grouitch has devote herself to the work of up-lifting the women of Servia. The University at Belgrade admits girls, but in Servia a girl may not go away from home or into the street unchaperoned, and it is for these girls and to teach the girls of the people scientific culture and domestic arts that Mme. Grouitch and certain noble women of Belgrade deter-mined to found a boarding school in the city of Belgrade.

The wives of the representatives of the Servian Government at the various courts of Europe are helping Mme. Grouitch to raise the money for this work. Mme. Grouitch's niece was educated in Belgrade and went from that University to England and took high rank in mathematics, met the senior wrangler at Oxford and vanquished him. Mme. Grouitch is particularly anxious to establish an agricultural course for girls in connection with the University of Belgrade, for the reason, as she says, often where a son cannot be spared to go and study agriculture, because the sons must enter the army, a daughter could be spared and then return to her home and teach the family what she had learned. Among the Servian peasants the women work with the men in the fields. Servian land has great possibilities. Tobacco, for instance, is so fine that Egypt takes Servia's entire output but the farming methods are very primitive. Another thing which these women plan to do is to 'reawaken interest in the national needle work. Everybody knows the wonderful embroidery for which Servian women have always been noted, but in the last thirty years Servia has been flooded with cheap things from other countries and art has declined. Mme. Grouitch says the Servians are the cleanest people she has ever known; nothing can be taught them as to housework and sanitation. Eighty girls from the provinces are now studying in Belgrade and boarding at this home established by Mme. Grouitch and her associates. The Servian Government has given the land for the school and the building is under construction. Mme. Grouitch has raised a large sum of money from her friends in this country. She is a gifted, cultured and charming woman, one in which America can feel a pride at having her represent her country in the various parts of Europe to which her husband's official positions may call him.

Women of America

Source: The Part Taken by Women in American History, By Mrs. John A. Logan, Published by The Perry-Nalle Publishing Company, Wilmington, Delaware, 1912.