Born July 16, 1858
Birthplace County Line (Orleans County), NY
Died November 1945
Grave Site Honeoye Falls Cemetery, Honeoye Falls, NY
Contribution Businesswoman, suffragist and clubwoman
Delia Kenyon was born in County Line (near Lyndonville in Orleans County), New York, on July 16, 1858.
Kenyon graduated from Rochester Business School and afterwards she moved to Honeoye Falls, New York, a village in the town of Mendon. Honeoye Falls is about fifteen miles southeast of Rochester. French’s Gazetteer for Monroe County described Honeoye Falls in 1860 as containing “4 churches 3 flouring mills, 1 gristmill, a sawmill, 2 woolen factories, a plaster mill, a manufactory of agricultural implements, and a stone quarry.” It was “a station on the Canandaigua & Niagara Falls Branch of the N.Y.C.R.R.” (New York Central Railroad) with a population of “about 1,100.”
Kenyon initially took a job as a secretary and bookkeeper at a mill owned by H.E. Boardman on North Main Street. She remained in the milling business and ultimately advanced to form a partnership with Roscoe and Samuel Tomkinson. The firm of Tomkinson, Kenyon and Tomkinson (TK&T) leased a mill on North Main Street. Although the mill had its difficulties (it burned down in 1901 and the inside had to be rebuilt), by the First World War, TK&T was exporting flour to France.
In addition to her flourishing business, Kenyon was involved in a variety of community activities. She was a long-term member of the Honeoye Falls School Board. She helped to establish the Mendon Public Library and served as the president of its governing board. A member of the Methodist Church, she taught what was called the “Kenyon Class” for over twenty-five years. During World War II, she vowed to knit one hundred sweaters that would be distributed by the Red Cross and given to servicemen.
Kenyon’s commitment to women’s rights is evidenced in the role she played in Image of booklet from the Fortnightly Club, dated Feb. 19, 1913 the Fortnightly Club. The club, a women’s group established with the purpose of the advancement of women in Honeoye Falls, was formed over one hundred years ago and remains in existence. Kenyon was instrumental in organizing the Club, and acted as its President. A glance at the program for March 31, 1915, a year in which she served as President, shows the club’s concern for women’s issues. “The Benefits of Equal 
Suffrage” was discussed, and women also Photograph of suffrage parade, ca. 1918 – 1919 spoke and heard about “Clara Barton and the Red Cross,” the “Growth of Temperance,” and “The Grange.” Clara Barton was herself a suffragist, and by 1914 both the New York State Grange and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union had endorsed the cause of women’s suffrage. The program concluded with a “Roll Call of Women Reformers.”
Delia Kenyon died in November, 1945. She was eighty-seven years old. She was buried in the Honeoye Falls Cemetery on North Main Street.
[For the bulk of the biographical material in this essay, we are indebted to Anne Bullock, historian of Honeoye Falls. (See Anne Bullock, “Delia Kenyon,” typed manuscript.) Bullock also provided a photocopy of a program of the “Fortnightly Club, 1914-1915” for March 31st.]
Bibliography of Suggested Books & Articles
- Vacca, Carolyn, Monroe County Historian, No Ordinary Women: 29 Remarkable Women of Monroe County, Rochester NY: Office of the Monroe County Historian (Delia Kenyon is No. 26)
Bibliography of Suggested Web Sites