NORTH BRUNSWICK – Members of the Zeta Phi Beta sorority commemorated the life of one of three civilian female pilots to join the Tuskegee Airmen.
The young women dedicated a special granite plaque in honor of Dr. Deborah Cannon Partridge Wolfe at Elmwood Cemetery in North Brunswick on July 7. Wolfe had served as the 14th international president from 1953-65, the longest tenure of any Zeta Phi Beta president, according to information provided by the cemetery association.
Anjanette Highsmith, the state director of the sorority, opened the program with welcoming remarks. Janelle Williams, president of Omega Mu Zeta, read Wolfe’s biography and Donna Anderson read the poem “House by the Side of the Road” by Sam Walter Foss, according to the statement.
Wolfe was a graduate of New Jersey State Teachers College. She received a masters of arts and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. She also studied at Vassar College, completed a post-doctoral education at the University of Pennsylvania, Union Theological Seminary and Jewish Theological Seminary of America. She was awarded 26 honorary doctorates, Williams said in the statement.
Wolfe was a professor of education at Queens College and was head of the Department of Education at Tuskegee Institute. She took a three-year leave of absence from Queens College to become education chief of the Committee on Education and Labor. She was an adviser to presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson, she continued.
