Actress Portrays Iconic Sarasota Women At Community Events

SARASOTA, FL — Retired theater actress, producer and educator Kathryn Chesley found a creative way to reinvent her career and connect with the community: portraying important women from Sarasota history and sharing their stories at events.

“When I retired, I didn’t want to do the same thing all over,” she told Patch. “Theater people are storytellers and this is storytelling.”

She became fascinated with the Sarasota-areas rich history when she joined the Historical Society of Sarasota County board. This was when she got to know important figures in the region’s history, including many women who made a difference.

Chesley was first asked to portray Mable Ringling, the wife of John Ringling, and a well-known figure in the area at an event for The Ringling museum.

When Sarasota County celebrated its centennial in 2021, the historical society asked her to take on Bertha Honore Palmer, a wealthy woman who invested in the Sarasota area’s growth and pushed for the formation of Sarasota County. So, she created a presentation about Palmer, basing the performance on a 2010 play she wrote about the influential figure.

Other women she brings to life for audiences include Martha Hartman, Mary Jane Wyatt Whitaker, Pearl Whitfield and Rose Wilson.

In fact, Chesley will perform as Wilson Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., at Rosemary & Thyme restaurant for the Media Roundtable, LLC’s 75th anniversary. While this event is sold out, each monthly luncheon is generally open to both members and nonmembers.

Wilson, who ran the first and only newspaper in Sarasota in the early 1900s, is an appropriate figure for this event.

Hailing from Canada, in 1899 she moved to Sarasota, where she met and married Cornelius Van Santvoord Wilson, who operated a newspaper in what was then called Braden Town, Chesley said. She was 22 years old and he was 61 at the time they wed.

“He was a widower with five kids and four of the five step children were older than she was,” Chesley said.

The couple moved to Sarasota, where her new husband launched the Sarasota Times, a four-page weekly newspaper. Wilson worked alongside him and got to know the newspaper business well.

When he fell ill and realized death was imminent, he gave the newspaper to Wilson, as when he died, his oldest son would inherit his wealth and she would receive nothing.

After he died in 1910, Wilson took over the Sarasota Times, Chesley said. “For a woman who couldn’t even vote, she now owned and ran the only newspaper in town at a time when Sarasota was booming.”

Around that time, Palmer moved to the area and built her business, and others important to the efforts to formalize Sarasota County also relocated to the area.

“She covered all the important items of the day,” Chesley said. “The real estate boom that was happening; the need for railroads, because people needed a way to get there; the need for roads, because there weren’t any; and she covered the need for women to get the right to vote. Her editorials were instrumental in the separation of Sarasota County from Manatee (County.)”

She encouraged readers to vote for that separation, which passed in 1921. When it went into effect, she changed the newspaper’s name to the Sarasota County Times.

Two years later, she sold the newspaper and retired.

“It’s nice to be able to tell the story of somebody who had a great deal of influence in the community and we don’t even know her name,” Chesley said.

She frequently performs and presents at members-only events for local organizations and groups — from church meetups to book clubs — and is available for bookings.